News

Putin Will Weaponize Climate. Don’t Listen to Him.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
March 31, 2022
RealClear World

… In a March 21 videoconference, U.N. Secretary-General António Gutteres lamented the environmental consequences of sanctioning Russian natural gas. “As major economies pursue an ‘all-of-the-above’ strategy to replace Russian fossil fuels,” he said, “short-term measures might create long-term fossil fuel dependence…. This is madness”….

This is not the first time climate concerns have played to Putin’s advantage. In 2021, Russian climate envoy (and noted human rights abuser) Ruslan Edelgeriyev invoked global warming as a reason to lift sanctions on state-owned energy companies, which Putin falsely claims are working on “green energy products”….

[I]n the coming weeks and months, we should expect Putin to begin making similar arguments. He will rely on the climate obsession of U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry to create cracks in what has so far been the free world’s united opposition to Putin…. We cannot fall for it.

First, it is important to remember that … [i]f we lift sanctions on Russian energy, our dollars will fund Putin’s campaign of evil. That’s a moral compromise we simply cannot make.

Second, addressing climate change is no excuse for running headlong into economic dependence on hostile regimes….

Finally, it’s simply untrue that boycotting Russian energy will necessarily intensify climate change. Russian companies emit 30 percent more methane per unit of production than American companies…. [R]eplacing Russian natural gas with American natural gas would actually be better for the climate…. 

Financing Putin’s war crimes, and those of other authoritarians, is no solution to climate change. The best thing we can do for the climate right now is also the best thing we can do to advance America’s geopolitical interests: lift constraints on domestic oil and natural gas, and bring energy production back home.

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