Climate News

Facing an oil and gas shock from the Iran war, Asia turns back to coal

With shipping through the Strait of Hormuz nearly halted by the Iran war, Asian governments are turning to coal to ease an energy crisis. Fortune reported on 29 March that the effective closure, now in its fifth week, affects a route for about 20% of the world's oil and LNG, and that Asia buys more than 80% of the crude and LNG that passes through it. Thailand is restarting two coal plants it decommissioned last year, South Korea has removed its 80% operating cap on coal-fired generation, and Japan is letting older coal plants run at full capacity for up to a year from April. Indonesia is prioritising domestic coal use over exports.

An AFP report from Bangkok on 24 March, carried by Namibia's NAMPA, said analysts expect the turn to coal to raise emissions in the near term, but that the crisis could also push policymakers to adopt renewables faster. Carbon Brief reported that the International Energy Agency called it the "biggest supply disruption in the history of the oil market", and that UN climate chief Simon Stiell argued for accelerating the energy transition.

"No Southeast Asian country is about to permanently shift away from fossil fuels." — Li-Chen Sim, Middle East Institute, via Fortune

How each outlet framed it

• Fortune — the policy U-turns, plus a nuclear revival: Taiwan plans to restart two shuttered reactors, and Vietnam signed a deal with Russia for its Ninh Thuan 1 plant.
• NAMPA — via AFP, the climate trade-off: higher emissions now, but a stronger case against dependence on imported fuel.
• Carbon Brief — the European angle: Spain's prime minister Pedro Sánchez accused other EU leaders of using the crisis to "gut climate policies".

What we don't know yet: how long the coal measures will last. Japan's easing runs for up to a year, and the Philippines declared a national energy emergency on 24 March.