The price of oil rose above $100 a barrel for a time this week, and gas prices jumped sharply. This is already causing hardship for households reliant on heating oil, petrol and diesel<\/a>. Inflation will almost certainly follow.<\/p>\n A conflict thousands of kilometres away is once again being felt in household fuel bills. Countries like Ireland that are heavily reliant on fossil fuels will bear the greatest burden. <\/p>\n The situation echoes Russia\u2019s<\/a> invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, which triggered an energy crisis and inflation that has been rippling through Europe\u2019s economy since. <\/p>\n These recurring crises should raise a deep question: why do these geopolitical conflicts turn into energy crises<\/a>? The answer is straightforward: because the global energy system is still built around fossil fuels.<\/p>\n Oil and gas are traded globally in commodity markets. Production and refineries are concentrated in a few key regions. Transport is dependent on a limited set of pipelines and shipping routes. As a result, disruptions in one part of the system can quickly spread everywhere else. <\/p>\n Countries reliant on imported fuels are exposed not only to this market volatility, but also to the strategic decisions of fossil fuel producers. Europe learned this lesson painfully when Russia restricted gas exports after invading Ukraine. <\/p>\n In rushing to fill the deficit with alternative gas suppliers, Europe built LNG import infrastructure, in effect swapping dependence on Russian gas with LNG from the United States. But now the United States has openly adopted a strategy of \u201cenergy dominance<\/a>\u201d, using its position as the world\u2019s largest fossil fuel exporter as a tool of geopolitical power.<\/p>\n Fossil fuels do not just make energy systems vulnerable to conflict, they are also often part of the geopolitical forces that drive those conflicts.<\/p>\n The history of Iran provides another timely example. In 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom<\/a> backed a coup that removed Iran\u2019s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, after he nationalised the country\u2019s oil industry, which had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, now BP. The coup restored the rule of the Shah and reshaped Iran\u2019s political trajectory for decades.<\/p>\n The increasingly authoritarian monarchy that followed eventually collapsed in the Iranian Revolution of 1979, ushering the Islamic Republic, replacing one autocratic system with another. The state has been a central actor in the geopolitics of the Middle East since.<\/p>\n Fossil-fuel dependence threatens our safety and security across multiple dimensions, not least because it is the main cause of climate change<\/a>. Despite this, there is a growing narrative that there needs to be a \u201crebalancing\u201d of energy policy and that climate action and the energy transition should take a back seat to other priorities \u2013 energy affordability, security and economic competitiveness \u2013 given the turbulence of this moment. <\/p>\n But looking at these issues systemically shows that energy security, affordability and climate action are not competing priorities. They point to the same solution: urgently reducing dependence on fossil fuels.<\/p>\n![\"Consumers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2YLHKKYNX5FEPGF2OQN6UHLAVI.JPG\")
Consumers have already seen prices rise at the pump this week. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n