War Abroad and Politics at Home Push U.S. Climate Action Aside

War and politics are complicating the efforts of the United States and Europe to slow down global warming.

President Biden promised to make climate an issue that drives his presidency, but he barely mentioned it in the State of the Union speech. Europe relies on fossil fuel for heat and electricity, and European politicians are struggling to get out from under one of the Kremlin's most powerful economic weapons.

The prices of oil and gas are going up. Those who sell the very products that cause fatal heat waves, wildfires and sea level rise will benefit from that. The United States is already one of the world's biggest producers of oil and gas.

The developments come just days after the United Nations urged world leaders to sharply reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases that are dangerously heating the planet. They said to fail is to face a future where the rate of global warming surpasses the ability of humans to adapt.

In Washington, Mr. Biden's climate legislation has been blocked by Republican opposition and a senator from his own party who supports the fossil fuel industry. The Supreme Court could limit Mr. Biden's ambitions in a case that began this week that could restrict the federal government's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

In his State of the Union address, Mr. Biden mentioned climate in the context of his proposals to create jobs by repairing roads, airports and other crucial infrastructure.

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His remarks were meant to blunt the risk to Democrats from high gas prices. He said he would release 30 million barrels of oil to keep prices down.

Energy experts said that Mr. Biden missed an opportunity to connect the war in Ukraine to the need to more swiftly sever an economic reliance on fossil fuels.

The spokesman for the White House said that Mr. Biden has shown support for climate solutions.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made it difficult for world leaders to cross the road. The effects of the European Union are felt most acutely.

Europe uses 40 percent of the gas supplied by Russia. The conflict in Ukraine has exposed the enormous leverage that Russia has with its energy exports, forcing European leaders to make some urgent choices: Should it build new fossil fuel infrastructure so that it can replace Russian fuel with gas from the United States? Is it better to shift away from fossil fuels faster?

The world will get a glimpse of Europe's leanings next week when officials in Brussels announce a new energy strategy.

The new strategy will propose speeding up energy efficiency measures and renewable energy installations according to a draft of the report reviewed by The New York Times. It views imports of L.N.G. from the United States and other countries as a short term measure to replace Russian piped gas.

Kadri Simson, the European Union energy commissioner, told reporters this week that the war will have deep repercussions on our own energy system.

Europe's ambition to stop pumping additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by midcentury is in line with analysts' predictions that European countries can quickly reduce gas dependence with energy efficiency measures. Some of that could be sped up by the conflict in Ukraine. It could lead to a tectonic shift in energy policy, where renewables are used instead of gas storage to achieve energy security.

In an interview this week, John Kerry said that Mr. Putin has weaponized fossil fuels.

People need to see it that way. Mr. Kerry said that energy is a key weapon in the fight and that if there were less dependence on gas there would be a different set of plays.

The United States has increased exports of L.N.G. to Europe to counter the decline in Russian piped gas. The United States is poised to have the largest L.N.G. export capacity by the end of the year.

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Current sanctions against Russia do not directly target the oil and gas sector, but the invasion of Ukraine is expected to disrupt supply routes, which has raised fears that Russia could curtail shipments.

Republicans in the United States say the Russian invasion of Ukraine shows the need to drill for more oil and gas in the United States. Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota, called the opening of the strategic reserve by Mr. Biden a "typo in the ocean".

White House officials said that Mr. Biden talked about clean energy and climate change. Millions of manufacturing jobs in the United States will be created by Ford and GM's investment in electric vehicles. Funding from the infrastructure package will build a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.

Climate change policy is important to the Biden administration. The President's main legislative agenda, called the "Build Back Better act", is dead. The Democrats still hope to pass $500 billion of clean energy tax incentives, but opportunities are waning. If the Supreme Court restricts the administration's ability to regulate emission, Mr. Biden's goal of cutting United States emissions roughly in half could be impossible.

Administration officials said that Russia's war against Ukraine has not changed the focus of Mr. Biden's address. They noted that Mr. Biden has made climate change an emphasis in virtually every federal agency and has moved ahead with major clean energy deployment including a record-breaking offshore wind auction last week that brought in more than $4 billion.