What will the new world look like after the Russia-Ukraine conflict ends

We want and need energy security. We want and need environmental and climate security. We want and need food and water security. We want and need economic security. We also want and need human security. We want and need national and international security. But can we have all of these without trading off one for another?

The recent energy, food, and economic shocks rippling out from the Russian war in Ukraine have brought greater clarity to these trade-offs. After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, powerful sanctions landed on Russia, its companies, and its leaders. The EU, the International Energy Agency, the UK, and the US have decided to either ban imports of Russian oil and gas or phase them out. The IEA forecasts a large drop in the supply of oil to the EU beginning in April. This could cause a market vacuum for oil across the globe.

The invasion of Ukraine threatens important wheat, sunflower, and other crops produced and exported by Ukraine to various parts of the world, including the Middle East and North Africa. Egypt relies massively on wheat imported from Russia and Ukraine, for example.

The planting times for the next crop will start in April. Planting will be exceedingly difficult and dangerous, if not impossible, if the war continues. Sanctions and Russia’s reactions to those sanctions have constrained Russian food exports. However, let us not forget the original source of the problems was an invasion by Russia. About 15 percent of all calories in the international agricultural trade markets are from Russia and Ukraine.

The price of fertilizer was also rising before the war started but rocketed when the seriousness of the war and reactions to it became clearer. Increased fertilizer prices affect food production costs and the amount of food produced globally. Fertilizer shortages could get increasingly worse.

Fossil fuels go into making commercial fertilizers. Those fossil fuel prices, especially natural gas, have gone to levels rarely seen in the EU and other parts of the world. Russia produces about 13 percent of the world’s commercial fertilizers. Sanctions will constrain the export of these fertilizers. Fertilizer prices could get increasingly worse.

Furthermore, when energy prices go up the costs for making, processing, transporting, packaging, and selling food goes up. Farm machinery needs petrol. Barns and storage areas need electricity. Food processing plants need energy to run.

The costs of transporting food go up as energy prices go up. And these are but just a few of the things that need energy in agriculture.

Other shocks are coming out of this war and reactions to it but let us focus on the energy and food shocks and what they might do to push energy and agricultural transitions forward or back.

This is a moment when we need to strategize for the future properly.

Dr. Paul Sullivan

The threats to the stability of oil and gas markets will tend to push forward energy transitions. Relying too much on oil and gas from aggressive countries and leaders will push forward the energy transitions because consuming governments and people will be wary of what they see as energy extortion. Russia comes to mind.

Calls for more oil and gas for the short to medium run may slow down energy transitions. The efforts by the IEA, the EU, the US, and others in response to this crisis to cut back on oil and gas use, or use them more efficiently, will push energy transitions forward.

The world does not use over 60 percent of its otherwise usable energy. There is considerable room for efficiency improvements. Greater efficiency drives are a big part of these new plans to cut back on oil and gas. These will drive energy transitions forward. The effects of energy price and supply shocks to vulnerable nations and communities will drive energy transitions forward. Energy price riots may wake up some governments.

The increased prices for certain metals and minerals will slow energy transitions. China’s control of important minerals and metals may slow energy transitions. Russia is also a source of metals and minerals needed for energy transitions. And that could be problematic. A solution to this is to figure out alternatives that will push transitions forward.

The Russian dominance of uranium enrichment, and they control 50 percent of it, could slow down the movement to greater use of nuclear power. The recent Russian attacks on nuclear power plants in Ukraine brought a new sense of risk to nuclear power. That could give investors and governments reason to pause.

The fertilizer and other food shocks might just finally wake up the world to the extreme risks we face by continuing with the unsustainable agricultural systems that we use. There could be a greater emphasis on regenerative farming, no-till farming, and much less use of chemical and fossil-fuel-based fertilizers. We are ruining our arable lands. We are heavily reliant for our survival on chemical fertilizers. This needs to change.

Greenhouse gas emissions are growing and should be a source of increasing worry to our leaders. But those same leaders need to ensure that their people have enough energy to grow their economies to provide jobs and other reasons.

So, what is the better choice — more energy security in the shorter run or more environmental security in the long run? Can we focus again on producing more oil and gas for the meanwhile and focus on the climate and environment later?

A substantial number of countries’ national security and overall international security are under threat, not only by the short-term economic and other effects of the war, but also by the longer-term effects of climate change, extreme weather, and the health, economic, and other effects from those changes. Declining yields of crops that do not use chemical fertilizers is another sign of trouble to come.

Our leaders need to navigate this challenging terrain between energy security, economic security, environmental security, national security, and international security. And they need to remember this terrain may have things that trip up such as weaker food, water, and materials security.

Recent events have pushed parts of the world to think more about alternative ways of doing things. This is a moment when we need to strategize for the future properly. This is a moment when we need to consider alternative paths. One of the lessons coming from these shocks is that we cannot continue as we were.

That world is over.

• Dr. Paul Sullivan is a senior research associate at KFCRIS and non-resident fellow, Global Energy Center, Atlantic Council.