Mr. Putin’s week started out bad when he left the G20 summit in a huff after Western leaders “ganged up on him” and turned worse after Germany announced they will not be making their 2020 co2 emissions target.
It’s been a tough week for the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. First the Putin regime was singled out at the G20 summit in Sydney Australia. Yes, Mr. Putin felt so ganged up on he left the summit early. Some lefty pundits have suggested that the G20 summit was about Climate Change and not about geo-politics, but it didn’t stop leaders from around the world including Australian PM Tony Abbott, threatening to “shirt front” Mr Putin – a form of physical confrontation. Stephen Harper, the Canadian Prime Minister, told Mr Putin: “I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I’ll only have one thing to say to you – get out of the Ukraine. And David Cameron told Mr Putin that he is at a “crossroads” and could face further sanctions after the pair held “robust” discussions on Ukraine.
All this must have come as some-what of a shock to Mr. Putin after he was expected to take part in a series of climate change discussions – a topic and cause he’s actually very supportive of. Expensive and unnecessary climate change/ renewable energy policy, means the European energy market stays under the proverbial thumb of Russia’s state-owned gas company, Gazprom.
Instead, Mr. Putin found himself in a slew of intense conversations, he accused the West of “switching off their brains by imposing sanctions that could backfire.” Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, although less aggressive with Putin than Cameron, Abbot and Harper held her ground with the Russian leader in a meeting that lasted until 2am.
Perhaps Merkel’s unusual tough stance with Mr. Putin had to do with the fact Germany is now repealing its non-binding promise to reduce Co2 emissions by 2020. The Vice-Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel said “it’s clear that the CO2 target for 2020 is no longer viable” and that Germany would not be able to exit for coal power overnight.
This is not great news for Putin, Germany’s gas imports from Russia have increased since their green revolution. This will inevitability mean less of a hold on Germany and Europe from a geo-political and resource based stand-point.
However, there are two winners from Putin’s bad week – Ukrainians and Germans. Ukrainians got a much needed boost of support from the West defending their sovereignty and Germans, although still the highest paying consumer energy prices in Europe, hopefully they can see their Government taking steps to reduce the cost by turning away from high-cost green energy and towards effective, low-cost, fossil fuels.
