Analysts at CNN: Risk of an energy crisis similar to the 1970s

Officials are sounding the alarm bell over Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine following an energy crisis worse than the 1970s.

More specifically, former and current energy officials speaking to CNN, stress that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, after years of low investment in the energy sector, could lead the world to a crisis equal to the worst of the oil crises of the 1970s. and the early 1980s.

In any case, the data are more difficult in this case since the current situation is not limited to oil.

«We now have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis at the same time. This energy crisis is much bigger than the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s. And it will probably last longer.“, Said Fatih Birol, head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) monitoring team, in Der Spiegel in an interview published this week.

«We have a serious problem around the world, which I think policymakers are just beginning to realize. It’s a perfect storm“Joe McMonigle, secretary general of the International Energy Forum, told CNN.

«It is a crisis for which people are frustratingly unpreparedSaid Robert McNally, who served as top energy adviser to former US President George W. Bush.

In late March, former Obama energy adviser Jason Bordoff and Harvard University professor Megan O’Sullivan wrote an article in the Economistin which they pointed out that the world was on the verge of “what could become the worst energy crisis since the 1970s.”

“Since we wrote this, our fears have been confirmed,” Bordoff, co-founder of the Columbia School of Climate, told CNN. Of course, there are fundamental differences between today and the 1970s. Prices have not risen as much as they did then, and policymakers have not resorted to extreme measures such as price controls. “If we resort to price controls and price caps, then we could have shortages,” McNally said.