European Energy: Climate Ambitions versus Geopolitical Pressures

Earlier this week, the President of the International Gas Union (IGU) – Mr Andrea Stegher – delivered the keynote address at The Autumn Gas Conference 2025, now in its 31st edition.

Addressing the future of Gas in a decarbonising world, from legislative shifts to low-emission gases, infrastructure innovation and energy strategy, and organised by the Czech Gas Association – Charter Member of the IGU – this year’s Conference brought together over 200 European Gas industry executives from across the entire Gas value chain.

In addition to his keynote address where he presented the latest global Gas industry findings as per the Global Gas Report 2025, Mr Stegher also took part in a lively panel debate on the future of European energy, as the continent’s climate ambitions and the constant geopolitical pressures it faces are in a very fragile balance.

During his panel remarks, Mr Stegher highlighted the critical need for the global Gas industry – not just the European one – to exercise caution when embarking on various scenarios and assumptions about the future of one fuel source over the other, or about the technology choices made by various nation states:

“There is a multitude of pathways that our industry can take to reach its decarbonisation targets. As a global industry, we have relentlessly pursued this goal for decades – we just haven’t been very vocal about it.

The “trilemma” we often speak about is not a theoretical concept or construct, but a very real and tangible one. And, in Europe, it knocked at our front door in the very recent past: we had to immediately adapt to the scarcity of piped natural gas, and we did so together and quickly. Energy security became very real, all of sudden, in Europe. To many around the world, “energy security” is not even a term that is feasible, as there we are talking about its “availability”.

Realism and pragmatism should underpin every decision we make, and put that solution to a very simple, yet extremely complicated, stress test by answering these questions: is it feasible? Is it affordable? Is it sustainable? Is it ethical?

There is no one correct answer or one simple solution. We need to deliver energy where it is needed most: to power homes, to fuel economies, to drive economic growth and to enhance regional co-operation.”