German officials said Tuesday that they would block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, an enormous project that would double the flow of Russian natural gas into the country. The announcement comes in response to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

“In light of the most recent developments we must reassess the situation in particular regarding Nord Stream 2,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told reporters at a press conference.

The 750-mile (1,200-kilometer), $11 billion pipeline was first announced in 2015 and completed last fall, but it has yet to get the final approval from regulators that would bring it online. The pipeline runs from the coast of Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany and has the capacity to transport 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year—which works out to more than half of Germany’s whole annual power necessities, CNN reported.

The environmental impacts of the pipeline are vital: The NGO Environmental Action Germany claims it is going to emit some 100 million tons of CO2 per yr, plus fugitive methane releases—an enormous concern, given how potent a greenhouse gasoline methane is in comparison with CO2.

The Nord Stream 2 challenge has confronted severe pushback from world powers, not for its local weather impacts however slightly for the way it may increase Russian affect. The pipeline’s proprietor, Gazprom, is Russia’s state-run oil and gasoline firm. Powerful nations together with the U.S., in addition to nations in Russia’s direct orbit, together with Poland and Ukraine, CNBC reported, have frightened that the pipeline will increase Putin’s affect. (The U.S. oil trade, which can also be eyeing European markets for its merchandise, has additionally campaigned closely towards the pipeline.)

Germany has publicly held for years that, opposite to a few of its allies’ worries, Nord Stream 2 is solely a monetary enterprise. But Germany has more and more been dragged into Russia’s geopolitical conflicts because the pipeline’s existence escalates tensions.

“By requesting the halt of Nord Stream 2 certification process the German government takes Russian gas exports back from the administrative-regulatory sphere where it tried to put it in the last couple of years, to the realm of geopolitics,” Maria Pashtukova, senior coverage advisor of power diplomacy at E3G Berlin, stated in an emailed assertion. The transfer, Pashtukova stated, exhibits “there is a geopolitical price tag that comes with cheap Russian pipeline gas, and it is very high.”

Europe presently relies heavily on gas from Russia—about 35% of the whole of the EU’s natural gas supply is from Russian sources, Reuters reported. As power costs soar this winter within the EU thanks partly to low pure gasoline inventories, unhealthy climate, decrease provide from Russia, and elevated financial exercise, the prospect of shutting off an enormous potential new supply of power could seem formidable to some. Putin, for his half, final fall tried guilty Europe’s power issues on the renewable power transition, blasting renewables as “erratic” sources of power. (Analysts stated Tuesday that the EU now has enough gas supplies to last until the spring, when power use often drops.)

But consultants be aware that European power markets have been susceptible to the whims of Russian provide even earlier than renewables grew to become vital gamers on the grid. In the long run, dashing the transition to renewable power might help shield nations from counting on problematic powers for gas.

“The whole idea that Europe wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for the energy transition, that’s crap,” Samantha Gross, director of the power safety and local weather initiative on the Brookings Institution, told InsideClimate News. “More renewables actually insulates economies from problems like these. It doesn’t cause them.”