One out of every four barrels of crude oil bought by the European Union was regularly provided by Russia at the time of its illegitimate invasion of Ukraine. These imports made a substantial financial contribution to Putin’s armed campaign against Ukraine. The European Commission has agreed to a block on imports before the end of the year and a prohibition on EU ships transporting Russian oil in order to stop this funding source. A embargo on Russian oil imports has also been announced by the UK, and it will be completely implemented by the end of the year.
Two-thirds of the EU’s oil use is driven by transportation. The EU and its member states should take advantage of this as an opportunity to completely wean transportation off its reliance on fossil fuels in order to prevent the EU from simply shifting its oil purchases from one authoritative regime to another, which will have no positive impact on the EU’s energy security. Not only will this increase the EU’s energy security. Importantly, it will also move EU transportation onto a more environmentally friendly course, allowing the EU to achieve its climate targets.
This essay evaluates the ways and degrees to which the EU may lower oil demand through immediate, long-term, and intermediate-term actions. We quantify and expand on the important transportation suggestions made in the EU’s REpowerEU strategy, the new EU plan to increase Europe’s energy independence, which was released in May.
We find that oil consumption may be lowered by 38.8 Mtoe using a number of short-term actions that are realistic and simple to put into place this year, such as terminating gasoline duty cuts, installing aerodynamic equipment on trucks, limiting business travel, and lowering automobile use. This decrease is equal to the imports of Russia into the EU. By taking immediate, medium-term, and long-term action to lessen transportation’s structural reliance on oil, demand will drop by 111.5 Mtoe by 2030. By 2030, the initiatives collectively can reduce the EU’s oil consumption by 34%.
Download the paper .
Published initially on Transport andamp; Environment .
Related Article: Europe Could Reduce 35% Of Its Transportation Oil Demand With No More Russian Oil
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