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Germany: Quitting Russian Oil by Late Summer Is ‘Realistic’

German Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck speaks during a news conference on measures to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and Germany's dependance on Russian energy imports, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany April 27, 2022. (Reuters)
German Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck speaks during a news conference on measures to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and Germany's dependance on Russian energy imports, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany April 27, 2022. (Reuters)
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Germany: Quitting Russian Oil by Late Summer Is ‘Realistic’

German Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck speaks during a news conference on measures to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and Germany's dependance on Russian energy imports, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany April 27, 2022. (Reuters)
German Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck speaks during a news conference on measures to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions and Germany's dependance on Russian energy imports, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, in Berlin, Germany April 27, 2022. (Reuters)

Germany says it’s making progress on weaning itself off Russian fossil fuels and expects to be fully independent of Russian crude oil imports by late summer.

Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck said Sunday that Europe’s largest economy has reduced the share of Russian energy imports to 12% for oil, 8% for coal and 35% for natural gas. Germany has been under strong pressure from Ukraine and other nations in Europe to cut energy imports from Russia that are worth billions of euros, which help fill Russian President Vladimir Putin's war chest.

"All these steps that we are taking require an enormous joint effort from all actors and they also mean costs that are felt by both the economy and consumers," Habeck said in a statement. "But they are necessary if we no longer want to be blackmailed by Russia."

The announcement comes as the whole European Union considers an embargo on Russian oil following a decision to ban Russian coal imports starting in August.

Germany has managed to shift to oil and coal imports from other countries in a relatively short time, meaning that "the end of dependence on Russian crude oil imports by late summer is realistic," Habeck's ministry said.

Weaning German off Russian natural gas is a far bigger challenge.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, Germany got more than half of its natural gas imports from Russia. That share is now down to 35%, partly due to increased procurement from Norway and the Netherlands, the ministry said.

To further reduce Russian imports, Germany plans to speed up the construction of terminals for liquefied natural gas, or LNG. The Energy and Climate Ministry said Germany aims to put several floating LNG terminals into operation as early as this year or next. That's an ambitious timeline that the ministry acknowledged "requires an enormous commitment from everyone involved."

Germany has resisted calls for an EU boycott on Russian natural gas. It also watched with worry last week as Moscow immediately halted gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria after they rejected Russian demands to pay for gas in rubles. European officials called those moves by Russia "energy blackmail."

Germany's central bank has said a total cutoff of Russian gas could mean 5 percentage points of lost economic output and higher inflation.

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Mayotte Faces Environment, Biodiversity Crisis after Cyclone

This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Mayotte Faces Environment, Biodiversity Crisis after Cyclone

This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)
This photograph shows a truck unloading a garbage in a waste disposal site in the city of Tsountsou, on the French Indian Ocean territory of Mayotte on December 26, 2024. (AFP)

Mayotte has changed beyond recognition since a cyclone devastated the Indian Ocean territory, sparking an environment and biodiversity crisis that could last for a decade or more, scientists say.

After barreling into the archipelago at 200 kilometers per hour (125 mph), Cyclone Chido left behind scenes of desolation: Trees mowed down as far as the eye can see, sturdy tree trunks blown apart as if struck by mortars, the previous green of the foliage replaced by a sad brown.

"It's an environmental disaster," said Raima Fadul, a biologist. "There are no more trees. Those still standing have lost their tops... The cyclone flattened the vegetation."

A gigantic baobab over 300 years old collapsed onto a restaurant. Part of the mangrove is now completely bare and black. A three-meter (10-feet) earth mound looms where an acacia tree, half a century old, was uprooted by the violent storm.

One effect of the vegetation's sudden disappearance is that Mayotte's slums, formerly hidden by lush greenery, are now starkly apparent, making visible their number, and their sprawl.

- 'We never realized' -

"All we saw before were mango trees, coconut trees and a forest," said Rouchdat Mourchidi, an education counselor checking on what remains of a family plot on the island's heights. "We never realized there were metal shacks there because they were hidden in vegetation."

Trees have always played the crucial role of channeling rain and slowing down potential floods. Now that they are gone, any torrential downpour will wash soil into the lagoon below, covering the seabed in mud.

As a result, part of the lagoon's coral reef will be killed off, said Fadul, leading to the loss of some of the 300 species of fish, corals, vertebrates and mollusks present in the reef's ecosystem.

On land, wildlife is already suffering from the loss of forest cover. Small dark lemurs called makis are now being spotted increasingly in urban areas where they come in search of food, and where they will probably die.

Bats, pollinators with an important role to play in future reforestation, are also becoming rarer after losing their nesting spots in trees.

There are also grave concerns for lizards, insects and flowering plants that used to proliferate on Mayotte.

- 'In 10 years' time' -

One ray of hope is that Mayotte's tropical climate will help accelerate future tree growth, said Benoit Loussier, regional director of the National Forestry Office.

"In 10 years' time, plantations may have restored a forest cover" of eight meters (26 feet) high, he said.

But this can happen only if the population resists the obvious temptation to convert destroyed forest zones into farmland.

This illegal activity was already in evidence before the cyclone, notably due to desperately poor illegal immigrants practicing subsistence farming.

In 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature estimated that 6.7 percent of Mayotte's woodland had been cleared between 2011 and 2016, a deforestation proportion comparable to that seen in Argentina or Indonesia.

The risk of illicit replanting is all the more acute as crops were also destroyed by Cyclone Chido.

Another looming risk is "subsistence poaching" of turtles, warned Lamya Essemlali at Sea Shepherd, a wildlife preservation NGO, as Mayotte's poorest go hungry while food aid is still slow to arrive.

Officially Mayotte has 320,000 inhabitants -- with unregistered undocumented migrants probably adding another 100,000 -- packed into a territory of 374 square kilometers (144 square miles), resulting in a population density eight times that of mainland France.

The median income in Mayotte is 260 euros ($271) a month, according to the national statistics institute Insee, six times less than in mainland France.