By David Callaway, Callaway Climate Insights
(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc.)
SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — One of the more bizarre aspects of the tragic Russian invasion of Ukraine is that Western nations have funded it in part by their purchases of Russian oil and gas.
The European Union estimates that the West — mostly Europe — funnels more than $1 billion a day to Russia for its fossil fuels. In total, it’s paid Russia more than $47 billion since it invaded in late February.
This week, the bloc is set to pass an unprecedented embargo of Russian oil, which will be phased in over the next six months. An agreement Wednesday also would prohibit use of European ships — mostly Greek — to transport Russian oil, as well as add Russia’s main oil bank, Sberbank, to the list of banks cut off from the SWIFT trading system. . . .
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