Backgrounder: Russia’s war triggers fossil energy crisis for Germany, EU

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is visiting Canada this week while his country faces a level of energy supply risk that many Canadians would have trouble imagining.

For years, Germany allowed itself to become heavily dependent on oil and gas imported from Russia, a mistake that has left the European Union’s biggest economy deeply vulnerable after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

...Europe has also been hearing pushback on its scramble to line up LNG supplies from Africa, with Mohamed Adow, director of Nairobi-based Power Shift Africa, scorching Germany and Italy for trying to “saddle” the continent’s developing countries with new fossil fuel infrastructure that will drag down their economies.

“We must respond with a firm no, and instead demand that European countries support us in the development of renewable energy systems,” he declared last month.