Iran conflict 'supercharging' global renewables boom, says UN climate chief

The conflict in Iran has "supercharged" the "boom" in renewable power, the United Nations' climate chief has said. It comes as electric vehicle numbers in Britain hit a record high of two million yesterday, amid a worldwide buying spree. Oil and gas prices have soared as the conflict in Iran chokes off about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies and spreads misery. Simon Stiell, head of the UN's climate body (UNFCCC) said in a speech in Paris this morning: "From this tragedy, an immense irony is unfolding." In a veiled reference to US President Donald Trump, who has pursued a policy of "energy dominance", he said: "Those who've fought to keep the world hooked on fossil fuels are inadvertently supercharging the global renewables boom." Mr Stiell was speaking at a meeting in Paris to prepare for the upcoming COP31 climate talks in Turkey in November, a process strained by the withdrawal of the US and a world preoccupied by conflicts. He pointed to Spain and Pakistan, which have both come off relatively lightly from the energy crisis thanks to recent booms in clean energy. In Britain, 27,000 solar power installations were added in March - the highest monthly deployment of solar in over a decade. The Philippines is among those citing the unfolding crisis in new clean power announcements. Its energy secretary Sharon Garin said in March: "Amid the Middle East conflict, accelerating the development of renewable energy and storage is both a strategic necessity and a national imperative." France this week became the first major economy to publish a national plan to phase out fossil fuels, pledging to ditch coal entirely by 2030, oil by 2045 and gas by 2050. Meanwhile, new electric vehicle sales in March were up 66% in Germany and 69% in France - and even by 72% in Italy, where drivers have been slower on the uptake. If geopolitical instability becomes a defining feature over the coming years, oil demand could end up 20% lower and gas 10%, according to new modelling by Wood Mackenzie. The crisis also invigorated the world's first-ever conference dedicated to ditching fossil fuels, held in Colombia this week and attended by 56 countries, including the UK and fossil fuel majors like Australia, Canada and Nigeria. Adam Bell, partner at consultancy Stonehaven, said: "The crisis has accelerated trends that were already underway. "China is the world leader in all-economy electrification as a function of its lack of fossil fuels, except coal. Its strategy to emphasise this has been endorsed by events." But many consumers are yet to feel the benefit of cheaper cleaner power due to problems in the grid and the fact their prices are skewed by fossil fuels, a link the UK is working to break. And the trend is "not universal", added Mr Bell. Even some of the world's greenest countries that attended the Colombia summit, like the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain, are eyeing up more oil and gas extraction on home soil. Meanwhile Italy, Germany, Pakistan and parts of China are among those likely to replace missing gas with more coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, in the short term. And the US is committed to its path of maximising oil and gas in a bid to lower energy prices for consumers. Mr Bell said the "universal theme" is "turning away from global energy markets and into regional ones where nations feel they can better guarantee their security. "This is of course a disaster for the Gulf States, which likely explains the UAE's move to quit OPEC in order to maximise remaining fossil fuel demand."