- Norway will transit out of oil and gas.

When they pass 2030, they will be declining production, and then we want to see renewables transition upwards.

This has to happen in Europe and it's a major undertaking.

Normally, it would take decades and generations and we're going to do it in a few years.

[lighthearted music] - Hello and welcome to "GZERO World".

I'm Ian Bremmer, and on today's show we are unpacking what it would really mean for Europe to stand on its own 54 feet.

Because there is 27 EU member states and each, to the best of my knowledge, have two feet.

You do the math.

Depending on the outcome of the U.S. election, European leaders are contemplating a post-November future where the United States stops providing Ukraine with any meaningful support.

And in that scenario, Europe's ability to assist Kiev on the battlefield will hinge not just on military capabilities but also Europe's own energy security.

Because if the last two years have revealed anything, it's that external forces can easily cause another fuel crisis on the continent.

A recent drop in global energy prices has been a welcome relief across Europe.

Prices that fall can also rise, we know that, and the European Bloc does remain vulnerable.

Here to talk about this and more is the leader of Europe's main internal energy supplier, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Store.

Later, Ukraine's military is starved for weapons and ammo, and that's leading to some remarkable DIY solutions.

But first, a few words from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by.

- [Announcer] Cox Enterprises is proud to support "GZERO".

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture and more.

Learn more at cox.career/news.

- [Announcer] Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and.

[lighthearted music] [upbeat music] - [Ian] Can Europe go it alone?

When Russia launched its all out invasion of Ukraine two years ago, leaders across the continent rallied around what European Parliament President Roberta Metsola called a United Team Europe.

Speaking in front of Estonia's Parliament, Metsola made the case for strengthening Europe's defenses in the year to come.

- Because Estonia knows what is at stake, why Europe must become the new shining city upon a hill for so many who look to it for hope, for vision, for understanding and protection.

This is particularly true when we see what could happen across the Atlantic.

Europe cannot waver.

- Now I'm no historian, but it seems to me that Metsola was evoking American exceptionalism when she described Europe as, and I quote, "Shining city on a hill."

Nor am I a cartographer, but I'll bet my bottom Euro that the country across the Atlantic that she had in mind was not Canada, and this happened.

- They asked me that question.

One of the presidents of a big country stood up, said, "Well sir, if we don't pay and we're attacked by Russia, will you protect us?"

I said, "You didn't pay?

You're delinquent?"

He said, "Yes.

Let's say that happened."

"No, I would not protect you.

In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

You got to pay.

You got to pay your bills."

- Former President Trump sparking a collective gasp from European leaders when he indicated he might not uphold America's NATO commitments.

Though to be fair, the only countries that aren't actually paying 2% of their GDP on defense are the ones that aren't at all likely to be invaded by Russia.

So media's making too much of that, but still it is becoming increasingly clear to European leaders that beginning in November, they very well may need to go it alone against Russia.

So what does that mean in practical terms?

In a word, energy.

Two words, energy security.

No amount of weaponry shipped to Ukraine's battlefields will matter if Europe can't keep its own homes lit or its factories running.

In 2020, more than half of all the energy in the EU came from imports, and Russia was the main supplier of fossil fuels.

Europe's post pandemic recovery recently drove energy prices up as did record-breaking heat waves and cold snaps, thanks to climate change.

But when Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine, Europe had no choice but to cut off nearly all of its energy ties with Moscow.

That resulted in a roughly $1 trillion energy bill for 2022 and increased inflation across the global economy.

Since then, the fever has broken.

Energy prices have plummeted in the past year, thanks in part to Europe's ability to stockpile large supplies of natural gas and in part to a relatively mild winter, which decreased energy demand.

At the same time, Europe has accelerated the pace of its energy transition to renewable sources like never before.

In 2022 alone, Europe added more renewable energy capacity than any proceeding year.

If Europe is going to become energy secure, the continent is going to have to rely on a little country of 5.5 million people and a lot of reindeer that's not even an EU member.

Since Russia tightened its natural gas spigot, oil and gas rich Norway has become Europe's main supplier.

But in a country where energy represents a third of its national exports, many Norwegians are eager to move away from fossil fuels.

So how can Norway make that transition while also supporting Europe's growing energy needs?

That's what I discussed with Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Store on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

And here's our conversation.

Prime Minister Jonas Store, so nice to see you on "GZERO World".

- Good to be here.

- I want to start with an area that we are actually seeing a little bit of progress, which is the energy transition.

You are an important player in that game.

COP 28 has happened.

We've got a lot of sideline meetings here at the Munich Security Conference and we can certainly say there's movement, there's progress.

- Yeah, and amidst all the gloom.

We had earlier in the week of the Munich Conference, we had the Oslo Energy Forum, which has been there for many decades.

And this time, it was also described in a geopolitical setting.

So there were presentations about what's happening in the geopolitical scene.

And one of the participants I met afterwards said it was a very depressive session because the world looks like a messy place.

So there were two reasons for hope and that was on climate change and energy transition.

And it was quite remarkable because those two have been two issues that have been of great concern.

Not going fast enough, not happening.

But there are interesting things here happening.

I think the energy transition is happening.

I think COP really laid the foundation for further transition.

For the first time you have written down in text all agreeing that there will be a transition out of fossil fuels and an underlining transition, not one to the other.

So we have to build the renewable.

And with that happening, I think with the cost of solar, wind and the new technologies coming down- - Down radically.

- Radically, one issue, John Kerry and I launched at the last COP, shipping, green shipping initiative.

No institution, no secretariat, no nothing, but industry has really taken on this.

And now, you have the construction of the first major car ferries transporting cars with ammonia.

That was a few years ago, seen to be happening in the mid-30s and it's happening in the mid-20s.

So with technology, I think there are some very exciting things happening.

- How much of this is because the Europeans were able to get ahead of it early and coordinate and regulate?

How much of it is because the investment from the United States, the financial institutions, has been a radical transformation?

How much of it is because we have the United Nations and others getting the world together to talk about it in the same way?

Where would you prioritize?

We think about what we need for success in dealing with other global challenges where we're not seeing it, what were the preconditions, the antecedents that made this more possible?

- Well, I think you need all of the above in the sense that you cannot make it unless you make the market economy be at the service of the transition.

So there has to be real incentives to put your money there.

There's enough money out in the world and you need to get the incentives to be at the right place.

So that's one thing.

And then there is the enormous power of technological change, opportunities coming from a combination of the market incentives, political decision, but to share opportunities of technology.

What I think is necessary to have politics in politics, but also politics with industry.

Take one example, storage capacity for renewables, battery.

We know that that is happening in our countries.

In Norway, we have now some major battery factories being built.

Where this is really needed is in emerging economies that will make the choice.

Should we do 50 more coal-fired plants or should we go for solar or wind?

But the green premium, the cost- - It's still very large in these countries, yes.

- So that's why I'm also engaged almost half privately, but as prime minister in the global alliance for people and planet, which is philanthropy, governments trying to make some major coordinated purchase of batteries that can help get costs down.

So a combination.

For me, it's really the mixed economy.

It's between government intervention, market incentives and a powerful global agenda.

- Now when I see a challenge here, long-term, the biggest piece is that the poorest countries in the world which are bearing the greatest burden of climate change.

Yes, there's finally an agreement in principle that you need a loss and damages fund, but the amount of money that's being committed to it is negligible.

It's almost insulting for some of these countries and it's after years and years and years of pleading, begging, demanding.

Do you hold out hope that that will change significantly and if so, why?

- We have to defend that fund and that financial mechanism that is all the way back to Paris.

But there are all the financial issues we need to do which are more kind of targeted.

For example, what we have been engaged in for now 20 years is rainforest protection and the way we made those financial incentives is already proving.

And now with Lula in Brazil, he has got deforestation down by 80% in the one year he's been in office.

Indonesia, DRC.

So these are also financial incentives that makes it possible for developing countries to do that preservation.

- Moving to a topic that's more challenging, NATO is expanding and the Nordics are driving that, but there is nothing promising on the Russian invasion of Ukraine at this point.

In fact, we just saw very recently the killing looks pretty clear of Alexei Navalny in Russia.

Let me ask first about the energy transition.

How do you think the Europeans have managed after a forcible severing of their relationship with a critical energy producer and exporter at Russia over the last two years?

- I think that's been quite remarkable.

If you think about the frenzy of February, March, April, May of 2022.

So I think there was a combination of major things.

Some industry in Europe took a heavy beating, in Germany for example.

We as Norway were able, through a combination of regulations from my government and industry, to increase our gas export by some 8%, representing about 100 terawatt hours in effect.

And that made it possible to get through those months and also to prepare for '23 and the winter just to fill up the storage capacity.

So by a combination of increased gas coming in pipeline, the LNG coming in from the U.S., from the Gulf and also from Norway, which is making now Norway, the main provider of gas to Europe.

We are on a pretty solid ground.

- So would you say two years later, I mean nothing has been managed for Ukraine, but in terms of the energy transition away from Russia, has Europe now gotten through that?

- Yeah, I think pretty well.

But the reason why there was a crisis was that when the gas was taken out, you were suffering from not having built up of the nuclear and built up of the coal.

So this underlines the notion of transition, if you want a transition.

And Norway will transit out of oil and gas.

When we pass 2030, they will be declining production and then we want to see renewables transition upwards.

This has to happen in Europe and it's a major undertaking.

Normally, it would take decades and generations and we're going to do it in a few years.

Building the grid, having a circulation of power in the broader continent.

There is still a lot of Russian LNG arriving in Europe.

So there are some issues there on dependency.

But by and large, I think it has been managed well.

- Now on the security side, right now, I mean we've had two years where NATO has seemed stronger, more cohesive, certainly seen as more critical given what's happening in Ukraine, but it's ebbing at least somewhat in part because of concerns from the United States, in part because of economic concerns here in Germany.

Tell me what you think is likely to happen and what you think needs to happen in the consolidation of the transatlantic alliance.

- First, I think still, no matter how you turn it around, it is in the core interest of all NATO members to preserve NATO, at least for the biggest ally.

I know it's a discussion, some discussion in the U.S., but for the U.S. to have 31 of the world's most advanced countries as their allies, pretty loyal, contributing, it's a major interest.

So I think this is the most successful alliance in history.

It has preserved peace.

Article 5 has been used once.

- By the Americans.

- By the Americans, or by the Europeans saying, "We stand by you after 9/11."

- After 9/11, yeah.

- So we have to preserve that.

Then I think Europe should do more.

Europe has done more, increased investment substantially and could do more on coordination.

We need to do more on industry.

We are learning that scaling up car industry or ski industry or TV industry is easy.

You can increase production, but increase production of 155 millimeter artillery.

That's hard because you don't have the production lines.

Norway is producing NASAMS, the air defense that alongside the patriots are now defending the cities of Ukraine.

That cannot either be scaled up from half a year to the next half year.

So we need to do much more there on that industrial capacity.

But the key here is that when Europeans talk about coordinating better, I support that Norway is not EU member.

We are closely integrated and we will be part of all that, but 80% on NATOs defense capacity is non-EU.

It is U.S., Canada, UK, Turkey and Norway.

So no matter how you look at it is a vital interest to preserve the transatlantic relevance communication.

And I believe that Ukraine has been very telling about our ability to coordinate.

What we do in the Ramstein and coordinate the way we support militarily has been under the circumstances, successful.

Logistically has been successful.

Normally, you would have enormous amount of bottlenecks, but we've been able to get stuff in.

So we just have to work on and we have to continue to support Ukraine defending itself.

- Has the political debate in the United States both over support for Ukraine and over commitment to NATO in an election year, how much does that concern you?

Has it shaken you?

I mean, given what we're hearing from allies here in Europe right now, what's the level of concern and why on the basis of that?

- Well, I mean we live in a media hype society, so statements made on the campaign trail in the U.S. are immediately all around the place.

So then statements about NATO and collective defense, putting that into question.

Obviously, under these conditions, it's being referred to, and I would simply warn against that frenzy a bit.

Let's analyze this in a cool fashion.

We experienced four years under President Trump.

The elections have not been held, it's not a given.

It'll be exciting months ahead.

We observe the complexity of getting decisions through Congress on issues where I again believe it is in the fundamental U.S. interest and to say to the U.S. that if you look at what has gone to Ukraine in terms of financial support and military support, 100 billion from Europe, 60, 70 or something from the U.S., Europe is contributing massively.

So that notion that we are not.

Norway is per GDP up there on the top almost.

We have a five-year program to Ukraine, $1.5 billion every year for five years.

For a small country, it's the biggest thing we ever done.

- And the context, I mean, Americans do also need to understand how much of the economic pain of the war is being borne by the Europeans.

The resettlement of refugees is being borne by the Europeans.

- 4 million refugees.

And in my country, small country, we have now Ukrainian refugees in every of the 350 municipalities.

It has gone well.

It's been a good reception compared to other experiences, but it's good to have opportunities like this to talk about that.

What does it mean?

Germany, 1 million.

And I mean Germany, in terms of what they are contributing, I think they are getting sometimes a very unfair deal in describing what they do and what they don't do.

They are making huge amounts of money available, military equipment and 1 million refugees on their land.

- Prime Minister Jonas Store, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Good to be here.

[lighthearted music] - And now, the story of a small piece of technology that's having a big impact on the battlefield in Ukraine.

GZERO's Alex Kliment brings you this report.

- [Alex] What you're watching here is not a video game.

This is real.

This is the future of warfare, and it's a lot cheaper and simpler than you might think.

[drones firing] Two years into a war with no end in sight and with continued military aid from the U.S. and Europe at risk of drying up completely, Ukraine is facing a dire shortage of artillery, funding and troops.

But first-person view drones known as FPVs are helping to close that gap.

[drones whirring] Before the war, FPV drones were mainly for hobbyists or drone racers, but since Russia's invasion, Ukraine has pioneered an entirely new way of using them, fitting them with explosives and using them as kamikaze style attack drones.

After all, they're fast, they're agile, and most of all, they're cheap, running about $500 apiece.

Not a bad way to take out a $5 million Russian tank.

The biggest issue with the drones is that they're really hard to fly.

- My first time flying it, I crashed it.

It is very much a skill.

It requires very technical pilot skill and a lot of practice.

- [Alex] Audi here is a former Marine who runs a nonprofit called Aerial Relief Group that helps with fundraising and delivery of drones and other military equipment in Ukraine.

He's seen firsthand how much FPV drones have changed the battlefield.

- No one has ever had this capability as widespread and employed as commonly as it is now.

It has changed how we think of modern 21st century war.

- [Alex] Last fall, Audi visited a drone pilot school run out of an old agricultural warehouse on the outskirts of Kiev.

- For such kind of drones, there also could be used some custom kind of bumps.

- [Alex] This is Dima, a former IT professional who helped to start the UA Drone School in April 2022, after realizing just how much training was needed to learn to fly FPV drones and how quickly the military needed to scale up this technology.

The learning curve for FPV pilots training for combat is steep.

So schools like this one are opening around the country to train pilots not only on how to fly them, but how to use them as part of broader battlefield tactics and strategy.

- It's not real, of course, it's not real missile.

It is just for education purposes.

So our students also learn how to fly it because as far as you already learn the basics, it is very important to learn how to fly with the extra load because as the dynamic of the drone significantly change.

- [Alex] The students here receive instruction from drone experts, practice on VR simulation programs and fly training courses to simulate tracking Russian tanks and dropping weapons on targets.

FPV drones do of course have limitations.

The pilots need to be within a kilometer or two of their targets, and the drones can be jammed by the enemy.

That means pilots have to be close to the front lines.

Still, FPVs are so important to Ukraine's national security that President Volodymyr Zelensky recently announced an entirely new branch of the army dedicated to autonomous warfare and drones.

[President Volodymyr Zelensky speaking in foreign language] - [Alex] The Ukrainian government has also set a goal of producing a million FPV drones within Ukraine by the end of this year, 100-fold increase from 2022.

To do that, Kiev is boosting domestic capacity to get around the fact that 90% of the world's drone parts currently come from one country, China, a Russian ally.

Kiev's pioneer use of drones has changed the face of battle in Eastern Ukraine, but it's also attracted the attention of non-state actors too.

- $500 is not particularly cost prohibitive to start your own Air Force.

- [Alex] Hamas, for example, used commercial drones as part of its October 7th attacks.

Drug cartels in Mexico have used drones to terrorize local populations.

- This is the future of warfare, and I think this will lead to developments that we're probably not even expecting right now.

- [Alex] But back in Ukraine, Dima and the others at the drone school are focused on what's happening on the ground right here, right now.

They know full well that FPV drones are no substitute for fresh military aid from the U.S. that's been delayed by political infighting in Washington, but they have no control over that.

What they do have control over is a small piece of technology that could make a big difference against a much larger enemy.

Near the front lines, they're still flying high to defend their country.

- Yeah, cool.

- [Alex] For "GZERO World", droning on here, I'm Alex Kliment.

[lighthearted music] - And that's our show this week.

Come back next week.

If you like what you've seen or you just want more reindeer from Norway, we've got you covered.

Check us out at gzeromedia.com.

[lighthearted music] [lighthearted music continues] [lighthearted music continues] [lighthearted music continues] [bright music] - [Announcer] Funding for "GZERO World" is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer] Every day, all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by.

- [Announcer] Cox Enterprises is proud to support "GZERO".

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture and more.

Learn more at cox.career/news.

- [Announcer] Additional funding provided by Jerre and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and.

[lighthearted music] [upbeat music]