When Israel’s prime minister approved a $35-billion deal to supply natural gas to Egypt last month, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the benefits of increased gas trade with its neighbour went far beyond money.

“The approval of this gas agreement is a historic moment for the State of Israel, both in the security-diplomatic sphere and the economic sphere,” Cohen said on December 17.

In contrast, Egyptian officials – sensitive to the optics at home due to widespread anger over Israel’s military offensive in Gaza – played down the political significance of the deal, saying it was “purely commercial”. 

The deal’s final approval, which had been delayed by several months, reflects Israel’s commitment to ramp up offshore gas extraction as a way to assert its regional dominance and shore up economic ties amid international criticism over the war in Gaza, analysts say.

While Israel has a globally renowned clean-tech sector, the push on fossil gas underscores how climate action is low on the country’s priority list.

Climate action takes a backseat

Shortly before the gas export deal was finalised, at COP30 in Brazil, Israel declined to add its voice to calls by more than 80 countries for a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels. And before that, in October, the Energy Ministry said the country would fail to meet a 2025 target for renewables to make up 20% of its energy mix.

Israel’s latest climate plan sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 27% by 2030 from 2015 levels, and it has not yet presented an updated nationally determined contribution (NDC) due in 2025.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also preparing to launch a new offshore gas exploration campaign within weeks, following the signing in October of a ceasefire agreement to end two years of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group in Gaza.

Beyond the Middle East, Israel’s gas push also highlights another challenge for the global clean energy transition as fossil fuels play a key role in political instability and conflict, from Ukraine to Venezuela.

Fuelling the economy

Fossil gas accounts for about 70% of Israel’s energy mix, followed by renewables – mainly solar – and coal.

Last year, the 27 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas extracted off Israel’s coast were split almost evenly between domestic consumption and exports to Jordan and Egypt, the only two buyers of Israeli gas, both of which are vocal allies of the Palestinians.

Despite their condemnation of the war, neither country sought to halt the gas trade during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which killed about 71,000 Palestinians and left most of the coastal enclave in ruins.

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Israeli gas exports to both countries increased 13% during 2024, maintaining an upward trend in shipments of the fossil fuel since 2018.

“Both Egypt and Jordan may signal solidarity with Palestinians in public, but their infrastructures tell a different story,” wrote Rafeef Ziadah, a UK-based scholar and human rights activist.

Israel’s gas exports to Egypt were halted for several weeks in 2023 when the war began, and again in 2025 when Israel launched a brief air war against nuclear sites in Iran – disrupting an increasingly important supply of energy to Egypt, which has faced power shortages in recent years as its own gas production dwindled.

Egypt is heavily dependent on fossil gas for energy generation, with renewables, mainly hydropower, making up only about 11% of the power mix, according to data from the Ember think-tank.

For Israel, gas is a win-win trade

Gas production has also been an important source of revenue for Israel, and income has been growing in recent years, including during the war in Gaza. Israel’s gas revenues grew in 2024 to 2.3 billion shekels ($720 million) from 2.1 billion a year earlier, official data shows.

Some of the gas proceeds feed Israel’s sovereign wealth fund, but much of the income from gas – mainly royalties and corporate tax – goes directly to state coffers, helping to fund Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza war, both of which are opposed by Jordan and Egypt.

Laury Haytayan, a Middle East and North Africa energy expert, described the gas ties between Israel and Egypt as a “kind of co-dependence”.

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While that might be politically uncomfortable, Egypt’s energy crisis means it cannot afford to be choosy, analysts say.

“Israel remains an important pillar of the energy supply in neighbouring countries, contrary voices notwithstanding,” Israel’s Petroleum Commissioner Chen Bar Yoseph told Climate Home News.

The recent finalisation of the Egypt export deal also drew praise from Israel’s main international ally, the United States, with the State Department calling it “a major win for American business and regional cooperation”.

US oil major Chevron, which holds a 40% stake in Israel’s offshore Leviathan field and operates the field, plans to expand it as a result of the agreement.

“More gas will be found”

When Netanyahu announced his approval of the deal, he said it would encourage other companies to explore for more gas resources off the Israeli coast.

“More gas will be found,” Netanyahu said, two weeks after the Energy Ministry said it was close to launching a new tender for gas exploration in offshore blocks. 

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The deal signed between Egyptian firm Blue Ocean Energy and Chevron, along with its partners in Leviathan, will see 130 billion cubic metres of Israeli gas pumped to Egypt over the next 15 years. Israeli media reports linked the planned offshore gas expansion to concerns over limited gas reserves which resurfaced in the wake of the export agreement.

Israeli officials hope the ceasefire in Gaza, coupled with the finalisation of the Egypt deal, will boost international interest in the bidding, which could take place early this year.

Pro-Palestinian groups denounce exploration

Climate and environmental campaign groups, meanwhile, have repeatedly demanded that Israeli gas exploration be frozen, citing the potential consequences for planet-heating emissions and marine ecosystems.

Palestinian human rights NGOs have warned that the hunt for fossil gas could also expand Israel’s illegal exploitation of Palestinian natural resources since several maritime zones earmarked by Israel for gas exploration overlap waters claimed by Palestinians in a 2019 submission to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

“Israel cannot operate there unilaterally. It is not an Israeli territorial or economic zone with authority to operate there,” said Suhad Bishara, legal director at Adalah, an Israel-based organisation focused on promoting Palestinian rights.

“Any company that agrees, or enters, or is associated with drilling in this area is complicit in breaching international law,” Bishara said.

Whether or not more exploration licences are granted, some experts question how much more undiscovered oil and gas lies beneath the seabed off Israel.

Geologist Yossi Langotsky, considered the father of Israeli offshore gas, has long maintained that the Leviathan and Tamar fields – which are not in areas claimed by the Palestinians – are the only large gas reservoirs along Israel’s coast.

For as long as the two fields are producing enough, Israel will likely find a willing buyer in energy-hungry Egypt – whatever the geopolitical backdrop.

“Even when regional leaders rail against occupation or genocide, the gas keeps flowing,” said Ziadah, the UK-based rights activist.

The post Israel’s fossil gas power play pushes climate action to the sidelines appeared first on Climate Home News.

Israel’s fossil gas power play pushes climate action to the sidelines

Jennifer Morgan is a senior fellow with the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University and a former special climate envoy for the German government.

Two years ago, countries around the world set a goal of “transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner”. The plan included tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency gains by 2030 – important steps for slowing climate change since the energy sector makes up about 75% of the global carbon dioxide emissions that are heating up the planet.

The world is making progress: More than 90% of new power capacity added in 2024 came from renewable energy sources, and 2025 saw similar growth.

However, fossil fuel production is also still expanding. And the United States, the world’s leading producer of both oil and natural gas, is now aggressively pressuring countries to keep buying and burning fossil fuels.

The energy transition was not meant to be a main topic when world leaders and negotiators met at the 2025 United Nations climate summit, COP30, in November in Belém, Brazil. But it took centre stage from the start to the very end, bringing attention to the real-world geopolitical energy debate underway and the stakes at hand.

Fight over transition roadmap at COP30

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began the conference by calling for the creation of a formal roadmap, essentially a strategic process in which countries could participate to “overcome dependence on fossil fuels.” It would take the global decision to transition away from fossil fuels from words to action.

More than 80 countries said they supported the idea, ranging from vulnerable small island nations like Vanuatu that are losing land and lives from sea level rise and more intense storms, to countries like Kenya that see business opportunities in clean energy, to Australia, a large fossil fuel-producing country.

Opposition, led by the Arab Group’s oil- and gas-producing countries, kept any mention of a “roadmap” energy transition plan out of the final agreement from the climate conference, but supporters are pushing ahead.

I was in Belém for COP30, and I follow developments closely as former special climate envoy and head of delegation for Germany and senior fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The fight over whether there should even be a roadmap shows how much countries that depend on fossil fuels are working to slow down the transition, and how others are positioning themselves to benefit from the growth of renewables. And it is a key area to watch in 2026.

The battle between electro-states and petro-states

Brazilian diplomat and COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago has committed to lead an effort in 2026 to create two roadmaps: one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner.

What those roadmaps will look like is still unclear. They are likely to be centred on a process for countries to discuss and debate how to reverse deforestation and phase out fossil fuels.

Over the coming months, Corrêa do Lago plans to convene high-level meetings among global leaders, including fossil fuel producers and consumers, international organisations, industries, workers, scholars and advocacy groups.

For the roadmap to both be accepted and be useful, the process will need to address the global market issues of supply and demand, as well as equity. For example, in some fossil fuel-producing countries, oil, gas or coal revenues are the main source of income. What can the road ahead look like for those countries that will need to diversify their economies?

Nigeria is an interesting case study for weighing that question.

Oil exports consistently provide the bulk of Nigeria’s revenue, accounting for around 80% to over 90% of total government revenue and foreign exchange earnings. At the same time, roughly 39% of Nigeria’s population has no access to electricity, which is the highest proportion of people without electricity of any nation. And Nigeria possesses abundant renewable energy resources across the country, which are largely untapped: solar, hydro, geothermal and wind, providing new opportunities.

What a roadmap might look like

In Belém, representatives talked about creating a roadmap that would be science-based and aligned with the Paris climate agreement, and would include various pathways to achieve a just transition for fossil fuel-dependent regions.

Some inspiration for helping fossil fuel-producing countries transition to cleaner energy could come from Brazil and Norway.

In Brazil, Lula asked his ministries to prepare guidelines for developing a roadmap for gradually reducing Brazil’s dependency on fossil fuels and find a way to financially support the changes.

His decree specifically mentions creating an energy transition fund, which could be supported by government revenues from oil and gas exploration. While Brazil supports moving away from fossil fuels, it is also still a large oil producer and recently approved new exploratory drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Norway, a major oil and gas producer, is establishing a formal transition commission to study and plan its economy’s shift away from fossil fuels, particularly focusing on how the workforce and the natural resources of Norway can be used more effectively to create new and different jobs.

Both countries are just getting started, but their work could help point the way for other countries and inform a global roadmap process.

The European Union has implemented a series of policies and laws aimed at reducing fossil fuel demand. It has a target for 42.5% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2030. And its EU Emissions Trading System, which steadily reduces the emissions that companies can emit, will soon be expanded to cover housing and transportation. The Emissions Trading System already includes power generation, energy-intensive industry and civil aviation.

Fossil fuel and renewable energy growth ahead

In the US, the Trump administration has made clear through its policymaking and diplomacy that it is pursuing the opposite approach: to keep fossil fuels as the main energy source for decades to come.

The International Energy Agency still expects to see renewable energy grow faster than any other major energy source in all scenarios going forward, as renewable energy’s lower costs make it an attractive option in many countries. Globally, the agency expects investment in renewable energy in 2025 to be twice that of fossil fuels.

At the same time, however, fossil fuel investments are also rising with fast-growing energy demand.

The IEA’s World Energy Outlook described a surge in new funding for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, projects in 2025. It now expects a 50% increase in global LNG supply by 2030, about half of that from the US. However, the World Energy Outlook notes that “questions still linger about where all the new LNG will go” once it’s produced.

What to watch for

The Belém roadmap dialogue and how it balances countries’ needs will reflect on the world’s ability to handle climate change.

Corrêa do Lago plans to report on its progress at the next annual UN climate conference, COP31, in late 2026. The conference will be hosted by Turkey, but Australia, which supported the call for a roadmap, will be leading the negotiations.

With more time to discuss and prepare, COP31 may just bring a transition away from fossil fuels back into the global negotiations.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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The battle over a global energy transition is on between petro-states and electro-states

On the last day of 2025, the Saudi Arabian government submitted an updated climate plan to the United Nations which contains a new but ambiguous emissions-reduction target and argues the world should keep buying the kingdom’s fossil fuels so that it can afford to shift its economy away from oil.

The 27-page nationally determined contribution (NDC) was sent to the UN’s climate arm (UNFCCC) on December 31 2025, just in time to meet the 2015 Paris Agreement’s requirement that governments submit an NDC every five years. The bottom of the front page says in capital letters “2025 SUBMISSION TO UNFCCC”.

The document was not uploaded to the UNFCCC website, and so was not publicly available, until the night of January 5-6.

Saudi Arabia’s third climate plan sets a new target for reducing emissions by 2040 – unlike most other new NDCs which contain a goal for 2035.

As with the oil-rich government’s earlier 2030 target, it is not clear what share of the oil producing-country’s emissions the 2040 goal equates to, as the baseline is not clearly specified. The Saudi government also states that it may change the baseline, effectively making the target less ambitious if it feels unfairly targeted by global climate policies.

The document says Saudi Arabia will aim to “reduce, avoid, and remove greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 335 million tons of [carbon dioxide equivalent] annually reached by 2040… on the basis of a dynamic baseline, with the year 2019 designated as the base year for this NDC”.

Saudi Arabia’s last NDC in 2021 had a similar format, aiming to cut emissions by 278 million tons a year (mtpa) by 2030. But neither target specifies the total the emissions reductions should be measured against, leaving analysts unclear as to what level of absolute emissions Saudi Arabia is aiming for in 2030 and 2040.

Climate Action Tracker (CAT), which analyses climate plans from major-emitting nations, has yet to publish its view on Saudi Arabia’s new NDC.

But commenting on the 2021 NDC, it said that “although not explicitly mentioned in the document, the CAT interprets the NDC target to be a reduction below a baseline scenario. It is important to note that neither the previous nor the updated NDC includes a baseline projection to which the emissions reductions target is applied.”

A 2024 study by researchers from the Riyadh-based King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Centre (KAPSARC) and the US’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said “the Kingdom has not officially defined the baseline emissions in their updated NDCs”. They suggested that, under Saudi Arabia’s current policies, emissions will continue to rise until at least 2060.

Saudi authorities have not clarified what baseline the previous NDC’s targets are against and have not spoken publicly about the new NDC. The website for the government’s Vision 2030 initiative says only that the Kingdom aims to “reduce carbon emissions by 278 mtpa by 2030”.

NDC depends on continued oil exports

As well as being unclear in terms of numbers, Saudi Arabia says the baseline for its 2040 target is contingent on “sustained economic growth and diversification, supported by a robust contribution from hydrocarbon export revenues to the national economy”.

Hydrocarbons are another word for fossil fuels, which the NDC says Saudi Arabia aims to become less reliant on by moving into sectors like financial and medical services, tourism, renewable energy and energy-efficiency technologies.

UN carbon accounting rules mean emissions of fossil fuels are counted where they are consumed, not where they are produced, so the emissions from exported Saudi oil do not count towards the kingdom’s emissions.

Saudi Arabia’s emissions-cutting ambitions also rest, the NDC says, “on the assumption that the economic and social consequences of international climate change policies and measures will not pose a disproportionate or abnormal burden on the Kingdom’s economy”.

The country – which gets about three-fifths of its export earnings from fossil fuels – has long been the leading opponent of international measures to reduce their production and use. It has recently opposed efforts to map out a transition away from fossil fuels in climate talks, measures to restrict plastics production in negotiations on a global treaty to cut plastic pollution and taxes on polluting ships at the International Maritime Organization.

If other governments do not continue to buy its fossil fuels in sufficient quantities, the NDC says that Saudi Arabia will use fossil fuels domestically to produce plastics and power heavy industries like cement, mining and metals production. In this scenario, Saudi Arabia’s emissions will be higher, the plan says.

The NDC lists green initiatives Saudi Arabia is pursuing, including carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, direct air capture of greenhouse gases and renewables. To adapt to more extreme heatwaves and droughts, the NDC says the government is using cloud seeding technology to make rain artificially.

The country’s 2021 NDC set a target for Saudi Arabia to get half of its energy from renewables by 2030. That target is not mentioned in the new NDC. The International Energy Agency’s latest figures said that in 2023 the country still got far less than 1% of its energy from renewables.

Around 70 countries have yet to submit their latest NDCs, which were due in 2025, including India.

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Saudi Arabia issues last-minute climate plan with unclear emissions-cutting goal