Amid war in Iran, EU urges people to drive less and for countries to urgently roll out renewables

Due to the war in Iran, the European Union (EU) has urged Europeans to drive and fly less and for member states to quickly roll out more renewables, boost electrification and energy efficiency.

The world is facing the worst major energy shock since the 1970s oil crises (or rather: the worst major fossil fuel shock) following the US and Israel’s illegal war against Iran. And during a meeting of the EU’s 27 energy ministers last week, EU energy chief Dan Jørgensen said Europe is facing a “very serious situation” because of the war.

Jørgensen warned that “even if … peace is here tomorrow, still we will not go back to normal in the foreseeable future,” and urged Europeans and member states to follow the advice of the International Energy Agency.

“The more you can do to save oil, especially diesel, especially jet fuel, the better we are off. Work from home where possible, reduce highway speed limits by ten kilometres [an hour], encourage public transport, alternate private car access … increase car sharing and adopt efficient driving practices,” Jørgensen said.

Jørgensen also called on EU member states to increase their efforts to rolling out more renewables, saying “this must be the time we finally turn the tide and truly become energy independent.”

In 1956, there was a crisis over the Suez Canal. Fossil fuel markets became unstable. And in Europe, energy prices went up.

In the 1970s, there was instability in the Middle East. Fossil fuel markets became unstable. And in Europe, energy prices went up.

In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and weaponised supplies of gas and oil. Markets became unstable. And in Europe, energy prices went up.

Now, in 2026, there is another geopolitical crisis. There is more instability in fossil fuel markets. And once again, in Europe, energy prices have gone up.

Dear friends, when will we learn?

And if we do not learn, who else can we blame? If we are condemned to repeat our past mistakes, decade after decade, crisis after crisis?

— Dan Jørgensen, in a speech in the European Parliament debate on Energy security, independence and supply in the geopolitical context.

This horrific and senseless war has yet again made clear the dangerous volatility of fossil fuels. It has made bare how fragile our globalized world is when our societies are addicted to fossil fuels. And the attacks on oil depots and refineries in the region have caused huge and widespread black smoke that blankets communities and nature with toxic rain and poison. Causing serious health risks and environmental damages that could affect people, animals, and nature for decades to come.

Luckily, the world relies much less on oil today than we did back in the 1970s, potentially easing the effects and energy shocks the Iran war will cause. Still, the war impacts around 20 percent of the world’s oil supplies, which dwarfs the 1970s energy shock. “Reserves and efficiency offer some buffer which the episodes in the 1970s lacked, but the raw scale of lost supply makes this nastier, with no fast fix in sight,” Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis CIB, told BBC News.

We need to transition away from fossil fuels to save our planet and our democracy. We are seeing the costs of fossil fuels right now – war, the overruling of democracy and the ignoring of laws. It’s not just global warming.

— Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Since the beginning of the war, gas and oil prices in the EU have risen by around 60 and 70 percent. But some EU countries are better prepared for the energy shock than others. Just take Spain as an example.

Since 2019, Spain has added 40 GW of wind and solar, doubling its overall capacity. Thanks to this massive rollout of renewable energy sources, Spain managed to “cut its power sector import bill more than any other EU country” between 2020 and 2024, according to a report by the energy think tank Ember.

It also means that the country’s electricity price is much less influenced by the increasing cost of gas. “Spain’s wind and solar growth has reduced the influence of expensive fossil generators on the electricity price by 75 per cent since 2019. This decline in the hours where the electricity price was tied to gas power cost was faster than in other gas-reliant countries, such as Italy and Germany,” the report notes.

Before the renewable energy push, Spain had some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. Now, more than 60 percent of the energy produced in Spain comes from renewable energy sources, and as a result power prices in the country range between €37 and €57 per megawatt hour, compared with €113 in Germany and €141 in Italy.

I’d prefer to be dependent on China for the import of solar panels and batteries, than I would, for oil and gas coming from the Gulf, and I’ll tell you why: because if I buy that solar panel, that battery, that wind turbine, that transformer, I buy it once every 25 years. I don’t have to buy it every day.

— Gerard Reid, energy finance expert.

Just imagine, we could’ve phased out fossil fuels gradually, in a smart, coordinated and painless way decades ago. Now we’ll be forced to do it the painful, complicated and unfair way instead.

If only people would’ve listened to the science and us “woke” and “alarmist” tree huggers…