Clean energy reduces hydrocarbon dependence but that’s unlikely to make the world more peaceful

Rewiring the world with green energy is a “path to peace,” in the words of the late environmental journalist Ross Gelbspan. “If an alien came to visit, I’d be embarrassed to tell them that we fight wars to pull fossil fuels out of the ground,” astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson once remarked.

And yet the unravelling of the global fossil fuel system may well be a source of chaos rather than calm. Two wars have already erupted in major oil-exporting regions since global leaders started committing to net-zero five years ago.

States that are energy independent may also find themselves less fearful of conflict than ones beholden to foreign suppliers. Have a look at countries that have become less reliant on energy imports in recent decades; it’s hardly a list of pacifists.

Consider a ranking of ‘electrostates’—countries that have done most to switch away from fossil-fired engines and boilers, and toward electrical motors, machinery and heat pumps. China’s surging consumption makes it the archetypal example, but if you consider grid power as a share of energy, the biggest electrostates are Norway, Sweden and then Israel.

It’s a similar picture when you look at the share of energy consumption supplied by imports. Thanks to the discovery of offshore gas fields and the growth of solar power and electric vehicles, in Israel this fell 62% between 2010 and 2022. That’s the most dramatic reversal anywhere, and it’s left the country with far greater economic resilience. Since the start of the war with Iran, the shekel is one of the world’s best-performing currencies, up about 2.6%.

Other countries have trodden a similar path. The fracking boom has turned the US from a net importer to a net exporter of oil, and it is similarly insulated from many of the effects of the Strait of Hormuz crisis. At the Waha hub pricing point in west Texas, gas producers will currently pay you about $4.62 per million British thermal units to take their product. Petrol prices are up, but gas-linked electricity costs should stay low. That’s not making Washington any less bellicose.

China, meanwhile, has built an entire clean energy industry in part to reduce its need for imported oil and gas. Belt and Road pipelines and railways to bypass the Strait of Malacca have been built to blunt the threat of a US oil embargo in the event of war, while dirty domestic coal reserves have been used to trade-proof the grid. If those actions have increased Beijing’s strategic autonomy as intended, they’ll make war more likely, not less.

Similar efforts will now accelerate around the world. Renewable power is cheaper almost everywhere and is inherently energy-independent; the sun and the wind don’t have to pass through an ocean strait to make it to generators. Once equipment is connected, it can provide power for decades without a drop of imported fuel. With the US apparently abandoning its role as the guarantor of global freedom of navigation, the strategic value of that consideration has increased drastically.

That doesn’t necessarily bode well for peace. Trade has long been recognized as a restraint on conflict. “The commercial spirit cannot co-exist with war,” Immanuel Kant once wrote. By raising the economic cost of conflict, the deepening integration of the global economy since the Cold War has helped restrain it.

That process has been inextricably linked to carbon. Fossil fuels comprise about 40% of the tonnage that’s moved by sea each year. Crude oil is consistently the most-traded product globally, followed by computer chips, cars and refined petroleum. Add in gas and coal, and about 12% of the value of global trade comes from carbon-emitting energy alone.

We have seen this play out before. After Britain pushed Germany into famine during World War I by blockading its imports of food and fertilizer, European economies and Japan turned to autarky, a policy of industrial self-sufficiency, to ensure they were never put in the same situation. That in turn fuelled the zero-sum competition that eventually sparked another, far more devastating conflict in 1939.

The Iran conflict is sure to spur the world’s transition away from fossil fuels in favour of clean energy. But if that’s done for national security—out of fear of each other, rather than hope for the future—it may push us further away from peace rather than closer to it. ©Bloomberg

The author is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy.