Friday marks six months since the U.S. launched strikes against Iran on Feb. 28.
Why it matters: The war is changing global energy markets and domestic politics in all kinds of big and sometimes surprising ways.
Here are just six of them…
☀️ Momentum for EVs and renewables. There’s fresh evidence that the crisis is boosting those technologies in many nations, even as coal rises in some areas too.
Why it matters: High oil and gas prices and supply losses are the big reason now, but the trend might have legs as countries look to diversify their future fuel mixes.
The big picture: Think surging EV sales in Brazil and Australia, for instance, and Thailand, a big LNG buyer, boosting its long-term renewables and nuclear goals.
State of play: China’s exports of clean energy equipment have jumped, and it’s increasingly clear that the war is the reason, per the research firm BloombergNEF’s new report Friday morning.
The intrigue: “At first, this reflected a change to a key domestic export subsidy, but [China] has now logged five straight months of record exports,” it states.
Data: BloombergNEF and Sinoimex; Chart: Ben Geman/Axios
Catch up quick: The war began as China had lots of excess manufacturing capacity and slowing domestic growth in these sectors, said Ethan Zindler, a top analyst with BloombergNEF.
What they’re saying: “Where energy consumers have faced higher costs and have unfettered access to lowest cost Chinese goods, they’re buying them,” he said in an interview.
“There’s been a lot of focus around what [the war] meant for limiting energy supplies on the fossil side, but it actually coincided with a moment of absolutely maximum overcapacity on the clean energy side.”
Case in point: Africa’s imports of Chinese solar equipment were 37% higher in the first half of 2026 than the same period in 2025, the firm’s report finds.
🚛 The war has evolved into a diesel crunch. Squeezed or damaged global refining capacity and the lack of substitute fuels have made diesel price increases especially large. That ripples through the cost of moving goods, plowing fields and much more.
🗳️ It’s a big midterm elections story. Democrats have been hitting Republicans over higher gasoline and diesel prices, so the elections will test the political punch of energy costs.
Friction point: In Ohio’s tight Senate race, for instance, former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) has a new ad this month that ties his opponent, Sen. Jon Husted (R), to farmers hit with higher diesel costs due to the war.
🛢️ Oil markets are surprisingly flexible. This is one factor that could slow the transition tailwinds. Prices never approached the $200 per barrel or even $150 that some analysts predicted when the Strait of Hormuz was choked off.
Catch up quick: There’s no single reason why the crisis wasn’t even worse. But China — the world’s largest oil importer — surprised market-watchers with its massive and somewhat mysterious decline in oil purchases.
🗺️ There will be a new oil map. The throttling of the strait is bringing new or sped-up investment in pipelines that bypass the waterway, which handled a fifth of the global oil trade until the war.
Why it matters: The strait will remain massively important for many years, but its centrality to the market will wane over time.
Case in point: The United Arab Emirates is accelerating construction of a major oil pipeline that will double its export capacity through the port of Fujairah, which avoids Hormuz.
What we’re watching: As the International Energy Agency and others note, more countries are also creating or expanding their strategic oil stockpiles, such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
🪰 Drones have created a new world. Their use against energy infrastructure in the Middle East and Russia highlights a major — and evolving — risk to energy security.
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