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Today on State of the World, the global impact of high oil prices.
We're listening to State of the World from NPR.
We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening.
I'm Greg Dixon.
Ever since the US and Israel launched a war on Iran, oil prices have been on a roller
coaster, but overall have been trending higher.
An increase in the price of oil has worldwide consequences, with winners and losers.
To get a snapshot of where things stand, we're going to hear from three reporters around
the world.
In Taiwan, in Germany, and we start in Russia, with NPR's Charles Mainz.
In Moscow, initial Kremlin outrage over the US's Rayleigh attacks on Iran, an assassination
of the country's supreme leader, has given way to political triangulation, says Vladislav
and Ezemsov, a Russian economist and government critic, now based in the US.
It was one of the very few cases when the death of your close ally was immediately transformed
into a source of some tangible gains.
The Kremlin has condemned US's Rayleigh actions as a violation of international law, but move
quickly to leverage the crisis, particularly when it comes to energy.
Meeting with top oil and gas officials in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed
them to use the new price reality in hydrocarbons to recoup losses from Western sanctions.
He said Putin offered a number of considerations to
the world's ending the conflict in a phone call with President Trump last week.
The US has since issued a temporary waiver on sanctions on some Russian oil exports
first to India and now to the rest of the world, a reversal in US policy that aides Russia's
war chest for Ukraine say critics, yet the windfall for government coffers has been welcomed
in Moscow, where the economic forecast and mood were otherwise grim, says the economist
in Ezemsov.
Yes, it can provide a kind of lifeline for the Russian finances, but what is even more
important, it changes the attitude of Russia and leads to what is going on.
On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov acknowledged US and Russian energy interests
were aligned for now, but weren't long-term global market stability, dependent on continued
access to Russian energy.
It's the latest sign that as the crisis in Iran deepens, Moscow is betting on future
sanctions relief from the US and Russia's return as an essential energy exporter.
I'm Rob Schmitz in Berlin, the capital of Europe's largest economy, an economy that
has had a roller coaster week.
Germany's largest employer, Otto Maker Volkzwagin, announced this week it plans to
cut 50,000 jobs inside the country because its profits have been cut in half in the past
year.
Also this week, the country's largest defense contractor, Ryan Mattal, announced its
sales are expected to grow by nearly half this year, and that it's selling off its
automotive parts division to focus on making more weapons.
Now neither of these announcements have anything to do with the rising cost of oil due to the
war in Iran, but they're both indicators that Europe's largest economy is in flux,
and spiking energy prices are complicating matters.
Germany's Federal Economy Minister, Katarina Reicha, warned the nation's gas stations
that the government would fight price gouging by only allowing them to raise the price of
gas once per day.
The price of gasoline in this car-loving nation has increased by more than 20 percent since
the war began, and Germans are now paying nearly $9 per gallon at the pump.
But Claudia Kempfer, economist at the German Institute for Economic Research, told National
Broadcaster ARD that the country's new price gouging law is missing the bigger point.
Rising prices at the pump are a wake-up call, said Kempfer, to about our excessive dependence
on fossil fuels.
But Germany is moving away from fossil fuels, largely spurred by the energy crisis following
Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Over the past five years, the country's renewable energy share went up more than 10 percent.
More than 55 percent of Germany's electricity is now generated by renewables, a big help
in times like these when the global price of oil seems to keep rising.
I'm Ashish Valentine in Taipei.
Here in Asia, the undisputed leader in renewable energy is China.
More than half of all new vehicles sold there are EVs or hybrids, and less than 5 percent
of Chinese electricity is generated from oil and gas, although quite a bit more comes
from domestically sourced coal.
That sets it up reasonably well for the fuel shocks caused by the Iran War, says Don
Wong, an analyst at Eurasia Group which helps businesses determine political risk.
China's massive emesment in green technology over the past 20 years is paying off really
well.
So the Chinese economy doesn't depend on oil and gas in a similar level as the other
Asian economies.
Combined with months of fuel reserves, she says, that means the average Chinese consumer
hasn't yet noticed a hike at the gas pump.
More concerning for China is what to do if the war goes on for longer than a few months.
Its band refined fuel exports to help preserve local supply.
After the next few years, Wong says China plans to even further insulate its energy supply
from American policy decisions.
China has been developing new pipelines, investing heavily to connect with Russia and diversifying
the sources of oil and gas to Central Asia.
Here in Taiwan, which manufactures the vast majority of the world's high-tech logic chips,
the semiconductor industry is heavily reliant on power generated from liquefied natural
gas.
In normal times, a full third of Taiwan's LNG imports comes from Qatar.
But these aren't normal times.
Taiwan's economy minister, Kong Ming-Shi, told reporters the island has secured enough
gas shipments to meet demand through April.
But in the event the conflict lasts longer, Taiwan and other Asian nations are seeking
alternative suppliers such as the U.S. and Australia.
There was Ashish Valentine in Taipei.
We also heard from Rob Schmitz and Berlin and Charles Mainz in Moscow.
That's the state of the world from NPR.
Thanks for listening.
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