EUROPE UNDER PRESSURE
Since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, the EU has spent more than 38 billion euros ($41.2 billion) on Russian fossil fuel imports.
The EU's 27 countries have agreed to ban Russian coal imports from August, as part of sweeping sanctions also targeting Russian banks and business tycoons.
Countries including Italy and Germany have said they can wean themselves off Russian gas within a few years, and some European companies are already shunning Russian oil voluntarily to avoid reputational damage or possible legal troubles.
But the EU states are split over whether to impose an immediate and full embargo on Russian fuels, which Germany and Hungary say would hammer their economies. The EU gets 40% of its gas from Russia.
The European Commission is assessing the costs of replacing Russian oil with imports from elsewhere, in an effort to persuade reluctant EU nations to accept an embargo, an EU source told Reuters this week.
Warsaw-based climate activist Dominika Lasota, 20, said youth movement Fridays for Future would be changing its approach by holding smaller actions targeting specific governments opposed to fossil fuel sanctions, rather than organising the massive street protests that drew hundreds of thousands in past years and helped draw international attention to climate change.
The group wants to highlight the role that fossil fuels are playing in funding the Ukraine conflict, she said.
"It's wartime. We have to brace for a longer marathon," Lasota said. "The war will not stop with the last bomb that will fall..., it will end once we end the [fossil fuel] industry and the system behind it."
Ukrainian NGOs also planned to send a letter on Friday to Germany's parliament demanding the country stop buying Russian oil and gas.
"Germany is one of its main consumers and thus is the main sponsor of war in Ukraine," said the letter, seen by Reuters. "You only need some political will and humaneness to impose a full embargo on Russian oil and gas."
