With war raging in Ukraine, EU countries continue to send an estimated €1bn every day to Russia in payment for oil and gas imports. This money is funding Vladimir Putin’s war machine but so far the EU has failed to impose a total energy embargo.
According to a recent Goldman Sachs study, a complete ban on Russian gas imports to the European Union for the rest of 2022 would result in a 2.2 per cent slowdown in economic growth across the Eurozone and a 3.4 per cent drop in Germany.
Europe faces a choice: continue to pay Russia for energy which funds Putin’s brutal war and threatens EU security, or find alternative ways to keep energy supplies flowing without impacting their economies.
We will discuss possible solutions and ask what the impact will be on the fight against climate change.
Speakers include:
Vicky Pryce is a board member of the Centre for Economics and Business Research and a former Joint Head of the UK Government Economic Service. Her previous posts have included: Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Director General for Economics at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. She has held senior economic positions in banking and the oil sector.
Andrew Simms is an author, political economist and activist, is co-ordinator of the Rapid Transition Alliance. He is a research associate at the Centre for Global Political Economy, University of Sussex, and was Policy Director of NEF (the New Economics Foundation) for many years, where he co-authored and published the original Green New Deal.
Myles Allen is Professor of Geosystem Science in the School of Geography and the Environment and the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford, and he is Director of the Oxford Net Zero initiative. He is credited by the BBC with first demonstrating, 15 years ago, the need for "Net Zero" carbon dioxide emissions to stop global warming.
The event will be chaired by Alan Rusbridger, Editor, Prospect Magazine.
