The Threat of Unrest Is Decarbonizing the Global South

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The oil and gas price spikes that followed the start of the U.S.-Iran war are reshaping energy politics across the global south. They are doing what decades of climate diplomacy struggled to achieve: making dependence on imported fossil fuels look politically dangerous to leaders in power.

In the first month after the war disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, at least 60 governments adopted nearly 200 emergency energy measures, from fuel conservation orders and consumer subsidies to scrambles for alternative supplies. The Philippines declared a national energy emergency in March, with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. invoking executive power as worker strikes paralyzed Manila and other cities. In Bangladesh, fuel shortages forced garment factories, which generate roughly 84 percent of the country’s exports, to operate at 50 to 60 percent of capacity. In Kenya, protests against fuel prices led to the deaths of four people and injured dozens of others in mid-May. In Pakistan, a March price hike of 55 rupees per liter shut down Lahore’s streets, while an International Monetary Fund program left the government with no fiscal room to cushion the blow. An internal World Bank document reviewed by Reuters showed that 27 countries had moved to secure rapid access to crisis financing within weeks of the war’s start.