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Russias invasion of Ukraine has shaken the global market for nickel just as the metal gains importance as an ingredient in electric car batteries, raising fears that high prices could slow the transition away from fossil fuels.

The price of nickel doubled in one day last week, prompting the London Metal Exchange to freeze trading and effectively bring the global nickel market to a standstill. After two years of supply chain chaos caused by the pandemic, the episode provided more evidence of how geopolitical tensions are destroying trading relationships that companies once took for granted, forcing them to rethink where they get the parts and metals they use to make cars and many other products.

Automakers and other companies that need nickel, as well as other battery raw materials like lithium or cobalt, have begun looking for ways to shield themselves against future shocks.

Volkswagen, for example, has begun to explore buying nickel directly from mining companies, Markus Duesmann, chief executive of the carmakers Audi division, said in an interview on Thursday. Raw materials are going to be an issue for years to come, he said.

The prospect of prolonged geopolitical tensions is likely to accelerate attempts by the United States and Europe to develop domestic supplies of commodities that often come from Russia. There are nickel deposits, for example, in Canada, Greenland and even Minnesota.

Nickel, cobalt, platinum, palladium, even copper we already realized we need those metals for the green transition, for mitigating climate change, said Bo Stensgaard, chief executive of Bluejay Mining, which is working on extracting nickel from a site in western Greenland in a venture with KoBold Metals, whose backers include Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. When you see the geopolitical developments with Ukraine and Russia, its even more obvious that there are supply risks with these metals.

But establishing new mining operations is likely to take years, even decades, because of the time needed to acquire permits and financing. In the meantime, companies using nickel a group that also includes steel makers will need to contend with higher prices, which will eventually be felt by consumers.

An average electric-car battery contains about 80 pounds of nickel. The surge in prices in March would more than double the cost of that nickel to $1,750 a car, according to estimates by the trading firm Cantor Fitzgerald.

Russia accounts for a relatively small proportion of world nickel production, and most of it is used to make stainless steel, not car batteries. But Russia plays an outsize role in nickel markets. Norilsk Nickel, also known as Nornickel, is the worlds largest nickel producer, with vast operations in Siberia. Its owner, Vladimir Potanin, is one of Russias wealthiest people. Norilsk is among a limited number of companies authorized to sell a specialized form of nickel on the London Metal Exchange, which handles all nickel trading.

Unlike other oligarchs, Mr. Potanin has not been a target of sanctions, and the United States and Europe have not tried to block nickel exports, a step that would hurt their economies as well as Russias. The prospect that Russian nickel could be cut off from world markets was enough to cause panic.

Analysts expect prices to come down from their recent peaks but remain much higher than they were a year ago. The trend would be to come down to a level close to where we last left off, around $25,000 a metric ton compared to the peak of $100,000 a ton, said Adrian Gardner, a principal analyst specializing in nickel at Wood Mackenzie, a research firm.

Nickel was on a tear even before the Russian invasion as hedge funds and other investors bet on rising demand for electric vehicles. The price topped $20,000 a ton this year after hovering between $10,000 and $15,000 a ton for much of the past five years. At the same time, less nickel was being produced because of the pandemic.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the price rose above $30,000 in a little over a week. Then came March 8. Word spread on the trading desks of brokerage firms and hedge funds in London that a company, which turned out to be the Tsingshan Holding Group of China, had made a huge bet that the price of nickel would drop. When the price rose, Tsingshan owed billions of dollars, a situation known on Wall Street as a short squeeze.

The price shot up to a little over $100,000 a ton, threatening the existence of many other companies that had bet wrong and prompting the London Metal Exchange to halt trading.

Shortages of essential metals. The price of palladium, used in automotive exhaust systems and mobile phones, has been soaring amid fears that Russia, the worlds largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, another key Russian export, has also been rising.

Financial turmoil. Global banks are bracing for the effects of sanctionsintended to restrict Russias access to foreign capital and limit its ability to process payments in dollars, euros and other currencies crucial for trade. Banks are also on alert for retaliatory cyberattacks by Russia.

The exchange tried to restart trading in nickel twice this week with new price limits, but sudden drops caused trading to halt once again. The market is broken, said Keith Wildie, the head of trading at the London-based metals firm Romco.

There is no sign that nickel prices will lead to factory shutdowns in the way that shortages of components made in Ukraine brought assembly lines at Volkswagen, BMW and other carmakers to a standstill. It will take a few weeks for price increases to ripple through the system.

For now, automakers and other big nickel buyers like steel makers may be able to find alternative suppliers, use more recycled material or switch to battery designs that require less nickel.

There is enough nickel, Ola Kllenius, chief executive of Mercedes-Benz, said in an interview this week. But carmakers might have to pay more, he said, adding, Its not unlikely that we will have secondary effects from this conflict.

The Ukraine conflict has underscored the urgency of moving away from fossil fuels, Mr. Duesmann of Audi said. Russian oil plays a much bigger role in the global economy than Russian nickel. It would be too shortsighted to say, Electromobility doesnt work,' he said.

Beyond the immediate disruption to supplies, automakers are concerned about a retreat from the open markets that have been so good for business. Katrin Kamin, a trade expert at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in Germany, noted that global commerce had held up remarkably well during the pandemic.

Perhaps we should speak less of globalization being in crisis and more of international relations being at a low point, Ms. Kamin said in an email.

But the Ukraine conflict, she added, is a major blow to trade.

Ana Swanson contributed reporting.

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How the War in Ukraine Could Slow the Sales of Electric Cars - The New York Times

The US president, Joe Biden, has announced an $800m (610m) package of arms to Ukraine as the west steps up military aid against invading Russia forces.

The wests military assistance to Ukraine began cautiously with helmets and flak jackets but now includes drones that can destroy Russian tanks and artillery from 50 miles away.

The west has repeatedly refused to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine but is now supplying a range of powerful weapons. They include:

These Turkish-made drones featured prominently in videos at the start of the invasion. They showed a number of successful attacks against Russian tanks and armoured vehicles. They have since became less effective after Russia set up air defences in the battlefield. Turkey began selling the TB2 drones to Ukraine in 2019. Turkish officials have refused to disclose how many, but independent estimates reckon Ukraine has up to 50 TB2s.

Aaron Stein, director of research at the US Foreign Policy Research Institute, described them as the Toyota Corolla of drones. He said: It doesnt do everything that your high-end sports car does, but it does 80% of that. So even for a high-end military, like the US the basic concept of using in an attritable, cheap platform to strike a superior force has inherent value.

Bidens unprecedented assistance includes 100 drones, which officials have said are the Switchblade or kamikaze drone that explode on impact. Each drone is folded into a lightweight mortar launcher. Once it is fired the drones wings open out as the weapon is guided to its target. The most powerful version travels at 115mph and has a range of 50 miles. A lighter version has a range of six miles.

The latest US package includes 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems in addition to more than 600 already promised. The FIM-92 Stinger is a man-portable air-defence system or Manpads that is typically used by ground troops but can also be used from helicopters. This type of weapon was seen as crucial to the mujahideens successful guerrilla conflict in the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s. Germany has also pledged to send 500 Stinger missiles.

The Javelin is an anti-tank missile system that uses thermal imaging to find its target. The latest US package includes 2,000 of these missiles. They can be fired from a shoulder launcher or from the ground.

The White House says it is sending 6,000 AT4 portable anti-tank weapons as part of the package outlined by Biden. The Swedish-made 84mm-calibre weapon has a range of 500 metres. It requires little training to use, but is single-shot so it has be discarded after it is fired. Thousands more anti-tank weapons are being supplied by European countries. These include Germany, which has pledged 1,000 anti-tank weapons from its inventory; Norway with 2,000; and Sweden, which has delivered 5,000.

The UK has sent 3,615 of these British-Swedish-made short-range next generation light anti-tank weapons or NLAW missiles. Hundreds more are also expected to be sent at a cost of 120m. The missiles weigh only 12.5kg and are just over 1 metre long, making them easy for infantry to use. They have a maximum range of just 800 metres. The US has also pledged 1,000 light anti-armour weapons.

The UKs defence minister, Ben Wallace, has also promised to supply an unspecified number of high-velocity Starstreak anti-aircraft weapons to Ukraine. The Belfast-made weapons are known to be the fastest short-range surface-to-air missile. They accelerate after launch and include three laser-guided submunitions to increase the chance of hitting their targets.

Poland proposed to allow all of its MiG-29 fighter jets, of a kind familiar to Ukraines pilots, to be transferred via a US airbase in Germany. The plan was blocked by the US, but the US has sent other Soviet-era aircraft to Ukraine in the form of five Mi-17 helicopters.

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What weapons have other countries supplied to Ukraine? - The Guardian

Russias invasion of Ukraine will have a profound impact on the worlds race to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions, climate experts have warned but it may not all be negative.

Vladimir Putins attempts to wield his dominance over European energy supplies as a weapon to limit interference in his war appear in danger of backfiring. Europe is embarking on a clean energy push that could reduce Russian gas imports by more than two-thirds, while the UK will set out an energy security strategy within days that will emphasise renewable power. In the US as well as pumping more fossil fuels president Joe Biden is renewing efforts to pass his mauled green investment package.

David Blood, the prominent financier who with Al Gore founded Generation Investment Management, believes the Ukraine war should boost green energy. The irony is, this war is funded by the wests dependence on Russian hydrocarbons. There is now significant evidence to show that hydrocarbons are not just environmentally unsustainable, but that they weaken the social, political and economic fabric of our world too, he said. This war provides even more evidence of why there is no time to waste in transitioning away from fossil fuels and towards a cleaner future.

This fresh impetus to decarbonisation probably caught Putin by surprise, as he had been happy to use climate to exacerbate tensions within the west, said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in the US, and a former high-ranking World Bank climate expert.

She said EU countries commitment last year to reach net zero emissions by 2050 may have fed into the Russian presidents calculation that he should no longer delay his long-standing ambitions over Ukraine. Every step towards clean energy in Europe diminishes his economic hold over EU states: Europe gets 40% of its gas from Russia, rising to 60% for Germany, but that demand must all but disappear by 2050 if the net zero aspirations are to be met.

Putins understanding of what decarbonisation, especially in Europe, would mean for Russian energy exports in the medium and long term may have been one factor in the timing of his invasion of Ukraine now, said Kyte. The more time passed, so the appetite for fossil fuels would diminish. However, the nature of the wests pivot away from Russian fuel in response was likely not part of the calculus.

In the long-running UN annual negotiations on the climate, Russia has played a low-key but not outwardly obstructive role for decades. Todd Stern, former US climate envoy under president Barack Obama, and who helped negotiate the 2015 Paris climate agreement, said Russia didnt try to throw sand in the gears but did little to help.

Nothing Ive ever seen suggests [Putin] has had any desire to be an active, high-ambition player, he added. I doubt climate has entered into his calculations except when he thinks he can get something for it.

Something Putin could get for it has been to foment populist culture wars, particularly in the US where he acted, according to Kyte, as the climate whisperer to president Donald Trump, encouraging scepticism of scientific consensus. Russian social media bots and troll farms honed their disinformation techniques for years on lies about climate science.

Yet Putin himself is believed not to be a climate denier, and listens to Russian experts who have made clear the climate chaos that will come from rising carbon emissions. The deeper question is whether the Russian president regards those ravages as a problem. Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and rising sea levels will scour the planet, but those impacts will be diffused across the vast landmass of Russia the biggest country on the planet, but sparsely populated compared with rivals such as China, India and the US.

According to the comprehensive report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published at the end of February, Russia will fare far better in terms of the impact on agriculture than regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and the US. Its productivity for some key crops such as wheat could increase. The biggest risk the IPCC found to Russia was permafrost thaw.

Putin is even hoping to exploit some aspects of the climate crisis, such as the melting of the Arctic ice cap, which could open up new shipping passages and make oil and gas drilling easier. Russia is notably pushing its Arctic territorial claims, even while invading Ukraine.

Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate change adviser, says the Russian president has no scruples over inflicting climate catastrophe on the rest of the world, while seeking advantages for himself.

Putin has acted with utter contempt for the climate, just as he has violated all norms on human rights and international sovereignty, said Bledsoe, who is now at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington DC. He is planning massive new oil and gas developments in the Arctic, which would devastate that fragile region, including by hastening the disappearance of Arctic sea ice, which is crucial to global climate stability. And he has done nothing to prevent Siberian tundra melt, which will unleash gigantic new methane releases. Putin has made Russia a climate outlaw state.

In an optimistic analysis, if the Ukraine war accelerates the shift to renewable energy in the EU, the UK and the US, it could mark a turning point for the worlds efforts to decarbonise. Campaigners warn the opposite could also be true, and an expanded role for fossil fuels could push the goal of staying within 1.5C of global heating out of reach. But Stern believes that fear could be overdone.

What China does or does not do to meet the call of the Glasgow climate pact to ramp up its [emissions-cutting target] will almost surely have much greater impact on account both of Chinas carbon footprint, and the power of its example for other high-emitting developing countries, he said. Whether the US Congress delivers climate legislation will also make a big difference.

Even in the best case, however, the human cost and suffering inflicted recklessly and willingly by Putin in Ukraine will cast a deep shadow over the worlds efforts to prevent climate breakdown. Governments scrambling to deal with the military threat, the refugee crisis and the economic impacts of this Russian-made crisis will be in a poorer position to concentrate on the looming threat of the climate emergency.

By definition, [the war] demands intensive focus and so diminishes the amount that relevant leaders focus on climate, said Stern. When youre trying to get big things done, that diminishing of focus can matter.

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Could Ukraine war help end wests reliance on hydrocarbons? - The Guardian

UNDP warned that if the conflict drags on and if more support to the country is not forthcoming quickly it could wreck almost two decades of economic progress.

In addition to dire development setbacks, the UN agency explained that the environment is expected to suffer, while societal inequalities are likely increase.

To help prevent these shocks and protect hard-won development gains, we need peace now, said UNDP Administrator, Achim Steiner.

He insisted that among the agencys primary objectives, UNDP was working to sustain critical governance structures and services, which constitute the bedrock of all societies.

He added: The war in Ukraine is causing unimaginable human suffering with a tragic loss of life and the displacement of millionsAn alarming economic decline, and the suffering and hardship it will bring to an already traumatised population must now come into sharper focus. There is still time to halt this grim trajectory.

Early UN estimates indicate that nearly three in 10 people in Ukraine need life-saving humanitarian assistance. Based on the current direction of the fighting, 18 million people will likely become affected, and more than seven million may have to flee their homes.

One in two Ukrainian businesses have shut down completely, while the other half has been forced to operate well below capacity, UNDP reported.

As one of the largest UN agencies on the ground in Ukraine, priorities include immediate crisis response and maintaining core government functions to ensure that public services can be maintained.

In a statement, UNDP noted that staff have remained operational throughout the conflict and that their presence has been bolstered with targeted deployments in key areas, such as debris management, damage assessment and emergency livelihood support, including cash-based assistance.

Initial estimates are that $250 million per month in funding will be needed to cover partial income losses for 2.6 million people who are expected to fall into poverty.

Providing the most vulnerable with a basic income of $5.50 per day would cost $430 million a month, UNDP said.

Ukraines neighbours who have struggled to cope with the more than three million refugeescreatedalso need help, the UN agency said.

To that end, UNDP is already working with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, on resilience and development measures for those displaced by the violence, focusing on support to refugees and host communities through income generation and employment.

Latestconfirmed civilian casualty figuresfrom the UN rights office, OHCHR, note that since the Russias all-out o against Ukraine started on 24 February, there have been 1,834 civilian casualties in the country - 691 killed and 1,143 injured. The actual figures hampered by an inability to confirm numbers due to the fighting - are likely to be much higher, UN agencies warn.

Seven girls and 11 boys were among the dead, who also included 135 men and 99 women; a further 30 children and 409 adults also died, but their sex has not been established.

In eastern Ukraines Donetsk and Luhansk regions, there have been 751 casualties (173 killed and 578 injured), and in Government-controlled territory, 582 casualties (134 killed and 448 injured).

In territory controlled by the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, beyond the contact line, the UN rights office has recorded 169 casualties (39 killed and 130 injured).

In other regions of Ukraine (the city of Kyiv and Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions), which were under Government control when the casualties occurred, there have been 1,083 recorded victims (518 killed and 565 injured) up to 14 March.

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Ukraine war: $100 billion in infrastructure damage, and counting - UN News

Every war brings surprises, but what is most striking about Vladimir Putins war against Ukraine and indirectly against the whole democratic West is how many of the bad surprises, so far, have been for Putin and how many of the good surprises have been for Ukraine and its allies around the world.

How so? Well, I am pretty sure that when Putin was plotting this war, he was assuming that by three weeks into it hed be giving a victory speech at the Ukrainian Parliament, welcoming it back into the bosom of Mother Russia. He probably also assumed that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine would be in exile in a Polish Airbnb, Russian troops would still be removing all the flowers from their tanks thrown by welcoming Ukrainians, and Putin and President Xi Jinping of China would be high-fiving each other for having shown NATO and Sleepy Joe whos going to set the rules of the international system.

Instead, Ukrainians have given Russians a tutorial on fighting and dying for freedom and self-determination. Putin appears locked into his own germ-free isolation chamber, probably worrying that any Russian military officer who comes near may pull a gun on him. Zelensky will be addressing the U.S. Congress virtually. And, rather than globalization being over, individuals all over the world are using global networks to monitor and influence the war in totally unexpected ways. With a few clicks theyre sending money to support Ukrainians and with a few more keystrokes telling everyone from McDonalds to Goldman Sachs that they must withdraw from Russia until Russian soldiers withdraw from Ukraine.

Heres another surprise few saw coming especially China and Russia. China relied on its own vaccines to fight Covid-19, along with a policy of zero tolerance and immediate quarantine to prevent spread of the coronavirus. Alas, the Chinese vaccines seem to be less effective than other Covid vaccines. And because Chinas quarantine strategy has left it with little immunity from prior infections, the virus is now spreading like wildfire there. As The Times reported Tuesday: Tens of millions of residents in Chinese provinces and cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen are under lockdown amid an outbreak of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. Travel has been cut off between cities, production lines have stopped and malls have been closed.

What is that doing? Its killing demand for, and tanking the price of, crude oil which, after approaching $130 a barrel because of the war in Ukraine, fell below $100 on Tuesday. And what country desperately needs high oil prices because it has so little else to sell to the world to fund its war? Putins Russia. So, Chinas Covid strategy is hampering Putins oil price strategy probably hurting him as much as anything the U.S. is doing. Were all still a lot more connected than we might think.

Now that weve passed the opening phase of this war, the surprises just keep on coming. For me, the three biggest are the extraordinary acts of cruelty, courage and kindness that this war is revealing and inspiring.

I never had any illusions that once Putin launched this war, hed stop short of doing anything to make sure that he could claim to be the winner. Nevertheless, it is stunning to watch how quickly he has tied himself into knots. In the space of three weeks, Putin has gone from saying that he came to liberate Ukraine from its Nazi leadership and bring Kyiv back to its natural home with Russia to crushing its cities and indiscriminately shelling its civilians to break their resistance to his will.

How does a leader go from one day saying Ukraine and its people are integral parts of the soul and fabric of Russia with shared languages, culture and religion to, when rebuffed, immediately pivoting toward turning the place to rubble without any explanation to Ukrainians, the world or his own people?

Its the kind of vicious madness that you see from a spurned lover or in an honor killing. And its shocking and petrifying to see it manifested by the leader of a superpower with some 6,000 nuclear warheads. There is something about this guy that portends more ominous surprises.

I am always amazed by the courage that seemingly average people manifest in war in this case, not only by Ukrainians, but also by Russians who refuse to buy Putins lies, knowing that he is turning them into a pariah nation. So I marvel at the breathtaking courage demonstrated on Monday evening by Marina Ovsyannikova, an employee at Russias Channel 1, a state-run television channel, who burst into a live broadcast of Russias most-watched news show, yelling, Stop the war! and holding up a sign behind the anchorwoman saying, Theyre lying to you here. She was interrogated and, for the moment, released probably because Putin feared making her into a martyr.

Marina Ovsyannikova remember her name. She dared to tell the czar that he had no clothes. What courage.

And finally, wars also reveal extraordinary acts of kindness. In this war, some came spontaneously and by leveraging a platform in ways that no one expected the room-sharing site Airbnb. Executives at Airbnb say they basically woke up in early March to discover that members of their community were spontaneously using their platform in a novel new way transforming its booking technology into a homemade, people-to-people, foreign aid system.

In about the last two weeks, according to the company, people from 165 countries have booked more than 430,000 nights at Ukrainian homes on Airbnb with no intention of using the rooms but simply in order to donate money to these Ukrainian hosts, most of whom they had never even heard of. Airbnb has temporarily waived all guest and host fees for bookings in Ukraine, so those reservations translated into $17 million going directly to the hosts. Guests from the U.S., Britain and Canada are the biggest bookers. Australia, Germany and several other European countries round out the top 10.

In addition, as of Sunday, about 36,000 people from 160 countries signed up through Airbnbs nonprofit affiliate, Airbnb.org, to welcome refugees fleeing Ukraine to their homes.

There is no way that Americas giant Agency for International Development, USAID, could have such an impact so fast.

Many of the Ukrainian hosts who have received these booking-donations have written back to the donors, forging new friendships and enabling foreigners to understand the impact of this war much more deeply. There is nothing like personally communicating with people in Ukraine who are hiding in their basement, while you are explaining why you are happy to rent that basement but never use it. It creates a community of kindness that alone cannot defeat Putins tanks, but it can help buttress those determined to resist them by reminding them that they are not alone Putin is.

I do not find any of this surprising. I have always argued that globalization is not just about trade. It is about the ability for countries, companies and now, increasingly, individuals to connect and act globally. Human beings are hard-wired to want to connect, and the hard-wiring of todays world is making it easier and cheaper for them to do so every day.

All that said, what makes the pleasant surprises in this war so surprising is that they were surprises to the people who were responsible for them. Just one caution, though. There will be more surprises and they wont all be pleasant.

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Opinion | In Putins War on Ukraine, Expect the Unexpected - The New York Times