Iran War Gives Renewable Energy a Global Boost - Rob Horowitz

Iran War Gives Renewable Energy a Global Boost - Rob Horowitz

One unintended consequence of our war of choice with Iran is likely to be an acceleration of the ongoing global transition away from fossil fuels toward non-carbon-producing renewable energy.  While an agreement between the United States and Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz appears to have been struck, its closure has illustrated to nations around the world the relative ease of shutting down sea lanes at strategic chokepoints through which a significant share of the global supply of oil and gas passes.

 

As Ian Bremmer, the founder of the Eurasia Group and a keen analyst of global trends, wrote on his GZERO Media website, “By exposing the dangers of relying on oil and gas imports, Trump’s war may be the single greatest accelerant of the global transition to post-carbon energy.”   Some early signs of this Iran war-related acceleration are the March surge in electric vehicle (EV) sales in the European Union and South Korea and the April flow of more than “$3 billion into exchange-traded funds linked to renewables,” reported Axios.

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The war with Iran created additional momentum for a transition that is already well underway. More than 90% of all new global electrical capacity now comes from renewable sources,“such as solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal,” according to the World Resources Institute.  Renewables now account for 34% of global electricity generation. Even before the war with Iran, the International Energy Agency projected that by 2030, nearly half of global electricity generation would be produced by renewables.  Today, 1 in 4 new cars sold worldwide are EVs.

 

The prime driver of the transition away from fossil fuels is the steadily declining cost of solar and wind power. In the past decade, the cost of solar and wind has declined between 70% and 90%. The advances in battery technology, which create more efficient storage and conversion to power for these non-carbon-producing energy sources, have also led to more widespread adoption.  

 

Government policies designed to address climate change have played a role as well. Fortunately, the rest of the world does not share the head-in-the-sand climate denialism of the Trump administration; nor its back to the 1950s’ energy policy with its nearly exclusive emphasis on fossil fuels.

 

The rest of the world has stayed in the Paris Climate Agreement and accepts the established science: global warming is mainly generated by carbon-producing fossil fuels. The rest of the world recognizes we are approaching a potential tipping point-the 1.5% Celsius or 2.7% Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures from the pre-industrial age that scientists tell us will begin to bring about the worst consequences of climate change.

 

In an otherwise disastrous war of choice, it is a happy accident that Mr. Trump’s actions have inadvertently boosted the global transition away from fossil fuels.  This is a truly delicious irony.