Editor's note: As winter is approaching, Europe is facing a deepening energy crisis and gas prices have reached record highs. How will European countries cope with this? Can they reach a consensus? Erik Solheim, former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNEP and senior adviser to the World Resources Institute and Robert Weisenmiller, former chair of the California Energy Commission gave us some clues during an exclusive interview. The views expressed in the video are their own and not necessarily those of CGTN. 

CGTN: EU ministers recently agreed on new emergency measures to tackle the energy crisis. Can these measures help Europeans get through the winter?  

Erik: It is hard to know how cold the winter will be at the moment. So it is hard to predict but overall both people and governments are preparing for a very tough winter.  

Robert: So if this were the coldest winter on record, then they're in trouble. If it's the warmest winter on record, then they're in good shape. Now the question is in between what happens. It's most likely to be in between. Now Europe has about 90 percent of its gas storage filled. So they're not as worried about this winter as they are about next winter. 

So again, if they're lucky, if the weather is kind to them and they can continue to take strong actions to reduce demand, they should make it through this winter. But again, there's not a lot of time. They have to move quickly since energy shortfalls can have a major impact on business and on individuals and in Europe. So it's a real challenge for them and certainly anything they can do to reduce demand will be an important step.

CGTN: A few days ago, large leaks were detected in both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. What potential effects will this bring to Europe? 

Robert: It is an incredible measure as it produced a very large amount of methane, which has both economic and environmental consequences. I mean, these were explosions, two fairly significant explosions that did great damage to both those pipelines. And so it raises the specter of basically sabotage. And that's been the concern is that there is a very sophisticated attack on infrastructure. 

And that was followed up on Saturday (October 8) in Germany. Basically, the train system had its communications cut around Berlin and Hanover and (Germany) shut down its train service for hours. So again, it was another deliberate attack of sabotage. And so it's really stepping up. So what I'm saying is the scary part about Nord Stream and now the train is this creeping escalation in Europe that may signal much broader world warfare. 

CGTN: Will the European Political Community (EPC) meeting help the EU to settle differences and achieve a consensus? If not, how can they manage it? 

Erik: These nations have different interests. Some have different attitudes toward the war in Ukraine, some of them are very dependent on gas, some of them are more or less or complete dependent on nuclear, some of them have developed renewables faster than others. So it's a huge number of different governments coming together. I think from a historical perspective, what's remarkable is the level of unity of all of Europeans coming together as one entity, fighting this extreme energy crisis. 

Robert: It's a real challenge because Europe has a real range of wealthier and poorer countries and that divide and away (not only) north and south but also east and west. And Germany has taken actions in a 200 billion dollars to try to mitigate the impacts. And at this point the question is how much can Europe maintain harmony on its policies. So it's very challenging. They had their meeting in Prague. 

As I understand they did not expect to reach an agreement in Prague and they didn't. They would have another meeting by the end of the month. They are taking actions where basically they will meet jointly with potential suppliers Norway and U.S. for natural gas to try to negotiate common agreements. And (French) President (Emmanuel) Macron is basically been trying to encourage (it).

So we don't know if they can maintain that united front with a fragment. But hopefully they can have at least some degree of common performance here and get the long-term supplies that they need. 

CGTN: The Russia-Ukraine conflict has sounded an alarm for countries across the world on the issue of energy security. How will this impact the future of global energy transition?

Robert: You know this would really accelerate Europe's push for its renewables. But you know they need natural gas and they need oil in a variety of supplies, so it's going to take an incredible transformation of their whole energy system. They need to find new markets. And they will need to build new infrastructure, say to China while Europe has to build new infrastructure for LNG to come in.

It's really going to transform the energy system on a global basis. And as such large players, like I said, it's going to affect everyone. So again, this will kind of lead to real revolution not just in Europe on energy supplies, but globally. 

Erik: If you move into renewables, into solar, wind, green hydrogen, hydropower, you become energy independent, you save a lot of money on the state budgets replacing import, you create jobs at home and you take better care of Mother Earth. All at the same time. So I'm very confident that everywhere you will see nations transitioning to the renewables because those are domestic resources everywhere and it gives so much meaning both economically and ecologically. 

Script editors: Zhou Xin, Wu Yanni 

Video editor: Wu Mengjiao 

Graphic designer: Du Chenxin

Executive producers: Bi Jianlu, Zhang Peijin, Wang Xinyan 

Chief editors: Xiao Jian, Wang Ying 

(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com. Follow @thouse_opinions on Twitter to discover the latest commentaries in the CGTN Opinion Section.)