The world is furious – again – over rising energy prices caused by the US–Israeli war against Iran.
Since the latest surge pushed oil above $100 (€86.69) a barrel, protesters have burned tires and cars in Guatemala and Syria to express their rage.
Portugal’s roads have featured cars crawling in protest with honking horns after diesel reached a record high earlier this week of more than €2.17 a litre.
And especially in the developing countries of Asia, which are heavily reliant on Middle Eastern energy and deep in debt from earlier efforts to offset the war’s impacts, transport systems and governments are facing another round of enormous strain.
Fuel shortages and long lines at the pump are slowing economies along with strikes by taxi drivers and labourers who see no point in working when earnings barely cover energy costs.
Many countries are confronting a difficult question: is it riskier to pass on price increases to a combustible public, accelerating inflation, or bolster subsidies and aid that would drive up public debt and possibly threaten the stability of national currencies.
“How much fiscal capacity does Asia or the developing world have in general to manage this geopolitical crisis?” said Sana Jaffrey, a lecturer at the Australian National University, who researches conflict and state-building in Asia. “What happens to global financial markets when that capacity starts to run out?”
“At some point,” she added, “it’s going to become everyone’s problem.”
These are just some of the global flash points over recent days.
Portugal
Portuguese drivers gathered last week for several “buzinões” — protests with cars driving slowly while honking. Photograph: Horacio Villalobos/Corbis/Getty Images
Organising mainly on social media, Portuguese drivers gathered last week for several “buzinões” – protests with cars driving slowly while honking. They caused traffic jams across several key thoroughfares including the 25 de Abril Bridge in Lisbon.
In a sign of growing frustration with large oil and gas interests, one vehicle convoy blocked access to roads near a large refinery in Sines, according to a local news site.
Naomi Hossain, a political sociologist at the University of London who has studied the impacts of energy shocks, said that it was common for people to assume that fossil fuel costs and inflation rise “because of collusion between political elites and businesses”.
“There are good reasons to believe that untamed inflation is pushing voters to the right,” she said. “Centrist governments don’t seem to be able to do much to protect people against these shocks, and there are no realistic left alternatives in most places. So one consequence is it’s feeding populism.”
Syria 
Protesters block a road with flaming tires while protesting against hikes to fuel prices in northern Syria. Photograph: Bakr Alkasem/AFP/Getty Images
Just a few hours after the government said that it would temporarily raise prices for gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products by as much as 40 per cent, Syrians took to the streets.
Angry crowds in several cities gathered in squares, blocked traffic and set tires on fire, calling for the price surge to be cancelled.
Indonesia
In Makassar, South Sulawesi, residents this week reported shortages of cooking gas, rolling blackouts and a sudden move toward gasoline rationing.
Across the provincial capital, drivers pushed motorbikes with empty tanks or left them in long lines near pumps with nothing to give. Taxi drivers held a protest Monday against a new rationing system organised by odd and even licence plate numbers.
Riot police guard the parliament building in Jakarta, Indonesia, during a protest against rising prices earlier this year. Photograph: Willy Kurniawan/Reuters
Tensions have also been rising in Yogyakarta, in Java. Students demonstrated against surging fuel prices Monday – only to have their rally broken up by aggressive pro-government organisations.
Discussions about ending subsidised fuel access for wealthy and middle-class households have been intensifying. The government’s calculations before the war assumed oil prices would be at around $70 a barrel, and public debt has soared since the conflict started.
Philippines
Fishermen along Manila Bay who use boats powered by diesel or gas had hoped this week to venture out to sea after weeks of monsoon rains. Large numbers are now staying in port.
“Many were raring to go back to fish, but have no money to buy gas,” said Fernando Hicap, the national chair of a large fishing association. “The new round of price adjustments have been choking many of us to death.”
Bus and ride-share drivers have also been marching in Quezon City, and quietly protesting by not working – a trend also popping up elsewhere. In Vietnam over the weekend, drivers with Grab, a ride-hailing app, called for a boycott to protest low pay caused in part by rising fuel costs.
Members of a public transport group hold a protest over rising fuel prices in Quezon City, Philippines. Photograph: EPA
Modesto Floranda, the leader of a 70,000-strong group of Filipino bus drivers and owners, said that working 15 to 18 hours a day now only earns enough for a single meal.
The government has offered one-time payments of about $80 to public transportation drivers.
“It is not enough,” he said.
Guatemala
Transport workers and Indigenous activists marched through the streets of Guatemala City recently, demanding more than stopgap measures like price caps and subsidies.
Some groups have called for a suspension of fuel taxes and a shift away from fossil fuels, which critics see as a source for elite enrichment and environmental damage. Farmers across Latin America, heavily reliant on diesel for tractors, have been especially frustrated.
Indigenous people attending a rally against fuel prices in Guatemala City last week. Photograph: Johan Ordonez/AFP via Getty Images
At one recent march in Guatemala, where videos showed a thick throng of workers, an organiser with a megaphone characterised the economic struggle as a contest between governments and the wealthy, and everyone else.
“They are in a place of luxury, that’s why they don’t think about our misery, hunger or the cost of the basic food needs of the working class,” he said. “We will also continue to put pressure on them.”
Bangladesh
Bangladesh imports more than 90 per cent of the petroleum it uses, and most of it comes from the Middle East.
Shortages in the liquid natural gas needed to produce electricity have led to rationing and the temporary closure of garment factories – the main engine of the country’s economy. Many turned to diesel after the war in Iran started in February, only to see those prices now rising.
Bangladesh is facing a national gas and energy crisis due to technical disruptions at key floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals. Photograph: EPA
Robiul Hasan Mehedi, an officer at a garment factory in Bangladesh’s garment hub, Gazipur, said Tuesday that power cuts are now happening four or five times a day.
Several hours of work stoppage – multiplied by dozens of factories and thousands of workers – is now the norm.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.