Renewables also increase energy security: German Minister

Germany's Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck underlined the importance of expanding renewable energies as they play a role in energy security, he told a meeting of G20 energy ministers in India on Saturday.

Renewables are also a question of energy security, Habeck said at the gathering in Goa, India, according to delegation sources.

He also strongly condemned Russia's war on Ukraine.

Russia is a member of the Group of 20 (G20) leading industrialized and emerging countries, with India currently chairing the body.

Russia was represented by a head of the energy ministry at the gathering in Goa, according to sources. The deputy energy minister joined by video.

According to the delegation, Habeck said that in a war of aggression, it must be clearly stated who is the perpetrator and who is the victim in an appeal to all states. He also noted that Russia was clearly the perpetrator.

Habeck criticized that India had not yet clearly and strongly condemned the war, while in New Delhi on Thursday.

China has also not condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, though German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged China to exert more influence on Russia to stop the war of aggression.

At the G20 meeting, Habeck went on to say that Europe in particular had to learn in the past year that Russia was using energy as a "weapon," delegation sources reported. He pointed to the fact that Moscow had throttled and then stopped gas supplies to create shortages in Germany and other European countries.

This was not successful, according to Habeck. Europe and Germany realized what one-sided fossil dependencies meant. That means the importance of renewable energies goes far beyond climate protection, Habeck said. He called them a question of energy security and economic security.

The G20 ministers did not reach a consensus on more speed in the expansion of renewable energies and Habeck had previously sought to reduce such hopes ahead of the meeting.

On Saturday, however, he noted that the majority of the G20 planned to triple renewable energies by 2030.