The Iran war changes the energy balance.. Will Trump unwittingly become a “climate president”?

(CNN) - The war with Iran was supposed to be a lightning and decisive blow that would topple the regime within a few weeks, but the United States found itself, instead, mired in a conflict that would turn the balance of the global energy system upside down.

With the sharp rise in oil and gas prices, there have been noticeable shifts towards clean energy, raising a very strange question: Could this war make US President Donald Trump an inadvertent “climate president,” at least on the global stage?

That would be a stark irony; Trump is considered one of the most prominent climate change skeptics, calling global warming a “hoax” and clean energy a “fraud,” promoting fossil fuels and repealing a wide range of climate and environmental protection measures.

However, the war, which has entered its eighth month, highlights the fragility of fossil fuels and their severe vulnerability to geopolitical instability. There are signs of global movements towards clean energy on the horizon, despite the complexity of the scene as some countries, in turn, seek to increase reliance on coal.

Some experts believe that the possibility of the war contributing to undermining global demand for oil and gas increases the longer it lasts.

The outbreak of the war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran in February led to the largest oil shock in history, as Iran worked to stifle shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies pass, pushing the price of a barrel of oil to exceed the $100 barrier.

Although many analysts expect this jump in prices to be temporary, prices have remained high even as Iran's grip on the strait has declined. At the same time, the costs of shipping oil through the Strait of Hormuz have risen sharply, and the conflict has spread to new fronts, including attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi group on Saudi oil facilities and tankers.

Together, these factors affect the demand for oil. In January, the International Energy Agency expected global demand for oil to rise by 930,000 barrels per day during 2026, but the scene changed radically by September, as the agency now expected demand to decrease by 2.5 million barrels per day, as a result of the “stalemate” surrounding the negotiations between the United States and Iran.

Lower oil consumption means lower greenhouse gas emissions. Analysis by Carbon Brief, an organization specializing in publishing reports on climate change, indicates that global emissions from fossil fuels are heading to decline by about 0.5% in 2026. If this is achieved, it will be the first decline of its kind since 2020, when the “Covid-19” pandemic led to an almost complete cessation of many activities around the world.

Potential transformations also include the transportation sector, which consumes the largest share of oil globally. In this context, Sverre Alvik, vice president and director of the energy transition forecasting department at the Norwegian consulting firm DNV, says that people are using cars and traveling less, although these changes seem temporary, while the type of vehicles that people buy may represent a more permanent and stable shift.