By Ezgi Canpolat, Harvard College
The oil-dependent world is in disaster. Ship visitors within the Strait of Hormuz – by means of which greater than 1 / 4 of worldwide seaborne oil commerce and a fifth of the world’s liquefied pure fuel circulation – is at a digital standstill. Oil costs have climbed, briefly topping US$119 a barrel.
The largest launch of oil from nations’ strategic reserves in historical past is underneath manner, in an effort to ease costs. Besides, billions of individuals are coping with surging power costs and spiking meals and fertilizer prices. Governments are scrambling for alternate options, too. To cut back power demand, Sri Lanka has declared each Wednesday a vacation for public officers, Myanmar is limiting personal car use to each different day, and Bangladeshi faculties have canceled lessons.
Leaders of South Korea and the European Fee have used the present power disaster to name for accelerating the shift away from fossil fuels and towards homegrown renewable sources. U.N. Secretary-Common António Guterres put it plainly in a March 10, 2026, social media put up: “There are not any value spikes for daylight and no embargoes on the wind.”
I grew up in a coal-mining city in Turkey. I now research power transitions throughout the Center East and North Africa in a analysis undertaking I co-lead at Harvard College. I’ve seen {that a} nation’s want to extend renewable power isn’t the identical as a plan to take action.
The very area embroiled on this battle reveals that there’s not a linear shift from fossil fuels to renewable sources. Moderately, there are distinct trajectories, pushed by power dependence, fiscal pressures, governance and stability. Disruption on the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t imply the identical factor in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, because it does in Ankara, Turkey, or Baghdad, Iraq.
The petrostates hedging each side
For Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, this disaster is a warning dressed as a windfall.
Oil costs have surged, which in principle means greater revenues. However the very infrastructure that produces and delivers that wealth is underneath direct assault. Iran has focused oil refineries and cargo facilities throughout the Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz closure is concurrently choking off their means to get product to market, exposing how weak the infrastructure of fossil gas wealth could be.
All three nations have additionally dedicated to boosting renewable power manufacturing. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, the federal government goals for renewable power sources to account for 50% of electrical energy era by 2030, up from simply 3% on the finish of 2023.
Saudi Arabia’s greatest group of unpolluted power firms has pledged to spend $17 billion on photo voltaic and wind – throughout all their initiatives, unfold out over a number of years.
However these efforts sit alongside vastly bigger investments in fossil gas manufacturing. In 2025 alone, the nation’s nationally owned oil firm, Saudi Aramco, spent $52.2 billion constructing new oil and fuel infrastructure.
This isn’t a contradiction. It’s a technique constructed on the belief that the world will maintain shopping for fossil fuels for many years to return. The present disaster reinforces that assumption, but it surely additionally exposes its vulnerability: As battle drives up oil costs, each oil-importing nation is feeling the price of persevering with oil dependence. And each stranded export proves the power transition can’t wait.
Value shock and necessity
Vitality-importing nations equivalent to Jordan, Morocco and Turkey are investing in renewable power for a special purpose: Fossil gas dependence is bankrupting them.
Turkey imports over 70% of its fossil fuels, together with nearly all of its pure fuel, 17% of which comes from Iran. Pure fuel accounts for lower than a fifth of electrical energy era, however it’s the spine of the nation’s heating and industrial sectors and a serious concern if provide falters. Turkey’s power import invoice is climbing at a time when the financial system is already underneath pressure from rising borrowing prices and weakening foreign money worth.
Jordan, which traditionally has imported over 90% of its power, faces related strain.
However these nations can be in far worse positions had they not already been investing in alternate options.
Greater than half of Turkey’s put in electrical energy capability now comes from renewable power sources. Morocco constructed one of many world’s largest concentrated photo voltaic amenities, and renewable sources now provide 25% of the nation’s electrical energy. Equally, Jordan has gone from nearly no renewable electrical energy to renewable sources offering greater than 1 / 4 of its energy in roughly a decade.
The present battle has vindicated their investments in renewable power – although the vindication has limits. The identical disaster that proves the worth of renewable power funding additionally raises inflation, tightens credit score and strains the very public funds these nations must maintain constructing.
Each kilowatt-hour generated by a Turkish wind turbine or a Moroccan photo voltaic panel is one that doesn’t rely on a tanker passing by means of the Strait of Hormuz. However the monetary strain means constructing the following renewable producing undertaking simply obtained tougher.
Disaster upon disaster
Then there are nations the place this battle lands on prime of current emergencies.
Iraq, the second-largest oil producer within the area and within the Group of the Petroleum Exporting Nations, is determined by Iranian fuel imports to generate a lot of its electrical energy – a provide line now instantly threatened by the battle. Oil exports by means of the southern port of Basra, on the Persian Gulf, fund roughly 90% of Iraq’s authorities income. If these revenues are disrupted, the federal government could also be unable to perform. Iraq already suffers continual electrical energy shortages and has nearly no renewable power capability to fall again on.
In Yemen, Libya and Syria, power infrastructure has been broken or destroyed by years of battle. These nations import gas at international costs to run mills and maintain hospitals lit. Each greenback added to the value of oil makes that tougher. For them, this battle isn’t mentioning causes to shift to renewable sources: It’s threatening power entry itself.
A global problem
In November 2026, the U.N.’s annual local weather summit involves the area on the middle of this disaster, with Turkey as host.
The battle within the Center East has made a robust case for the financial, political and humanitarian advantages of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable power sources. But it surely has additionally uncovered one thing the worldwide dialog constantly misses: Completely different nations are heading in several instructions, based mostly on their very own circumstances, lots of which predate this battle.
Understanding these paths issues as a result of it reveals what nations’ guarantees can not: the place the actual boundaries are, the place the incentives exist already, and the place assist would make a distinction – earlier than the following disruption hits. For my part, this battle has helped win the argument about whether or not to shift to renewable power, but it surely has additionally highlighted a tougher query: What does it really take to construct these sources, nation by nation?
Concerning the Writer:
Ezgi Canpolat, Visiting Postdoctoral Scholar, Middle for Center Japanese Research, Harvard College
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