THEO VAN GOGH  Top of the Agenda : U.S.-EU Natural Gas Deal Aims to Cut Dependence on Russia

As Europe scrambles to secure non-Russian sources of liquefied natural gas, the United States committed (Bloomberg) to helping guarantee at least fifteen billion cubic meters of additional supplies for Europe by the end of the year. Additionally, European Union (EU) countries will work to ensure demand for fifty billion cubic meters of U.S. fuel until at least 2030.

After U.S. President Joe Biden announced the deal in Brussels, he traveled to Poland, where he is meeting (NBC) with U.S. soldiers and Ukrainian refugees near the Ukrainian border. More than two million Ukrainian refugees have crossed into Poland since the start of the war. A senior U.S. official said yesterday that the United States will accept up to one hundred thousand Ukrainian refugees (NPR). Tomorrow, Biden will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Analysis
“Once new [natural gas] export and import terminals are built, they will probably keep operating for several decades, perpetuating the use of a fossil fuel much longer than many environmentalists consider sustainable for the planet’s well-being,” the New York Times’ Clifford Krauss writes.

“To put the size of the population fleeing Ukraine into perspective, nearly 6 million people applied for asylum in European Union countries from 2013 to 2021. About 2.5 million sought asylum during 2015 and 2016,” Vox’s Youyou Zhou, Nicole Narea, and Christina Animashaun write.

At this panel, the International Rescue Committee’s Amanda M. Catanzano, HIAS’s Mark Hetfield, and the U.S. Department of State’s Nancy Izzo Jackson discuss the Ukrainian refugee crisis.