In 2021 the European Union imported $108 billion worth of energy from Russia, including 40 per cent of its gas and 25 per cent of its crude oil. By far the largest consumer of Russian energy is Germany, which has frustrated its NATO allies by firming up its reliance on Russian energy with the construction of pipelines. Germany, in turn, needs access to cheap energy as it remains at the heart of European manufacturing.

Since the latest Russian invasion began, the US has declared a ban on Russian oil, gas and coal imports, Britain plans to phase out Russian oil by year’s end and the EU will reduce gas imports by two-thirds. Poland has already significantly reduced its use of Russian oil and plans to end coal imports by the end of next year, its Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said this week.

Germany too is working fast to cut its ties. “Every supply contract terminated hurts Putin,” said the country’s Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck on March 25. He told reporters it would be nearly free of Russian coal and oil by the end of the year, with gas to follow by 2024.

The speed at which Europe wants to cuts itself off from Russian fossil fuels cannot be exaggerated. Last week Vladimir Putin threatened to cut Europe off unless it paid for its energy in roubles, thereby propping up its war effort and its currency.

And European leaders are aware that unless they manage to both diversify energy supply and dampen demand by the northern winter, they will suffer not only economic impacts but the prospect of some of their most vulnerable citizens dying in unheated homes.

Loading

Its immediate plan includes increasing imports from other sources, with Poland, for example, building or expanding terminals for imports from the Middle East.

But calls for a new energy revolution - a warp speed transition - are growing louder.

On March 3 the International Energy Agency (IEA), an organisation that until recently held very conservative views about the potential for renewables, issued a 10-point plan on how Russian gas use could be cut by a third in short order.

“Nobody is under any illusions anymore. Russia’s use of its natural gas resources as an economic and political weapon show Europe needs to act quickly to be ready to face considerable uncertainty over Russian gas supplies next [northern] winter,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

The IEA’s recommendations ranged from measures as simple as calling on householders to heat their homes to 21 degrees rather than the standard 22 over winter, to extending the life of some of the continent’s nuclear reactors.

But the plan also recommends the EU cuts red tape for wind turbines and subsidises retrofitting homes with better insulation, smart heating controls and rooftop solar. It proposes replacing gas heaters with more efficient heat-pumps, better known in Australia as split-system air conditioners.

These units have collapsed in cost over recent years due to better technology and the vast scale of Chinese manufacturing - some of the same pressures that have driven down the cost of solar cells.

Not surprisingly, the 10-point plan was not universally supported. In Britain some conservative politicians and commentators, already agitated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s embrace of rapid decarbonisation, began to rebel.

Loading

Many spoke out under the banner of Net Zero Watch, a group founded by the Global Warming Policy Foundation lobby group, which opposes what it considers to be reckless action to address climate change.

But Johnson held firm, writing in London’s Daily Telegraph that Britain must double down on renewables, which were “invulnerable to Putin’s manipulations”.

“He may have his hand on the taps for oil and gas. But there is nothing he can do to stop the North Sea wind,” Johnson wrote.

Today’s UK Conservatives have never been more united behind renewables, says Dave Jones, global electricity analyst for Ember, a British-based global climate and energy think tank, noting that half of all Tory MPs have now joined the party’s green group, the Conservative Environment Network.

“The biggest winners of this energy crisis will be wind and solar. In many parts of the world, coal prices are up three times and gas prices up 10 times, and both - especially gas - are now having security implications,” Jones says.

“Wind and solar were the cheapest form of electricity in most countries before this crisis, and definitely are now. And what’s more, they are supplying the homegrown energy that governments are so craving at the moment. The response in Europe in the last month ... has been unambiguous: the energy transition needs to be sped up.”

In the US, the White House is taking a similar line - urging the private sector to deliver more oil and gas in the immediate term while seeking to decarbonise their energy systems as quickly as possible by deploying renewables, electrifying households and increasing efficiency.

Addressing a leading conference of energy, tech and finance leaders last month, US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm declared that the world was now on a war footing.

Loading

“We have to respond by increasing short-term supply … and that means releases from strategic reserves across the world and that means you producing more right now where and if you can.”

But she said it also meant embracing the energy transition, dismissing arguments that it could not be done as “the same old DC BS”: “[The] clean energy transition is not just coming, it is here. Your investors are demanding action, your customers are demanding climate action, 70 per cent of voting Americans support the clean energy transition.”

Bourne made his own transition when he retired from BP in 1999, only to take a job leading WWF Australia. He is now a councillor for the Climate Council, the body that formed privately to inform the public about climate change when the Abbott government sacked what had been the Climate Commission upon taking office in 2013.

Bourne believes that the tragedy that has befallen Ukraine and Europe has struck at an already pivotal moment in history.

“Ten years ago [technology for transition] just wasn’t ready. Even three years ago people might have taken a punt. Now I am absolutely certain that this is the time.”