Policy analysis reveals geopolitical disruptions to hydrocarbon circulation induce demand-side ruptures in global energy markets, indicating an accelerated transition toward renewable energy.
Through a close reading of international press, International Energy Agency (IEA) and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) reporting, and consumer-trend data, this essay assesses the claim by IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol that the US–Israeli war on Iran will accelerate the end of the fossil fuel energy era. It is theoretically informed by James O’Connor’s views on capitalist crisis and Brett Christophers’s research on the political economy of renewable energy sources, particularly the relationship between price and their rates of profit. I argue that this war-induced disruption to hydrocarbon circulation is creating a demand-side rupture that might constitute an important turning point in the dialectic between capitalist energy addition and capitalist energy transition. While it is still too early to determine the outcomes of such a rupture in energy generation, global ecosocialist movements can intervene at present to agitate towards ecological democracy.
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Alie Hermanutz (2026) studied this question.
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