Manipulated energy crisis grips the world: Lebanon runs out of power, India warns its coal-fired plants could go dark in just three days, blackouts hit China and gas prices soar in Europe
Countries around the world are feeling the brunt of the global energy crisis.
Some Chinese provinces are rationing electricity, Europeans are paying exorbitant prices for liquefied gas and Lebanon has run out of centrally-generate electricity.
Furthermore, India is close to running out of coal and in the United States, the price of a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.25 on Friday, up from April’s $1.27.
As the global economy works to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, the sudden energy crisis is putting a strain on supply chains and stirring geopolitical tensions.
What’s more, as global leaders are preparing to meet for the landmark Cop26 in the hope of taking steps towards easing climate change, questions are now being raised about the plausibility of a global green energy revolution.
The crisis has been blamed on a perfect storm of factors, primarily the economic recovery from the pandemic coming after countries spent less on the extraction of fossil fuels over the last 18 months.
An unusually cold winter in Europe that drained the continent’s energy reserves, a series of hurricanes that shutdown Gulf oil refineries, worsening relations between China and Australia and less wind over the North Sea have also contributed.
‘It radiates from one energy market to another,’ Daniel Yergin, author of The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations, told the
Washington Post.
‘Governments are scrambling to get subsidies in place to avoid a tremendous political backlash,’ he said.
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Manipulated energy crisis grips the world: Lebanon runs out of power, India warns its coal-fired plants could go dark in just three days, blackouts hit China and gas prices soar in Europe