There is a political difficulty when it comes to real action on global warming: many people moan about high energy prices even as they know that weaning society off fossil fuels might mean higher energy prices, at least in the short term.
For politicians, that presents a difficulty.
In country after country, the spike in gas and oil prices caused by the war in Ukraine is putting pressure on governments to do something to keep energy bills down.
There is political pressure to help households but also political pressure to do more to head off global warming.
It is clear from the current UN climate summit, COP27, that this dilemma is being addressed - or at least talked about. Russia exports about five million barrels of crude oil a day and about three millions barrels of refined oil products. These account for 40 per cent of its total export revenues. Russia, and Mr Putin, need that money.
If the outside world wants to inflict pain on Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine, it needs to cut its imports of gas and oil from Russia. And if people need persuading to use less carbon fuel, increasing its price is a better means of persuasion than all the hot air of slogans. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is seen as another reason to try to accelerate the shift towards non-fossil fuels.
Except, it's not quite that simple.
Some countries import a large proportion of their oil from Russia. Lithuania and Finland, for example, both import at least 80 per cent of their total oil imports from the pariah country. Those countries can't just stop the imports without severe disruption to their economies.
But a faster move towards "energy security", means a faster move away from the reliance on a few countries which supply the rest with oil and gas, particularly as these supplier countries often have abhorrent human rights records. Russia and Saudi Arabia spring to mind.
Our prime minister has decided not to go the conference in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and there has been little political backlash. We wonder if there should have been.
It is easy to dismiss these international conferences as no more than talkfests. The rhetoric gets tougher and tougher: "We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator," UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the current summit.
But scepticism is misplaced. The danger of global warming has not gone away.
As the American space agency NASA puts it: "We already see effects scientists predicted, such as the loss of sea ice, melting glaciers and ice sheets, sea level rise, and more intense heat waves." Higher energy bills are painful for people and companies, but they do send a signal. If the war in Ukraine and higher gas and oil prices pushes us towards non-carbon alternatives, it will be a silver lining to a very dark cloud.
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