Over the last decade and a half, the Mediterranean region has been affected by several destabilizing events, including the financial crisis; the 2007-08 and 2010-11 food crises; the «Arab Spring» popular uprisings, influenced by soaring food prices; the civil war in Syria; the migration emergency; and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the current global crisis triggered by Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 poses additional critical challenges for the region. From a security perspective, the war has already caused extensive damage and loss of life in key population centres, leading to political tensions and confrontation between states. Along with the complex security implications, the conflict has also induced soft security impacts, affecting many components of human security and exacerbating the negative socio-economic trends that emerged in the years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The interaction between these present and future risks results in a comprehensive «polycrisis», a cluster of related global risks with compounding effects, such that the overall impact exceeds the sum of each part [1] . Considering, among other things, that the physical consequences of climate change primarily impact the water, energy and food (WEF) sectors simultaneously, a multi-resource crisis is particularly emerging alongside global market disruption, political instability and economic growth. ¶{p. 300}

Since Russia and Ukraine are central players in global commodity markets, the ongoing war and accompanying sanctions are dramatically unsettling energy and food markets, with ripple effects on WEF resources and bringing about a setback, at least in the short term, in climate change actions.

Reliable and cheap access to WEF resources underpins the critical functioning of societies in the Mediterranean region. Supply crises, associated with increasing demand for WEF resources, can be highly destabilizing, exposing the fragility of states and leading to loss of well-being, widespread violence, political upheaval and involuntary migration. This awareness calls for a paradigm shift by adopting measures to reduce exposure, but also by cultivating a mindset, capabilities and partnerships to strengthen resilience at national and regional levels.

This chapter highlights the effects of the Ukraine war on the WEF resources in the Mediterranean region, considering both the sectoral and the nexus levels. Starting from presenting the WEF nexus concept and exploring the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the WEF resources, our study aims to detect the barriers and the opportunities to turn the WEF nexus from a vicious circle of trade-offs into a virtuous circle of synergies that feed each other. To overcome this challenge, several actions are identified and specific recommendations are made for the way forward.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and the choice of the West to support Ukraine by introducing economic sanctions against Russia, have prompted a series of changes in the global order, exacerbating the negative socio-economic trends triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Among its many perturbing impacts, a first and immediate consequence has been what can be considered the first truly energy crisis on a world scale. The current global energy crisis did not start with the Ukraine war, but in the late summer of 2021, when the economic rebound prompted by the ending of the global COVID-19 lockdowns spurred global energy consumption, and escalated in 2022, when the prices of natural gas and oil reached their highest level since 2008. The conflict-energy ¶{p. 301}crisis equation is strictly related to the fact that Russia plays a key role in the global energy market, with world leadership in both oil (12.3 per cent of global supply in 2021) and gas (23.6 per cent of global supply in 2021) exports (tab. 1).

The current energy crisis shares several parallels with the oil shocks of the 1970s triggered by the oil embargo imposed by Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). At the same time, it also shows important differences for two orders of reasons. While the 1970s price shocks were primarily limited to oil, today’s crisis involves all fossil fuels.

Furthermore, the energy crisis has occurred in a very different global scenario from that of the oil crisis in the last century. The present crisis erupted in the presence of:

1. inflation levels that in many economies already reached the peak of the last 40 years;

2. unprecedented global debt, both in absolute and in relative terms, as countries launched different aid programmes to react to the COVID-19 economic crisis;

3. an increasingly interconnected and globalized world, which has quickly spread the consequences of the conflict throughout the global energy market [IEA 2022].

In such a context, energy prices exponentially surged not only in Europe but worldwide, raising inflation and pushing a number of economies into recession [European Union 2023]. ¶{p. 302}

The epicentre of the conflict explicitly involves two countries, Russia and Ukraine, that are also global leaders in producing and exporting food and fertilizers. As a result, the Russia-Ukraine crisis has also posed serious food security challenges, raising widespread concern for a global food crisis similar to or even worse than those the world faced in 2007-2008 and 2010-2011. Supply interruptions in the Black Sea region, combined with export restrictions, stalled shipments and panic buying resulted in dramatic food price spikes that exacerbated hunger in the world’s poorest and most vulnerable regions. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI), an indicator that monitors international prices of a basket of food commodities, reached the highest level recorded since its inception in 1990 in March 2022, averaging at 159.3 points, 12.6 per cent higher than in February 2022 and 3.1 points above the previous peak in February 2011 [UNCTAD 2023] (fig. 1) [2] .

IPES-FOOD, an independent international panel of experts on sustainable food systems, points out that several structural food system weaknesses allowed the Ukrainian crisis to escalate so rapidly: highly concentrated markets on both food input and output supply sides; excessive speculation in the wheat market; and the mutual and compounded consequences of conflicts and climate change impacts on food security. Global trade in food commodities is highly concentrated, with several importing countries dependent on a limited number of exporters, which amplify the repercussions of supply shocks in exporting countries [3] . In the last two decades, the Black Sea region has emerged as a major supplier of grains and oilseeds, with Russia and Ukraine exporting 34 per cent of globally traded wheat, 17 per cent of maize and 73 per cent of sunflower oil [FAO 2022]. Similarly, Russia and Ukraine together account for about 27 and 17 per ¶{p. 303}cent of the global barley and maize trade, respectively. These exports represent a substantial share of global consumption and diets, accounting for about 12 per cent of total calories traded worldwide.

Price shocks are also being exacerbated by several dysfunctions in global grain markets linked to the impact of financial speculation. As highlighted by an Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) Market Monitor report [2023], investors rushed into wheat and corn futures immediately following the invasion of Ukraine. In just a few days, the price of cereals on futures markets jumped 54 per cent, exacerbating historical volatility for agricultural commodities in both the USA and Europe. For other items, high price volatility may mean more significant gains or losses for investors; in the case of food, it translates into higher real-world prices affecting the poorest.