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Image by Ioannis Xenidis.<\/p>\n
After British troops had beaten German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel\u2019s tank forces at the Second Battle of El Alamein in Egypt on November 4, 1942, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill\u00a0declared<\/a>, \u201cThis is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n The same might now be said about humanity\u2019s struggle to defeat the dire threat of global climate change caused by our never-ending burning of fossil fuels. The illegal war of aggression on Iran, abruptly launched on February 28, 2026, by the governments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump, has indeed provoked a global energy crisis of a unique kind. The Iranians, of course, responded by imposing a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz that promptly\u00a0removed<\/a>\u00a0about 11% to 13% of all petroleum from the world market, day after day, week after week, setting off a cascade of steeply rising prices for diesel fuel, gasoline, and natural gas.<\/p>\n Donald Trump\u2019s brilliant idea of joining the blockade of that Strait should be considered the equivalent of coming to the aid of a strangulation victim by pressing a pillow over his or her face. The shortages hit first in Asia (particularly reliant on fuel flows from the Strait of Hormuz) and Africa and then in Europe. The German air carrier Lufthansa only recently\u00a0cut<\/a>\u00a020,000 summer flights for fear of fuel shortages (and it will undoubtedly prove all too typical). Nor will the U.S., despite having its own supplies of oil,\u00a0escape<\/a>\u00a0such negative developments. While there have been oil price crunches before, as in the 1970s and 1980s, this one is different. It\u2019s a watershed moment globally, heralding the Ragnar\u00f6k \u2014 the Norse \u201ctwilight of the gods\u201d \u2014 of petroleum.<\/p>\n Forced to Run on One Engine<\/strong><\/p>\n While American drivers have been complaining this spring about high prices at the pump, in the Netherlands and Denmark consumers are already\u00a0paying<\/a>\u00a0the stunning equivalent of around $10 a gallon. In Asia, where reliance on petroleum that travels through the Strait of Hormuz is enormous, the situation is far worse, since there are already distinct shortages of fuel of a staggering and still growing kind. Philippines President Ferdinand \u201cBongbong\u201d Marcos, Jr., recently\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0a national energy emergency, as his country had only a little over\u00a0a month\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0worth of petroleum left. Hundreds of gas stations, nearly 3% of the country\u2019s total,\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0temporary closures, resulting in long lines at those that remained open.<\/p>\n South Korea, which unwisely dragged its feet when it came to turning to green energy, is now\u00a0scrambling<\/a>\u00a0to find just three months\u2019 supply of petroleum from non-Hormuz sources, but the world\u2019s 10th-largest economy faces a potential economic cataclysm. The government has already\u00a0restricted<\/a>\u00a0parking for commuters. The rise in gasoline costs has led many consumers to simply stay home if they can, spurring a buying spree of novels and video games. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, a human rights lawyer, implicitly blamed Israel\u2019s blatant disregard for International Humanitarian Law for the calamity, engaging in a days-long internet flame war with Tel Aviv in early April.<\/p>\n In Bangladesh, the state-owned Eastern Refinery has been forced to\u00a0close<\/a>\u00a0due to a lack of crude oil to process.\u00a0Meanwhile, the government has\u00a0allowed<\/a>\u00a0gasoline and diesel prices to rise by 11% to 15%, putting pressure on the costs of transportation, agricultural production, and consumer items, while creating\u00a0endless lines<\/a>\u00a0for what gasoline remains. With boat operators, ferries, and fishing boats\u00a0unable to secure<\/a>\u00a0enough diesel fuel for their motors, a whole range of livelihoods are being hurt. As \u00a0Al Jazeera<\/a>\u00a0reported, Bangladeshi ferry operator Abir Hussain typically offered this complaint: \u201cWe are struggling to maintain our regular schedule. We are forced to run on just one engine to conserve diesel, due to the fuel shortages.\u201d<\/p>\n Heavily dependent on fossil gas for its electricity plants, Bangladesh has already suffered widespread\u00a0outages<\/a>, harming factories and schools \u2014 and, of course, even if the Strait of Hormuz were to reopen soon, the pain throughout Asia is likely to be long-lasting.<\/p>\n Stagflation<\/strong><\/p>\n Oil price crises are hardly new. Because of a boycott of Europe and the United States by Arab oil producers during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and the rising power of the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) cartel, the price of petroleum actually\u00a0quadrupled<\/a>\u00a0between 1970 and 1980. That energy crisis produced economic malaise in the United States, where the economy became afflicted with \u201cstagflation\u201d \u2014 both stagnation and inflation, two phenomena not usually found together.<\/p>\n So much capital flowed to the oil states of the Persian Gulf then, particularly Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iran, that President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger\u00a0schemed<\/a>\u00a0to avoid deflation in the U.S. by pressuring those countries to buy enormous amounts of American military equipment. Over the decades, that oil-arms nexus would drive the United States toward ever more ruinous conflicts in the Gulf region, since arms manufacturers and oil companies, two of the more influential corporate sectors in American politics, had a motive for lobbying repeatedly to get Washington to intervene there. And of course, their behind-the-scenes pressure to continue the country\u2019s forever wars in that region would be bolstered by the\u00a0Israel Lobby<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1978-1979, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988, the Gulf War of 1990-1991, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 were all further shocks to the energy system. The major industrialized countries responded to such challenges by increasing their fuel efficiency, while switching to nuclear power, coal, and natural gas for ever more of their electricity and heating. \u00a0In the U.S., in part because of government regulation, the average passenger car went from a\u00a0fuel efficiency<\/a>\u00a0of 13.5 miles per gallon in 1975 to 27.5 miles per gallon by 1985, while global per capita use of petroleum\u00a0declined<\/a>\u00a0after the 1970s oil shock and has never recovered.<\/p>\n The Great Hormuz Fuel Crisis<\/strong><\/p>\n The Great Hormuz Fuel Crisis of 2026 has the potential to permanently reduce petroleum demand far more radically. The deadlock in the Strait of Hormuz has all the hallmarks of a chronic ailment. After all, Israel and Iran have struck each other four times now \u2014 in April and then October 2024, in the 12-day war of June 2025 (when President Trump joined in), and again this spring. None of those four military actions successfully established Iranian deterrence, leaving Tehran eternally vulnerable to further Israeli and U.S. strikes.<\/p>\n And yet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu\u2019s determination to destroy Iran\u2019s industrial base has also failed so far. Of course, that doesn\u2019t mean the Israeli elite won\u2019t try again once their country and the U.S. have built back up their\u00a0depleted stores of interceptors<\/a>\u00a0and so become more confident that Tel Aviv will be able to withstand further Iranian ballistic missile and drone barrages. In addition, Iran\u2019s new claim that, from here on in, it will have the right to charge tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz, though it may have\u00a0some support<\/a>\u00a0in international law, is unacceptable to the U.S., the Arab Gulf states, and Israel, and so forms an irritant likely to lead to further conflict.<\/p>\n In short, Israel and the United States have destabilized the Persian Gulf and global oil and natural gas supplies for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n How different today\u2019s crisis is from the Middle Eastern one set off by Washington\u2019s Operation Desert Storm, aimed at expelling the Iraqi military from Kuwait in 1991. Since the strength of Baathist Iraq then lay in its armored forces, the U.S. and its allies could use their own armor and air power to bottle them up inside Iraq and deny that country\u2019s military the ability to further destabilize the Persian Gulf region.<\/p>\n In contrast, since then Iran has put much of its military energy into ballistic missile and drone production, weapons that, no matter what the U.S. and Israel do, can continue to strike sites across the Middle East. While petroleum prices\u00a0doubled<\/a>\u00a0during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990, they quickly fell once it was over. Subsequent losses from sanctions on Iraq and oil fires in Kuwait were offset by increases in OPEC production, especially in Saudi Arabia. That country is, in fact, one of the few major swing producers left in the world. The U.S. and Russia still produce a great deal of crude oil, but they use most of it themselves. On the other hand, because of its vast oil fields and small population, Saudi Arabia can\u00a0vary<\/a>\u00a0its production, lowering it when the price falls too low for its liking and increasing it substantially during a crisis.<\/p>\n Phantasmagoric Assertions<\/strong><\/p>\n At the moment, however, the Saudis can\u2019t substantially offset the shortfall in crude oil through Hormuz because it\u2019s caught up in the crisis itself and its pipeline to the Red Sea has\u00a0limited<\/a>\u00a0extra capacity; nor, despite President Trump\u2019s phantasmagoric\u00a0assertions<\/a>, can the U.S., since it\u2019s not a net exporter but a\u00a0net consumer<\/a>\u00a0of crude oil. It is, however, a net exporter of liquid hydrocarbons, including hydrocarbon gas liquids (HGLs), primarily propane, which make up about 25% of total U.S. gross \u201cpetroleum\u201d exports. Propane, however, is mainly used for heating buildings and you can\u2019t fill up on HGLs at the pump.\u00a0Since gasoline and diesel prices are set by the world market, the U.S. production of crude will not keep American prices at the pump from rising.<\/p>\n The oil supply for vehicles is relatively inelastic.\u00a0 And yet a world that used roughly 104 million barrels a day of petroleum in 2025 has been limping along this spring with as little as\u00a092 million barrels<\/a>\u00a0a day, while chronic shortages loom, even once the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, since\u00a0numerous<\/a>\u00a0major refineries in the region have been badly damaged. Demand also will remain relatively inelastic as long as owners locked into vehicles with internal combustion engines have to keep on buying gasoline and diesel fuel (no matter how high the prices go) to get to work, ensuring that those prices will remain elevated until the supply increases substantially.<\/p>\n The Hormuz crisis, however, differs from past oil shocks in significant ways. As a start, it\u2019s happening at a time when scientists are discovering ever more unsettling consequences from fossil-fuel-caused climate change \u2014 most recently, a potentially calamitous\u00a0slowdown<\/a>\u00a0in or possibly\u00a0even future collapse<\/a>\u00a0of the crucial Atlantic Ocean current system by midcentury, which could have a devastating impact on the planet. As a result,\u00a0wise governments<\/a>\u00a0have an increasing motivation to enact policies encouraging the electrification of public transport of every sort and so much else as well.<\/p>\n In addition, the recent conflict in the Strait of Hormuz signals an ongoing geopolitical volatility in the heart of oil country that may not subside, even though the latest oil war has arrived at a time when there is an increasingly robust alternative to gas-powered transportation in the form of electric vehicles (EVs), to which consumers are already\u00a0switching<\/a>\u00a0in striking numbers. Countries are also\u00a0turning<\/a>\u00a0ever more to wind and solar power, no small thing since the crunch in the Strait also affects the global distribution of natural gas from Qatar. The five countries in the European Union with the most green energy are set to\u00a0save<\/a>\u00a0nearly $10 billion more in costs than fossil-heavy EU countries.<\/p>\n The Elephant in the Showroom<\/strong><\/p>\n In the United Kingdom, EV sales\u00a0spiked<\/a>\u00a0a record 24% in March over the same month last year. Moreover, there was a potentially game-changing turning point there, as the average cost of an electric vehicle for the first time\u00a0fell below<\/a>\u00a0that of a similar gasoline-powered car. \u00a0Meanwhile, renewable energy generation in England also\u00a0swelled<\/a>\u00a0strikingly.<\/p>\n Asia, however, was the place that saw the most dramatic changes. Vietnam now makes its own electric car, the Vinfast, and its sales\u00a0skyrocketed<\/a>\u00a0by 127% in March. Some 40% of new vehicle sales there last year were already electric, a percentage that is expected to rise rapidly in the wake of the Strait of Hormuz disaster. Vietnamese schoolteacher Dao Thi Hue caught the mood of the moment while visiting a Vinfast dealership by\u00a0saying<\/a>,\u00a0 \u201cDriving an EV is so much better than driving a petroleum vehicle, in terms of costs and also in terms of saving fuel, queuing to fill up.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, the elephant in the global EV showroom is China.\u00a0 In 2024, it\u00a0produced<\/a>\u00a0more than 12 million electric, hybrid, and fuel-cell vehicles (also known as \u201cNew Energy Vehicles\u201d). That figure amounts to 70% of global production and EVs accounted for 53% of new car registrations in China last year. Moreover, China already has the\u00a0ability<\/a>\u00a0to produce 20 million EVs annually, so it is only producing at 65% capacity. \u00a0And the rush to buy electric vehicles isn\u2019t just focused on passenger vehicles but also on\u00a0heavy trucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n Although domestic sales in China faced some headwinds because government incentives for such purchases lapsed late last year, March sales of 1.25 million New Energy Vehicles there\u00a0were up<\/a>\u00a0slightly from the previous year and recent sales were up 67% from this February\u2019s. The big news, however, is that Chinese EV growth was driven primarily by exports, a record 371,000 units in March, a 130% increase over the same month in 2025. Chinese lithium battery\u00a0exports<\/a>\u00a0were also up in the first quarter by 50.1%, a figure that is only expected to grow as the effects of the Hormuz blockade tear through the world economy. Overall, China\u2019s Greentech exports are\u00a0surging<\/a>.<\/p>\n Periodic Shocks<\/strong><\/p>\n Count on this: ever more consumers are likely to purchase electric vehicles globally, since they\u2019re immune to the periodic price shocks caused by Persian Gulf instability. Moreover, their sticker prices continue\u00a0to fall<\/a>. New\u00a0discoveries<\/a>\u00a0of lithium resources and new, less expensive batteries also promise to bring their prices down even further. Moreover, China\u2019s\u00a0Contemporary Amperex Technology Company (or CATL),\u00a0a giant battery manufacturer, has just\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that it has developed a new battery that will enable an electric vehicle to travel 932 miles on a single charge (which, by the way, would only take six and a half minutes to complete).<\/p>\n These are potentially internal-combustion-engine-killing developments. Governments of countries lacking significant oil resources like India are already\u00a0committing<\/a>\u00a0themselves to vast build-outs of charging stations and creating ever more incentives to buy EVs and phase out gas-driven vehicles. Because the Hormuz crisis is hitting Asia (with its vast population of 4.8 billion people) hardest, the new and somewhat frantic\u00a0commitment<\/a>\u00a0by so many of its governments and its consumers to the electrification of transport will have the effect of further dropping prices globally for electric batteries and other technology and so will be pivotal in the fight against climate change.<\/p>\n In short, count on one thing: however devastating the immediate effects of the disaster in the Strait of Hormuz, the latest horrific Iran war is also helping to change the world forever in ways that could prove positive indeed.<\/p>\n This piece first appeared on TomDispatch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image by Ioannis Xenidis. 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