Energy security in an age of conflict

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The UK may have chosen to stay out of Donald Trump’s disastrous war with Iran, but we cannot escape its consequences. The Strait of Hormuz – a narrow maritime chokepoint through which a fifth of global oil and gas passes – is once again a source of instability and economic pain. Households across the UK are bracing for another blow to their living standards, driven by our exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets over which we have little control. This is the second such shock in just five years, with half of the UK’s recessions since 1970 caused by spikes in fossil fuel prices.

But the UK is far from the only country vulnerable to the whims of global oil and gas markets and the hostile states that control them. The question is not whether the latest upheaval in the Middle East will impact countries around the world, but how quickly and how severely. Experts warn that even if the crisis in Iran is resolved swiftly, the economic consequences will play out over months and years, with many of the worst effects still to come.

In an interconnected world, it would be foolish for wealthy countries to turn inwards and simply look after their own. The UK’s supply chains are heavily reliant on countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the Philippines. If spikes in fossil fuel prices push those economies into blackouts or recession, the consequences here will be inflation, disrupted imports, and economic instability. If the rich world tries to outbid poorer nations for dwindling fuel supplies, we risk a global race to the bottom where the poorest suffer first, but everyone suffers eventually.

The world has made impressive progress on climate cooperation over the last 30 years, but we remain far off target, with the irrational US-led backlash against renewable energy making further progress harder still. The failure of the too-little-too-late 2009 COP summit in Copenhagen underscored the challenge of getting global agreement on decarbonisation. And the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, while a major step forward, still put the onus on states to create their own targets and work towards them individually – an ever-more insufficient framework in an increasingly unstable world. New global instability requires a new international approach that focuses on how decarbonisation can deliver energy security through resilience and supply diversity.

The truth is that clean energy is no longer simply the solution to climate change. It is the foundation of economic stability, national security, and global peace. The alternative is a world in which fossil fuels continue to drive instability, conflict, and economic crises. That future is not inevitable – but it is the future we will drift into if we fail to act.

Source: Wikipedia