Renewables Boost: First Putin, Now Trump
- 42 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Soaring oil and gas prices as a result of the war in the Middle East have added fresh momentum to the renewable energy transition. This is very similar to the energy shock when Putin's "special operation" got underway in Ukraine in March 2022. At that time, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had sped up the transition towards renewable energy, adding that it was “a historic turning point towards a cleaner future.” A few months later, the IEA raised its global forecast for renewables growth in what it called its “largest ever upward revision” for the sector - predicting 76 percent more growth than it did just two years earlier.
Fast forwarding to this week, South Korea’s president Lee Jae Myung said that the crisis in the Middle East offered an “opportunity to swiftly and extensively transition to renewable energy." Teresa Ribera, the executive vice-president of the European Commission, agreed. “The real risk is not moving too fast on clean energy, but too slowly,” she said. “The clean transition is Europe’s shield against volatility.”
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reports that economic ministers from south-east Asian nations pledged to accelerate the transition towards renewables to “strengthen regional energy security and resilience." The FT also noted that "Trump’s war will boost the clean energy sector he despises."
In the southern hemisphere, Kenya’s foreign minister Musalia Mudavadi asked: “If Africa were powered by clean" energy… would the Middle East crisis carry the same distressing impact?”
Offering an answer was UN secretary-general António Guterres. “The resources of the clean-energy era cannot be blockaded or weaponised,” he said. “There are no price spikes for sunlight and no embargoes on the wind. The fastest path to energy security, economic security and national security is clear: speed up a just transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.”