The oil shock caused by the US and Israel’s war on Iran has provided another depressing reminder of the continuing failure of the global “green transition”.
Politicians, NGOs and leaders of the mainstream climate movement have been spruiking the idea of a cleaner, greener capitalism for decades. Back in 2015, when the UN-sponsored Paris Agreement was negotiated, the response of major environment organisations was almost giddy. 350.org, one of the more “radical” NGOs, described it as “landmark” and “a signal ... that the age of fossil fuels is over”. The Australian Conservation Foundation (now headed by Greens ex-leader Adam Bandt), claimed similarly that it “signals the end of the fossil fuel age and will turbo charge the clean energy revolution already underway”.
It was clear enough at the time that this was utter bullshit. Former NASA scientist and “father of climate change awareness” James Hanson described it, accurately, as “a fraud ... just worthless words”. Ten years down the track, it’s clear just how much of a fraud it really was.
Not only have global greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise. The rate of growth has accelerated. The most accurate measure of this is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. National and global reporting on greenhouse gas emissions can’t be trusted—it’s very easy, and very common, for corporations and governments to cook the books. Total reported carbon dioxide emissions hit a new record high in 2025, but growth has slowed somewhat in recent years. The growth in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, however, has not.
The sad reality, brought to light so starkly by the disruption caused by the war, is that capitalism’s fossil fuel addiction is stronger than ever. Around 20 percent of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas is exported in tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz. And such is the ongoing centrality of these products to the economy that even a few weeks of disruption to this supply were enough to send inflationary shock waves around the world.
It’s true that a lot of new green energy infrastructure is being built, and green energy investment is growing. The impact of this growth, however, is counteracted by the simultaneous growth in energy consumption and the ongoing use of fossil fuels for things like fertilisers and plastics.
As the Australian Financial Review’s foreign affairs and defence correspondent Michael Read put it in an article published on 28 March, “The cascading disruptions are a reminder that the Strait of Hormuz is a choke point not just for oil, but for a vast web of industrial inputs that sit at the core of modern industry.
“That includes urea-based fertilisers, helium for MRI machines, sulphur for copper extraction, chlorine for water treatment and petrochemical feedstocks such as ethylene, propylene and ammonia—inputs that flow directly into plastics, resins and industrial chemicals.”
An industry like transport should classify as low-hanging fruit when it comes to reducing emissions. Battery technology has advanced to the point where the bulk of land and a decent portion of sea transport (lighter vessels travelling shorter distances) could be electrified. Combined with an accelerated transition to renewable electricity production, this could be a significant brake on any further growth in global fossil fuel consumption.
Yet the “green transition” in transport has been virtually non-existent. According to data from the International Energy Agency, transport is dependent on oil products for around 91 percent of its energy—down just 3.5 percent since the early 1970s.
Immediately below transport on the list of biggest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions are agriculture and manufacturing and construction. These are much more difficult problems to solve. Producing a truck that runs on electricity is easy. Producing a cow that doesn’t burp and fart isn’t—not to mention the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers that the productivity of industrial agriculture depends on.
To avert runaway warming, we need to build a world economy in which the use of fossil fuels is reduced to what is absolutely necessary for human wellbeing. In recent weeks we’ve seen how distant that goal remains. Getting there requires a massive scale of change—involving every major industry and all aspects of our lives (our housing, transport, what we eat and so on).
No government today is considering anything like this. The momentum, in fact, is in the opposite direction. The disruptions to fossil fuels supplies and accompanying spikes in energy prices caused by Russia’s war on Ukraine and now the US and Israel’s war on Iran have been used by the global far right to push back against efforts to tackle climate change—epitomised by US President Donald Trump making his pledge to “drill, baby, drill” a central part of his 2024 election campaign.
Here in Australia, Queensland’s Liberal government under David Crisafulli recently announced it was “unlocking Australia’s first oil field in 50 years, at the Taroom Trough, for future fuel security”. And Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, which has experienced a big surge in support in recent months, has promised to pull Australia out of the Paris Agreement, ditch the “net zero by 2050” target and boost production of oil, coal and gas.
The main criminals in all of this are, of course, the fossil fuel companies and their political servants. However much lip service may have been paid over the past few decades to the need to tackle the danger of climate change, these people have always been committed to maintaining the status quo of global fossil fuel dependency.
There’s a special place reserved in hell, though, for the unfortunately very numerous category of people and institutions that have continued to promote the possibility of a genuine “green transition” occurring under capitalism, despite all the evidence to the contrary. It’s not difficult to understand why they would do this. Climate NGOs and Green politicians alike need periodically to justify their existence by claiming some “win” or other on issues they’ve pledged to address.
If we’re going to get anywhere, though, we have to look reality in the face. The climate movement isn’t winning. It has been losing badly for decades. And the starting point for turning this around is the recognition that there is no “green transition”, and nor can there be while the monstrous, fossil-fuelled system of global capitalism rolls on.
