This year’s energy shock is the most serious since the Middle Eastern oil crises of 1973 and 1979.

Like those calamities, it promises to inflict short-term pain and in the longer term to transform the energy industry.

The pain is all but guaranteed: owing to high fuel and power prices, most countries are facing soggy growth, inflation, squeezed living standards and a savage political backlash.

But the long-run consequences are far from preordained. If governments respond ineptly, they could trigger a relapse towards fossil fuels that makes it even harder to stabilise the climate.

Instead they must follow a perilous path that combines security of energy supply with climate security.

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Credit: @theeconomist

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