According to Teh Wiki, most of it (the $125B Reserve Fund) is invested outside Russia while the $32B National Wealth Fund is invested in a mix of domestic and foreign vehicles. The former was intended to feed the latter, but was drawn down to nothing when global oil prices fell and the “big gas station” of a country had to dig into it.
My sense is that most of the Wealth Fund’s investments have been pulled back into Russia over the past few years for fiscal and ideological reasons. So while the U.S. sanctions announced after Putin recognised the BS “republics” had an impact on Russia’s sovereign wealth fund it’s not a death blow.
The Russian oil and gas industry, in contrast, is effectively screwed as long as Putin is in power. So yeah, the oligarchs who run it are feeling the pain. Good.
That’s really my long-term silver lining hope in this awful situation. If we make it through I hope that this shows Western leaders how constricting the fossil fuel industry is on their ability to act in cases like this. That may speed up their push for more sustainable and clean and carbon-neutral energy, which is obviously key to addressing the climate emergency.
Which means that if we reduced our oil consumption by just 5% we wouldn’t have to increase domestic production at all. Hardly a big ask when compared to past events like the 1973 oil embargo or WWII rationing.
I don’t think we can switch to green energy anything like quickly enough to make a difference. If we can cover the shortfall from embargoing Russia with domestic production and minimize the hit at the pump, we neuter a big stick the repubs would love to use in the midterms. And I absolutely think we should be embargoing Russia.
We wouldn’t need to switch to green energy to make up the shortfall, all we’d need would be some very modest steps toward energy conservation. Basic hippie stuff like “riding a bike to work more often” or “using less plastic products” or “putting off that cross-country vacation this summer” would be more than enough to offset the small amount of oil we import from Russia.
Granted, it’s going to be a lot harder than that for some European countries that get more of their fossil fuel supply from that region.
I wonder though- are there concrete and significant steps that could be taken to commit to substantially reducing oil consumption in the medium term, thereby driving down the price of oil futures and hurting the ability of countries like Russia to borrow against future oil income?
This may be the reality of domestic politics, but it isn’t unique to the current crisis and it really, really sucks. Because there will never be a time when the party in power won’t face criticism and blowback for increasing gas prices, and increasing gas prices are necessary in order to address the climate crisis.
That would be inconvenient. We have pretty well established that a significant number of our fellow citizens are unwilling to endure the slightest inconvenience to save lives or minimize disruptions, so yeah, I suspect this is a non-starter.
For sure, but “ride a bike to work” or “take transit more often” is the kind of thing millions of Americans could start doing immediately rather than something to think about next time they’re considering buying a new car.
It’ll be a week at most after gas prices go up noticeably in the U.S. before Swanson and his ilk are “just asking” hard-workin’ truck-drivin’ white common men (y’know, like themselves /s) whether it’s really worth paying this price to continue to back Ukraine against Putin.
I know the invasion of Ukraine is deadly serious. But so was what happened in Syria, which came about in no small part because of an unprecedented multi-year drought…and things like that are going to keep happening, because our planet is burning.
So I guess the question is, exactly how much has the US been holding back on production without there being good reasons for doing so, anyway?
Russia risks default on public debt. Russia is to pay off more than $700 million in government bonds this month.
Translation: Granny’s April pension cheque is going to be a bit later and will have a lot less buying power than March’s did. That’ll go on as long as the war does, but the grinding misery will be offset for some families by the excitement of the “Cremains Lottery”. All for the glory of the Tsar, of course.
