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Yousef Saba and Ahmed Elimam, Reuters
There is continuing media coverage around the world of how the escalating Iran crisis is affecting global energy markets. Reuters says that global oil and gas prices rose on Tuesday as the “US-Israeli war on Iran halted energy exports from the Middle East, with Tehran attacking ships and energy facilities, closing navigation in the Gulf and forcing production stoppages from Qatar to Iraq”. It continues: “The conflict risks triggering a spike in inflation that could choke off economic recovery in Europe and Asia if the war is prolonged in a region that accounts for just under a third of global oil production and almost a fifth of natural gas.” The newswire adds that US president Donald Trump has said that the “US Navy could begin escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping lane, if necessary”. Bloomberg reports that Trump’s escort plan has “failed to bring calm” to oil markets. The Guardian notes that “Iran has, in effect, closed the strait of Hormuz to oil and gas exports for the past four days with a mixture of drone strikes and fear that has halted commercial maritime traffic despite intense US attacks on Iran’s navy”. A frontpage story in the Financial Times says that “stocks and bonds recouped most of their losses on Tuesday even as fears of a prolonged shock to energy prices from the conflict in the Middle East rattled global markets”.
Separately, Bloomberg reports that global diesel prices have surged to a multi-year high amid the crisis. Another Bloomberg story says that Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest producer, has “started shutting oil production at its biggest fields and is set to make even deeper reductions in the coming days”. A Financial Times story says that China is expected to “lean on Russian oil” as the crisis chokes supplies from the Middle East. China will “ensure its own energy security” amid conflict in the Middle East, according to its foreign ministry, reports Reuters. A state-owned oil company says China has “built up its strategic energy reserves…with at least 90 days of crude oil import coverage”, reports China Daily. The International Energy Agency has signalled it is “ready to help stabilise the global oil market” in the wake of the conflict, according to a document prepared by the agency seen by Bloomberg. Both Agence France-Presse and CNBC speculate on how US oil companies could emerge as “winners” from the crisis.
Matt Oliver and James Titcomb, The Daily Telegraph
The UK must “double down” on net-zero as the Middle East crisis has exposed the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels from “parts of the world which are fundamentally unstable”, the business secretary has said, according to the Daily Telegraph. The newspaper quotes the Labour minister Peter Kyle saying: “Doubling down on renewables is, yes, right for climate change, it’s, yes, right for jobs. It is also essential because we keep on seeing these lived examples of how instability, through regional instability, is creeping into our energy prices, for which the British government has no agency.” The transition to low-carbon energy is “about sovereignty”, he added, according to the newspaper. It comes as Trump has told prime minister Keir Starmer to increase North Sea oil and gas drilling “immediately” in response to the crisis, says the Daily Telegraph.
A frontpage story in the Times says that the UK chancellor Rachel Reeves has warned that the UK faces an “economic shock” as the Iran crisis deepens, as “experts warn that the conflict will lead to higher energy bills, petrol prices and inflation”. The newspaper notes that the crisis “overshadowed” Reeves’ financial spring statement, delivered yesterday. The Independent reports that MPs accused Reeves of being “tone deaf” with the delivery of her statement, with some arguing that the government must have a “plan to cap energy bills if the war escalates further”.
MORE ON UK
The Green party, fresh from a landmark byelection victory last week, has overtaken Labour and the Conservatives in a new YouGov poll, says the Financial Times. ITV News: “More than 800,000 UK homes could be at high risk of severe flooding by 2080, study shows.”
Nidhi Verma, Reuters
India is “scouting for alternative sources” for crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) “to prepare itself if the conflict” in the Middle East lasts longer than a fortnight, a government source tells Reuters. Indian refiners process about 5.6m barrels of crude a day – “with about 40% of their crude imports passing through the Strait of Hormuz” – and “has only a few days of LNG supplies left after its largest supplier, Qatar” halted production, adds the newswire. Government sources tell the Economic Times that Russia is prepared to “fulfil India’s energy demands in case of continued disruption of supplies”. Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak is quoted by the Times of India saying: “Yes, we are getting signals of renewed interest from India”. The Hindustan Times reports that the country “also holds cooking gas stocks sufficient to last over three weeks” and that “New Delhi is in touch with producers including Canada and Norway for additional LNG supplies”.
An Indian Express comment notes that India’s food security is “among the major sectors likely to be disproportionately impacted” by the war, cautioning that Indian agriculture “has become as vulnerable to geopolitical risks, whether from wars or import dependence on China, as to climate change”. Meanwhile, Reuters reports industry experts saying that “[w]hile Pakistan's significant solar generation will prevent daytime power cuts, Bangladesh is at risk of shortages and may need to increase coal and power imports from India”.
MORE ON INDIA
Down to Earth covers a new report that finds that “[n]early 9 out of 10 garment workers” surveyed in India feel that “extreme heat was making them sick”. In Moneycontrol, Prof Nithiyanandam Yogeswaran from the Takshashila Institution thinktank calls China’s solar farm buildout in Tibet “grey zone warfare”.
Reuters
China is aiming to build another 15 “ultra-high” voltage transmission lines between 2026 and 2030, according to the State Grid, China’s main grid operator, reports Reuters. It says that the new lines will connect around 200 gigawatt‑hours (GWh) of renewable power to the grid each year and increase the country’s “cross‑provincial electricity transmission capacity” by 35%, adds the newswire. State-run newspaper China Daily cites a new report from Wood Mackenzie, saying that China’s coal-power generation is likely to see its “last hurrah” this year in terms of capacity expansion, with new additions projected to drop at a “negative compound annual growth rate of 38% between 2027 and 2030”. Ahead of this week’s release of the 15th “five-year” plan, analysts predict that China will likely focus on “transmission lines and green energy consumption targets to better integrate energy into the grid and stop curtailment”, according to Reuters.
Meanwhile, an editorial in China Daily says that China’s top-level officials, who will gather in Beijing for the national “two sessions” this week, will translate “strategic vision” into “concrete results” in areas including climate through the deployment of renewable energy. Xinhua covers the main agenda at this year’s “two sessions”, including advancing low-carbon transformation and reviewing a draft environmental code. Xinhua also publishes a comment article saying China will accelerate its “green transition across the board” as the country looks to peak its carbon dioxide emissions before 2030. A Global Times opinion article says that China’s “ecological environment code”, which will be a “highlight” of the “two sessions”, provides a “solid legal guarantee” for China’s green transition. A director at the National Energy Administration (NEA) writes in energy news outlet International Energy Net, saying that the NEA will “solve difficulties” related to approved “large-scale new energy bases”.
MORE ON CHINA
China aims to recycle 250,000 tonnes of solar modules by 2027, reports Bloomberg. BJX News, International Energy Net and Xinhua also cover the story. BJX News reports that virtual power plant projects account for more than 30% of the NEA’s pilot projects to build a new power system. The NEA says that the green fuel industry can help “safeguard” energy security and reduce carbon emissions, according to BJX News. Ideacarbon has an interview with Zhang Xiliang from Tsinghua University on the future direction of China’s carbon market.
Matthew Taylor, The Guardian
The global economy must be transformed to stop prioritising “socially and ecologically destructive growth” that only serves the world’s richest people, a UN expert tells the Guardian. Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, tells the newspaper that a “new economic agenda is needed” to take the “interwoven crises of rising inequality, ecological collapse and resurgent far-right politics”. He says the world needs to move “beyond growth” and calls for a new intergovernmental panel to be established, similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to examine policies available to achieve this aim, according to the newspaper.
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