The war in Iran is choking off oil and gas supplies and spiking energy prices across the globe. And for many environmentalists, that’s a powerful argument for countries to curb their use of fossil fuels and shift to wind, solar and other renewable sources.
But as the chaos forces nations to rethink their energy policies, the results could be messy — and cleaner options may not always be the winner.
Some countries in Europe and Asia may try to install more wind turbines, solar panels and batteries to buffer themselves against surges in the price of natural gas, as many did after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. If oil prices stay elevated, electric cars could become a more economical option for drivers from Brazil to the United States.
“This newest upheaval shows yet again that fossil fuel dependence leaves economies, businesses, markets and people at the mercy of each new conflict,” said Simon Stiell, the United Nations climate chief. Investing in renewable energy, he said, is “the obvious pathway to energy security.”
Yet other countries could respond to the supply crunch by burning more coal — a highly polluting fossil fuel, but cheap and readily available — or embracing American natural gas. And if the Iran conflict causes interest rates to rise, that could make new renewable energy systems more expensive, analysts said.
The Trump administration, for its part, has been urging nations to use more oil and gas and is pitching the United States as a stable supplier of fossil fuels in a dangerous geopolitical era.
“It’s like an inkblot test,” said David Victor, a professor of public policy at the University of California, San Diego. “The war has reminded everybody of the powerful importance of energy security. And with that reminder, you have radically different responses.”
The war also underscores a notable shift in the global energy landscape. For years, many world leaders declared tackling global warming a top priority and called for a shift to cleaner energy sources that didn’t heat the planet. But recently, rising geopolitical and trade risks have spurred countries to look for homegrown sources of any kind of energy. That could include solar or nuclear power but also coal or gas.
A scramble for energy
The fighting in the Middle East has already exposed vulnerabilities in global energy markets. Roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil and much of its natural gas normally travels by ship through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway off the southern coast of Iran.
Since the war began, Iran has been attacking tankers in the strait and traffic has slowed to a crawl, cutting off critical energy supplies. International oil prices rose by as much as one-third before dropping somewhat over the past few days.
The shock waves have been profound.
Qatar, which supplies one-fifth of the world’s liquefied natural gas, has halted gas production, leading to price spikes and factory shutdowns in faraway countries that rely on the fuel, including India, South Korea and Taiwan. In Vietnam, “sold out” signs are appearing at gasoline stations. In Pakistan, officials have urged four-day workweeks to save energy. Hungary and Croatia have imposed price controls on domestic fuels.
In the short term, many countries are racing to secure energy supplies wherever they can. That often means scrambling for oil, gas and coal, which together still provide 80 percent of the world’s energy needs.
In Thailand, which typically imports much of its natural gas from Qatar, officials have ordered domestic coal plants to run at full capacity and the national oil and gas company to maximize local production to make up the shortfall. In Taiwan, officials have broached the possibility of restarting a shuttered coal plant.
In Europe, where natural gas prices have spiked more than 75 percent since the war began, nations are buying more U.S. liquefied natural gas, outbidding poorer countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh.
“In the short term, countries will get energy wherever they can find it,” said Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm. “But in the long run, there’s room for a rethink.”
Rethinking oil and gas imports
Depending on the length and severity of the Iran conflict, some nations could seek to reduce their reliance on oil and gas imports from the Middle East in the coming years, experts said.
That could be a boon for U.S. gas exporters who can offer an alternative to gas shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Over the past decade, thanks to advances in fracking technology, the United States has become by far the world’s biggest supplier of liquefied natural gas, a form of gas that has been cooled for shipment. U.S. companies are expected to double export capacity by 2031.
“The security argument for Qatari gas has really been undermined, and this is going to bolster the case for a lot of new L.N.G. projects out there,” said Ira Joseph, a scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Some countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere could also turn to domestic sources of coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels but also widely available in many parts of the world. In recent years, nations like India, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan have all been developing new coal plants, and global coal consumption has reached record highs.
“If your goal is domestically produced energy and you’re South Africa or Indonesia or China, coal looks pretty good from energy security standpoint,” said Jason Bordoff, the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy.
A far less polluting option would be for countries to invest in renewable energy sources like wind and solar power, which do not require fuel and could help insulate them from volatile swings in gas and oil markets.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and cut off gas supplies, Europe stepped up its investment in solar power, with installations surging from roughly 40 gigawatts per year to nearly 65 gigawatts per year. (One gigawatt produces roughly enough electricity at peak output to power 300,000 homes.)
Last year, nations spent more than $780 billion on renewable energy, according to the International Energy Agency, more than they invested in oil infrastructure.
“My expectation, if post-Ukraine energy development is any indicator, is that it will accelerate further in countries that do not have access to fossil fuels,” said Ani Dasgupta, head of the World Resources Institute, an environmental group.
A recent analysis from BloombergNEF, a research firm, suggested that the Iran conflict could give a boost to solar power and batteries, both of which have been rapidly falling in cost. Still, there are some obstacles that markets like Europe and India will need to overcome, including grid congestion, land constraints and regulatory bottlenecks.
Nuclear power is another option. In Japan, which is highly dependent on imported natural gas, officials have been gradually restarting nuclear plants that were closed in 2011 after a reactor meltdown at Fukushima. Those efforts could take on a new urgency, since each nuclear plant generally displaces gas power.
Because clean energy and fossil fuels could both benefit, it is unclear what the shifting energy landscape would mean for greenhouse gas emissions.
A case in point is China, which over the last 20 years has pushed hard to reduce its reliance on imported oil and gas — seemingly motivated far more by concern about energy security than climate change.
China has fostered a cutting-edge electric vehicle industry, installed more wind and solar power than the rest of the world combined and is constructing dozens of nuclear power plants. But the country has also built hundreds of coal-burning power plants and — despite the heavy focus on renewables — has quickly become the world’s biggest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, helping to push global temperatures to new highs.
“While China is bearing some pain today, this crisis is in some ways a validation of their energy security strategy over the past 20 years,” said Mr. Bordoff. “In a world where energy is increasingly weaponized and energy security is more at risk, you would expect to see more countries try to reduce their dependence on imports.”
The electric car calculus
The situation is somewhat different in the United States.
Because natural gas markets are highly regional, America’s record gas production has kept the nation relatively protected from price shocks there. Natural gas is the biggest source of electricity in the United States, and the fact that it remains cheap means that other sources like wind, solar or nuclear power are unlikely to get any particular boost from the Iran conflict.
Yet the price of oil, which is traded globally, has been rising, which in turn has made gasoline more expensive for drivers in the United States. That could make electric vehicles more competitive, according to a separate analysis by BloombergNEF.
Today, U.S. gasoline prices are averaging around $3.50 per gallon. If prices were to climb to around $4.00 per gallon, the total cost of owning an electric car like the Tesla Model Y would be roughly similar to the total cost of owning a gasoline-burning Toyota RAV 4, because of the lower fuel costs, the analysis found.
Still, there are plenty of complications, said Ethan Zindler, head of country and policy research at BloombergNEF.
“Consumers would need to believe that prices are going to stay where they are,” he said.
The United States, Canada and Europe have also put tariffs and other trade barriers on Chinese electric vehicles, which are some of the cheapest on the market today. Some experts wonder whether those dynamics could change if prices stay high for long enough.
“The question is when does this crisis go on long enough that it starts to change people’s longer term thinking about energy policy and energy strategy,” said Mr. Zindler. “The higher that prices go, the bigger the shifts we could see.”
Brad Plumer is a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming.
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