THE oil crisis triggered by the Middle East war has underscored the need for the world to accelerate the clean energy transition, the COP31 president-designate and the UN’s climate chief said Thursday.
Crude prices have soared since the United States and Israel launched the war against Iran in late February and Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz in response. That has fuelled calls for the world to ditch its reliance on fossil fuels.
“The fossil fuel cost crisis now has its foot on the throat of the global economy,” Stiell said at a meeting on the energy transition hosted by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.
“From this tragedy, an immense irony is unfolding. Those who’ve fought to keep the world hooked on fossil fuels are inadvertently supercharging the global renewables boom,” he said, without naming countries or companies.
The Paris meeting was being in held in the lead-up to the UN’s COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye, in November.
Diplomats and representatives from banks, oil firms and renewable energy companies attended the talks.
“The world is facing the biggest energy crisis in its history today,” COP31 president-designate Murat Kurum said.
“We now know clearly that the global economy must transform its energy paradigm,” said Kurum, who is also Türkiye’s climate minister. — AFP
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