The barely acknowledged silver lining in Trump’s war in Iran is that it has pushed 30% of the world’s economic power into a race toward renewable energy. Trump, in attacking Iran, has created the biggest energy crisis in modern history. The International Energy Agency describes the current shock as “the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market.”
But the overlooked silver lining, far more significant than any regime change or reshuffling of alliances, is that Trump has unintentionally kicked off a global race to renewable energy.
That a uninformed charlatan who relentlessly calls green energy a con job has caused it to proliferate is pure, sweet irony.
The crisis couldn’t have come at a better time, as the costs of solar, wind, and batteries have fallen dramatically. Battery storage costs have fallen 93% since 2010, solar photovoltaic (PV) costs have declined by 90%, and onshore wind by 70% in the same period, making them the cheapest energy sources in history. More than 85% of renewable energy sources now cost less than fossil fuel sources.
With Trump’s Iran war now in its third month, countries are scrambling to circumvent the geopolitical tug of war by transitioning more quickly to renewables. Climate change almost seems like an afterthought as calls to speed the transition are now framed as a matter of security and economics, a strategy to avoid the war-driven upheaval of global oil markets. Wind and solar energy, produced entirely within national boundaries, insures against war-driven supply upset. It also insulates allies from future trade sabotage threatened by a psychopath hell-bent on retribution.
The world is leaving Trump’s America behind
In the Trump administration’s unwavering assault on science and fact, climate information has all but disappeared. Trump has taken unprecedented steps to halt climate progress and bolster his fossil fuel donors. More than 1,500 scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency have been laid off, reassigned or pressured to retire. Today, only 124 remain at the EPA, none of whom are assigned to climate science.
It’s no secret that Fox News and the oligarchs pushing Project 2025 — think Koch Industries — are financially aligned with big oil. But Trump’s promise to fossil fuel donors that he’d kill environmental regulations if they donated $1 billion to get him re-elected is not aging well, for him or for them. In fact, it is backfiring, dusting the world in optimistic, spring-flower pink schadenfreude.
Last week, nearly 60 nations representing over one-third of the world’s economic power met in Colombia to accelerate their shift away from oil, gas, and coal in light of Iran. The summit, led by Colombia and the Netherlands, was organized outside normal U.N. channels and processes to avoid the kind of bottlenecking often orchestrated by petrostates. Participants met to draft individualized, national transition roadmaps away from fossil fuels; using more laid-back Q&A information sessions, they made unusual progress. The United States was not invited.
That allies grasp the existential imperative to bypass Trump’s destructive impulses is reassuring; it confirms that other nations are not led by idiots.
Green energy dominance is Trump’s worst nightmare
Like a suicidal sadist, Trump is obsessed with increasing reliance on fossil fuels. His attempts to elevate coal are as economically illiterate and embarrassing as his now comical battle against wind energy. The rest of the world, thankfully, has stopped listening. Instead, reeling from oil and gas price aftershocks from Iran, the industrialized world is now running toward renewable energy. China has adopted a new, faster transition plan, as has the EU, South Korea, India, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt and Chile.
These developments should give everyone hope. Even if a ceasefire is announced tomorrow, analysts say damage to the oil industry will last for years. Most delicious of all, Trump put it in motion.
Fatih Birol, Director of the International Energy Agency, told The Guardian that Trump’s war in Iran has permanently damaged the industry. Almost overnight, Birol observed, foreign leaders lost faith in fossil fuels, which will cause “a significant boost to renewables and nuclear power and a further shift towards a more electrified future,” he said, which will “cut into the main markets for oil.”
As an anti-science, anti-information nihilism spreads its ignorant rot across the U.S., it is reassuring to know that other nations aren’t similarly afflicted. Idiocracy, it would seem, is not contagious.
Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. She writes the free Substack, The Haake Take.
