The Iran war’s disruption of global oil and gas supply chains has prompted U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and some energy analysts to argue that the conflict may accelerate a shift to homegrown renewable energy — even as other experts warn that fossil fuel shocks more often push nations toward dirtier alternatives. Bombed refineries, disrupted shipping channels, and surging fuel prices have reignited a debate that last surfaced when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, only to fade as European nations replaced natural gas with coal.
The central question is whether energy nationalism — the drive to generate power domestically rather than depend on imported fossil fuels — can accomplish what two decades of international climate diplomacy have not.
The Iran war has prompted a renewed argument among energy experts and world leaders about whether supply disruptions severe enough to threaten national economies might finally accomplish what international climate agreements have not: push reluctant governments toward domestic renewable energy.
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres made the case in a statement to the Associated Press ahead of a Monday address on the subject.
“The turmoil we are witnessing today in the Middle East makes it evident that we are facing a global energy system largely tied to fossil fuels — where supply is concentrated in a few regions and every conflict risks sending shock waves through the global economy,” Guterres said. “In past oil shocks, countries had little choice but to absorb the pain. Now they have an exit ramp.”
Guterres argued that the economics of clean power had shifted decisively. “Homegrown renewable energy has never been cheaper, more accessible, or more scalable,” he said. “The resources of the clean energy era cannot be blockaded or weaponized.”
’Just wishful thinking’
Not all analysts share that assessment. Rob Jackson, a climate scientist at Stanford University who tracks global carbon dioxide emissions, dismissed the prospect as “just wishful thinking,” according to the Associated Press.
Jackson and others point to the Russia-Ukraine war as the controlling precedent. When Russia’s 2022 invasion cut off European natural gas supplies, some nations moved not toward renewables but toward coal, which releases higher concentrations of heat-trapping gases.
“We have seen this at the European level where actors post-2022 slowly wanted to move away from the energy transition which is exactly the wrong lesson,” said Pauline Heinrichs, a war studies lecturer at King’s College in the United Kingdom.
Geoff Dabelko of Ohio University and Neta Crawford of the University of St. Andrews — an author of “The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions” — said China and India, respectively the world’s top and third-largest carbon-emitting countries, could similarly respond to the current conflict by expanding coal use, according to the Associated Press.
The energy-nationalism argument
Proponents of a renewable opening argue that self-interest may prove a more durable engine for transition than global cooperation has been.
Caroline Baxter, director of the Converging Risks Lab at the Council on Strategic Risks in Washington, said the conflict had already produced a “dramatic slowdown” in the movement of fossil fuels to ports. For heavily import-dependent nations such as Japan and South Korea, that disruption to tanker deliveries carries particular weight, she said.
Baxter, who served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for force education and training from 2021 to 2024, said she “wouldn’t be surprised” if some countries shifted toward renewables because of the conflict. She said the case for generating power at home had grown more concrete.
“I think there is an opportunity, rightly or wrongly, for countries to really turn inward and try to power themselves in a way that cuts off their dependence on other nations for that source,” Baxter said.
Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton University professor of climate and international affairs, said formal multilateral negotiations may matter less than unilateral domestic choices in the near term.
“The bottom line is that for at least another five years and maybe longer, emissions reduction will in fact be dealt with largely unilaterally,” Oppenheimer said. “If countries see the Israel-U.S.-Iran war as a further reason to head for the exits on fossil fuels by loosening domestic opposition to the necessary policies, that will be accomplished unilaterally at the domestic level.”
That domestic-policy path has opened against a backdrop of stalled international diplomacy. The most recent U.N. climate conference, COP30, held in Brazil, ended with a final statement that did not use the words “fossil fuels,” according to the Associated Press. The United States did not participate in the conference under President Donald Trump, whose administration initiated the military campaign against Iran. U.N. Secretary-General Guterres said at the time that he “cannot pretend that COP30 has delivered everything that is needed.”
Even as renewable energy installations have surged globally in recent years, outpacing fossil fuel growth in new capacity, the world has continued to increase its overall fossil fuel use annually, with emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and methane reaching new highs each year, the AP reported.
War’s own emissions toll
Even analysts who see some potential for a renewable dividend warn that the conflict itself imposes a steep climate cost that any policy response would struggle to offset.
Reports published before the war began found that the world’s militaries collectively account for 5.5% of Earth’s heat-trapping emissions each year — a share larger than every country’s contribution except China, the United States, and India, according to the Associated Press.
Crawford, who co-founded the Costs of War project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, said direct combat emissions would overwhelm any gains from accelerated clean energy adoption.
“The consequences of war on emissions will far exceed any incremental offset in emissions due to increased enthusiasm for a green transition,” Crawford said.
Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, an energy analyst at IEEFA Europe, said the conflict would nonetheless produce some tangible adoption of clean technology, predicting that the war will lead to more solar panels and heat pumps installed in coming months.