Ukraine War’s Latest Victim? The Fight Against Climate Change.

BERLIN — Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seemed like an unexpected opportunity for environmentalists, who had struggled to focus the world’s attention on the kind of energy independence that renewable resources can offer. With the West trying to wean itself from Russian oil and gas, the argument for solar and wind power seemed stronger than ever.

But four months into the war, the scramble to replace Russian fossil fuels has triggered the exact opposite. As the heads of the Group of 7 industrialized nations gather in the Bavarian Alps for a meeting that was supposed to cement their commitment to the fight against climate change, fossil fuels are having a wartime resurgence, with the leaders more focused on bringing down the price of oil and gas than immediately reducing their emissions.

Nations are reversing plans to stop burning coal. They are scrambling for more oil and are committing billions to building terminals for liquefied natural gas, known as L.N.G.

Fossil fuel companies, long on the defensive, are capitalizing on energy security anxieties and lobbying hard for long-term infrastructure investments that risk derailing international climate targets agreed to only last year.

“That’s the battle we’re in right now,” said Jennifer Morgan, the ambassador at large for climate change in the German Foreign Ministry and a former president of Greenpeace International. “We’re in a moment of massive disruption due to the invasion, and that’s either a big risk or it’s a big opening on the climate.”