Low Carbon Economy,Renewable Energy Transition Of EU And The Export Of Russia Energy

After gaining independence,Russia’s main material connection with the world lies in its fossil energy exports,and the European Union is the most important fossil energy export market for Russian fossils.Therefore,maintaining Russia’s fossil energy market share in the EU region is not only of great significance to its economic and social development,but also the cornerstone of Russia’s ambition to realize its dream of becoming “Energy Great Power”.Based on the paradigm of quantitative and regression analysis,traditional academic research on this field mainly focuses on the interaction between Russia and the European Union in the fields of geopolitics,international energy prices,energy supply,and technical cooperation,but has not been fully centered on the post-Cold War renewable transition within the EU.Since the former is an important way for the EU to completely get rid of its asymmetric dependence on Russia’s fossil energy.In view of the lack of current research on this topic,this paper attempts to use the path dependence theory from the perspective of energy transition to deconstruct the interaction between the EU’s renewable energy transition and Russia’s energy exports in detail,and to answer the following questions : "Since the renewable energy transition is important for the EU,but then,why has not the EU’s renewable energy transition decreased its energy dependence on Russia’s fossil energy? How can the renewable energy transition and reliance on the fossil energy coexist in the EU energy system? "Based on the general research paradigm and principles of social science,the research framework involved in this paper is as follows: the introduction part mainly sorts out the current academic research achievement and proposes the research topic and research framework of this paper;the first chapter is the theoretical basis of this paper,which mainly sorts out the relevant theories of path dependence in the transition of renewable energy under the background of low-carbon economy,providing a theoretical framework for the research on renewable energy transition in this paper;Chapters 2 and 3 mainly present the EU’s renewable energy transition in the past 20 years in detail from the perspective of path dependence,the progress of the impact of the Russia-Europe game on the EU’s renewable energy transition and Russia’s energy exports;Chapters 4 to 6 combine the renewable energy transition of Russia’s largest oil and gas market in the EU to analyze the latter’s impact on Russia’s fossil energy exports,so as to realize the organic combination of framework analysis and case analysis;the seventh chapter applies the core of path dependence theory to analyze and summarize the past EU renewable energy transition and Russia’s energy export,and combines the Ukraine crisis in 2022 to analyze the future energy development of Russia and Europe to predict the direction of development of the interaction.Specifically,from the perspective of the supply side,Russia’s investment in the fossil energy industry has grown steadily year by year in the past twenty years,and the total output of fossil energy has a slow upward trend.From the perspective of the demand side,in the past twenty years,the EU’s renewable energy transition has achieved certain results,but under the influence of the game between Russia and Europe,the EU has not been able to realize the replacement of Russian fossil energy by renewable energy.As far as the three case countries are concerned,despite the rapid development of their renewable energy transition,the Netherlands’ consumption of oil and natural gas has remained stable for a long time,and its demand for Russian oil has remained resilient;Germany’s consumption of oil and natural gas has remained stable for a long time and the demand for Russian oil and natural gas has remained resilient;Italy’s consumption of oil and natural gas has remained stable for a long time,and its demand for Russian natural gas has also maintained a certain degree of resilience.In addition to the external pressure from Russia’s fossil energy,the main reason for the above phenomenon is that the path creation of renewable energy in various countries is limited by numerous internal and external factors.The former includes the natural and geographical conditions of each country,policies to promote renewable energy,the structure of government departments,unclear central-local responsibilities,and the level of renewable energy technology;the latter mainly includes government support for fossil energy and nuclear energy,fossil,and nuclear energy,restrictions by interest groups on the development of renewable energy,etc.Under the influence of multiple factors,the European energy system has gradually formed a dual structural basis for the coexistence of renewable energy and fossil energy.This basis has gradually developed with the game between Russia and Europe in the past nearly twenty years.However,the Ukrainian crisis that broke out in February 2022 has largely impacted this dual structure.The latter gradually disintegrated under the circumstances of the European Union’s artificial intervention and Russia’s "strong response",which has brought great risks and uncertainties to the normal production and life of its citizens.