The actions are “designed to help Ukraine by cutting the EU’s reliance on Russian fuel, and also to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” the bodies said in a statement.
“Faced with the horrendous scenes of human suffering that we’ve seen following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, people in Europe want to take action,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said. “Using less energy is a concrete way to help the Ukrainian people — and to help ourselves.”
As the Ukraine war nears the two-month mark, Birol said the actions of European citizens could “reduce the flow of money to Russia’s military and help put us on a path to a cleaner and more sustainable planet.”
Most European households are facing higher bills amid an energy crisis exacerbated by the war, the statement said. It suggested that using less energy could support Ukraine and cut crucial revenue streams aiding Russia’s invasion.
It asks consumers to take steps such as turning down heating, using less air conditioning, working from home when possible to avoid commuting, and carpooling or traveling by public transportation. It also urges employers to encourage remote work and governments to provide financial incentives such as reducing train fares and supporting home insulation initiatives. Working from home became a familiar habit across Europe and much of the world during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic.
The climate-friendly plan marks the latest attempt by Western leaders to thwart Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
Maria Pastukhova, a Berlin-based senior policy adviser at the independent climate change think tank E3G, said the set of recommendations have potential in the short term.
“If all [E.U.] citizens were to follow their recommendations, then it would save 220 million barrels of oil a year, which is quite a lot,” she said. “It’s enough to cover over three months of Russian crude exports to the E.U., and around 17 billion cubic meters of gas, which is over 10 percent of Russia’s annual gas exports to Europe. So the volumes, theoretically, are quite high.”
Pastukhova also highlighted its value as a public information campaign, as measures in that direction will be needed to curb energy consumption and transition to cleaner energy. But while the campaign could have the potential to have a significant impact in the immediate term, she doesn’t think it would be as effective as a long-term policy.
“This calls for voluntary behavior change. That might really work now because citizens across Europe are appalled [over] what’s happening in Ukraine and want to do something, but this is a crisis situation,” she said. Even if people were to follow these recommendations, they “wouldn’t hold for long without clear policies, and are not sustainable.”
In addition to imposing economic sanctions, European leaders are increasingly promoting energy efficiency to counteract oil-rich Russia. Italy, which is highly dependent on Russian gas, said Wednesday that it will impose temperature limits for air conditioning and heating in public buildings.
In March, President Biden announced a ban on all imports of oil and natural gas from Russia. Britain also said it would phase out all Russian oil products by the end of the year. However, E.U. officials unveiled a separate plan to cut Russian gas imports by approximately two-thirds this year.
The E.U. has long been heavily dependent on Russian energy. It planned to quit — eventually — as part of a broader shift away from fossil fuels, but the invasion changed that timeline, with the 27-member bloc pledging to halt Russian fuel by 2027. About 40 percent of E.U. gas comes from Russia, as well as more than a quarter of its oil.
Last month, the United States and the European Commission announced a joint task force to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian fossil fuels. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also called on nations to stop buying Russian oil, lambasting them for “earning their money in other people’s blood.” However, the E.U. still sends $450 million a day to Russia for oil and $400 million per day for natural gas, the Associated Press reported, citing calculations by analysts at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels that showed how hard it is to kick the fossil fuel dependence.
