Green, Affordable, or Secure Energy? Energy Trilemma in the Latvian Strategic Narrative after Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine in 2022

Abstract

Russia’s war in Ukraine provides a new lens to look at the energy trilemma in the Baltic Sea Region. A necessity to halt the fossil fuel imports from Russia opens a window of opportunity for the production of green energy in the region, thus reaching the goals of energy security and environmental sustainability simultaneously. Informed by the strategic narratives’ conceptual framework, this study assesses the potential of secure green energy by looking at the political rhetoric in one of the Baltic Sea Region states - Latvia. It explores the attempts of the Latvian government to establish an enabling discursive environment for stopping imports of Russia’s oil and gas from the start of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, till the parliamentary elections in Latvia on October 1, 2022. Narrative analysis of the government’s press announcements shows mixed results demonstrating a superiority of energy security, followed by a focus on affordable energy to address energy equity. The dimension of environmental sustainability is controversial, as the strategic narrative involves not only development of wind farms but also continuation of the use of fossil fuels such as diversification of gas suppliers and construction of the terminal of liquified natural gas in Latvia. It enables a discursive environment into which fossil fuels continue to be seen as an important part of Latvia’s future energy mix. In the long term, it represents a trap, which hinders the achievement of the goals of the energy transition and establishes new energy dependencies.