The US and Israel’s war on Iran has caused oil and gas prices to soar, with the world now preparing for the possibility of another energy crisis.
The conflict, which has seen Iran respond with missile strikes across the region, has killed more than 1,000 people so far and sent global markets into disarray.
With shipping through the critical Strait of Hormuz paralysed and direct attacks by both sides on fossil-fuel infrastructure, some of the world’s biggest oil and gas facilities have paused production.
On 9 March, oil prices soared above $100 per barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, amid fears of long-term disruption to global energy supplies.
While US president Donald Trump has said that rising oil prices are a “very small price to pay” for “safety and peace”, the conflict is already pushing import-dependent countries to invoke emergency measures to protect consumers.
In this Q&A, Carbon Brief looks at how the war has disrupted energy supplies, the impact on oil and gas prices, which parts of the world are being hit hardest and what it could mean for efforts by some to transition away from fossil fuels.
- How has the Iran war disrupted energy supplies?
- How has the Iran war impacted oil and gas prices?
- Which parts of the world have been most affected by the crisis?
- What does the Iran war mean for efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
How has the Iran war disrupted energy supplies?
On 28 February, the US and Israel launched a large-scale military attack on Iran, which has responded with counterattacks across the region.
On 2 March, Iran said that it would attack any vessel travelling through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway used to transport around a quarter of global seaborne oil trade and a fifth of the world’s liquified natural gas (LNG) supply.
According to the UK’s maritime security agency, UKMTO, around 10 vessels have been attacked in or near the Strait of Hormuz since Iran’s threat.
Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has since come to a “virtual standstill”.
While Saudi Arabia and the UAE can reroute some of their crude oil production via pipelines to avoid the strait, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have no alternatives, according to Bloomberg.
As a result of the effective closure, oil storage facilities in the region are filling up. Saudi Arabia has started to reduce oil production, as there is limited storage and limited export options due to the strait remaining closed to shipping, reported Bloomberg.
Other energy infrastructure has also been caught in the crosshairs of the conflict, leading to site closures at a number of oil and gas facilities.
For example, Iranian drones targeted the giant Ras Laffan gas facility in Qatar, which is responsible for about a fifth of global LNG supply. The QatarEnergy facility subsequently paused production and “will take weeks to restart”, reported Reuters.
Additionally, Saudi Aramco paused work at one of its refineries due to a fire caused by debris from an intercepted drone attack. One of the largest oil storage terminals in the UAE halted operations and a range of other energy sites across the Middle East have ceased operations.
The combination of the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and disruption to energy infrastructure in the region has led to oil and gas prices surging to their highest levels in several years.
How has the Iran war impacted oil and gas prices?
Global oil and gas prices have been rising since the first US and Israel attacks on Iran in late February.
On 2 March, the Guardian reported that Brent crude – the global oil price benchmark – had risen by up to 13%, standing at a “14-month high” of $82 (£61) a barrel.
Experts at that stage warned that a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz could continue to push up prices and lead to a “1970s-style energy shock”, according to CNBC.
By Monday 9 March, oil prices had soared above $100 (£74) per barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Prices hit $119 (£88) a barrel at one point on Monday, as shown in the chart below, amid fears of long-lasting disruption to global energy supplies.
US president Donald Trump called rising oil prices a “very small price to pay” for “safety and peace”, reported the Independent.
By Tuesday 10 March, the Guardian reported that the price of a barrel of oil had “tumbled” to around $91.70 (£68), after Trump suggested the war could end “very soon”.
(The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it would “determine the end of the war”, not “American forces”, reported France24.)
The price of gas has also risen across Europe and Asia.
Prices “soar[ed”, reported Al Jazeera, after LNG production was halted by Qatar’s state-run energy company. (See: How has the war disrupted energy supplies?)
This led to gas price jumps “amid concerns about supplies”, said the New York Times.
Subsequently, the price of gas in Europe rose by up to 45% to around €46 (£40) per megawatt hour (MWh) on 2 March.
European gas price futures increased by as much as 30% on 9 March, according to Bloomberg. Prices stood at around €60/MWh (£52/MWh) compared to a past peak in 2022 of above €300/MWh (£260/MWh), said the outlet.
Bloomberg noted that “prices are still well below the records reached” after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, as highlighted in the chart below.
Gas prices in Asia have more than doubled since 28 February, with some countries “struggling to find prompt” supplies.
In the UK, the price of gas has doubled since the start of the current conflict, although it has subsequently fallen back to around 75% above pre-crisis levels.
While domestic consumers are currently protected by the price cap for gas and electricity, some forecasts suggest bills could hit £2,500 a year – a rise of 50% – when the cap is updated in July. (There is currently no cap for consumers of heating oil.)
In the US, gas prices have only risen by 11% since the end of February, according to the Wall Street Journal. The US gas market is relatively insulated from global price spikes because it has limited export capacity. (The Wall Street Journal attributed this instead to “record” domestic production “cushioning” the country from the price jumps in other parts of the world.)
Meanwhile, the price of petrol (or “gas”, as it is known colloquially) in the US has increased by 19%, noted the New York Times. Even though the US is a net oil exporter, it is still affected by international price spikes, as the market for oil is globally interconnected.
The crisis has also raised the price of electricity, heating fuel, fertilisers, food and other products in many parts of the world.
Which parts of the world have been most affected by the crisis?
The impact of the Iran war has been felt around the world, in particular in areas reliant on oil and gas imports.
Below, Carbon Brief looks at how different regions have responded to the conflict so far.
Asia
Asia’s biggest economies are “highly dependent” on oil and gas imports that transit through the Strait of Hormuz, reported the Financial Times, adding that they are now “racing to secure new sources”. About 80% of all oil volumes through the strait go to Asia, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
East Asian nations, such as South Korea and Thailand, “have been hit especially hard” and have already announced measures such as capping petrol prices, according to BBC News. It said Vietnam plans to temporarily remove taxes on fuel imports and the Philippines has announced plans for a four-day working week for most public offices.
Reuters noted that Bangladesh “relies on imports for 95% of its energy needs” and has announced the early closure of all universities as part of emergency measures to conserve energy. The newswire says the country also halted operations at nearly all its state-run fertiliser factories, redirecting gas to power plants.
Myanmar, meanwhile, has announced a “sweeping fuel rationing system for private vehicles”, said another Reuters article.
On 9 March, China announced its “biggest retail fuel price cap increase in four years” for retail petrol and diesel, said Reuters. Additionally, diplomatic sources cited by Reuters said that China is “in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and Qatari liquefied natural gas vessels safe passage” through the Strait of Hormuz.
China is the main buyer of Iranian oil and has funded gas facilities in Qatar, meaning “billions of dollars are at risk from a widening war”, according to the New York Times.
However, India could be the “most vulnerable” to the war’s energy supply shock, according to the Hindustan Times.
On 3 March, India’s petroleum and natural gas minister Hardeep Singh Puri was quoted by the Economic Times saying that “India has sufficient reserves of crude oil and petroleum products to manage short-term disruptions”.
Three days later, the Hindustan Times reported that the US announced a “temporary 30-day waiver to Indian refineries” to continue to purchase Russian oil “already stranded at sea”. However, the Financial Times reported that analysts said that the crude oil freed up by this is a “drop in the ocean”, equivalent to only four days’ of Indian demand. (The New York Times said that the “dramatic change in energy markets could not have come at a better time for President Vladimir Putin of Russia”.)
India has invoked emergency measures to redirect supplies of liquefied petroleum gas “away from industrial users to households”, reported Bloomberg. Cooking gas supply and fertiliser plants have been given top priority, said the Times of India.
Middle East
Beyond the impact on energy, air and drone strikes in the Middle East have damaged key infrastructure, including water desalination plants.
The region is dependent on desalination plants for much of its drinking water. The Associated Press reported that, “in Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman and about 70% in Saudi Arabia”.
It adds that “hundreds of desalination plants sit along the Persian Gulf coast, putting individual systems that supply water to millions [of people] within range of Iranian missile or drone strikes”.
The Financial Times noted that climate change is exacerbating water security concerns in the Gulf, where temperatures can exceed 50C in summer and there are “no permanent rivers”. It adds that climate change is “driving erratic rainfall patterns and contributing to low water storage” in the region.
The Middle East is also one of the world’s largest producers of fertilisers. Around 35% of the world’s exports of urea – a nitrogen fertiliser that “underpins around half of global food production” – passes through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Financial Times.
As a result, the newspaper said that “granular urea prices in the Middle East have risen by about $130 to around $575-650 a tonne”.
The spike in the price of gas – a key element in fertiliser production – is also affecting fertiliser prices.
Europe
The disruption to global oil and gas supplies is driving up energy prices across Europe.
“The EU imports more than 90% of its oil and around 80% of its gas, making European countries highly exposed to fluctuations in global oil and gas prices,” according to Reuters. Europe’s gas market is particularly vulnerable at the moment, because it is emerging from winter with storage tanks depleted.
Bruegel said that Europe is “far less dependent on Gulf oil and LNG than China, India, Japan or South Korea”. However, it said that it is “not insulated”. It added:
“Oil and LNG are global markets: any blockage of the Strait of Hormuz could trigger immediate price spikes that would hit Europe regardless of its limited physical imports.”
The Financial Times reported that “European electricity prices are swinging wildly from daytime to evening as the Iran war’s disruption to gas supplies accentuates growing volatility in Europe’s power markets amid the rise of renewables”.
Petrol prices are also surging. UK average diesel costs have hit a 16-month high and the French government is asking a watchdog to check that petrol stations are not unfairly raising prices to profit from a rush for fuel.
Euronews reported EU leaders are “considering reviewing taxes, electricity network charges and carbon costs tied to energy prices as a quick fix for struggling industries”.
Meanwhile, EU economy and finance ministers gathered in Brussels to discuss how to respond to surging energy prices. According to Euronews, ministers have discussed the possibility of releasing oil reserves, but say that it is “not yet the right time”.
Other regions
Africa
In Africa, oil-producing Nigeria, Angola and Ghana are well-positioned to benefit from surging global prices, although the gains may not be evenly distributed. However, importing countries, such as South Africa, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are at risk.
Every “$20 a barrel jump in Brent” could cause “a knock” of about 1% and 3% on South Africa and DRC’s GDP, respectively, according to Bloomberg analysis. Trade bottlenecks and the lack of refinery capacity in these countries could also lead to fuel shortages, it said.
While oil exporters could see windfall gains, “most African households will have to grapple with higher costs of living” since “most food and goods” are transported by road across the continent, noted the Associated Press.
The crisis, however, “may reinforce calls for African nations to diversify their energy systems and reduce dependence on imported fuels” through “long-term investments in renewable energy”, said Dr Kennedy Mbeva, research associate at Cambridge’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, as quoted in the story.
Australia
While Australia is a key gas and coal exporter, its dependence on petrol and diesel imports could leave it vulnerable, especially its agricultural and mining sectors.
The Australian Financial Review reported that Australia’s biggest gas producers – Santos and Woodside Energy – are “cashing in on the conflict…with deals struck at more than double recent market rates”.
Latin America
Major Latin American economies are “cautiously watching” the war’s impact on energy prices on their economies, reported El País.
The newspaper cited experts saying that for Venezuela – whose “modest but strategic share” of oil production is now under “direct scrutiny from the White House” – the crisis might result in additional revenues, to the tune of “around $2.4bn”.
It also quoted Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, reassuring citizens that “compensation mechanisms [are] in place to prevent price increases from impacting” them.
While Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras “could benefit” from the crisis, said Reuters, the conflict “may spark grain contract cancellations and fertiliser shortages”.
Finally, a comment in Colombia One argued that the country’s “energy importance” could translate into “fiscal breathing room” and that oil gains could “financ[e] renewable energy without undermining fiscal stability”.
What does the Iran war mean for efforts to transition away from fossil fuels?
The rise in global fossil-fuel prices as a result of the war has prompted some leaders to recommit to boosting their energy sovereignty through the deployment of renewables.
Yet, the conflict has also been taken as an opportunity by supporters of fossil fuels to argue for more domestic oil-and-gas production, as a way to boost energy security.
In response to the crisis, Teresa Ribera, the executive vice-president of the European Commission who oversees the “clean, just and competitive transition”, said in a statement that the “answer is not new dependencies, but faster electrification, renewables and efficiency”, adding:
“The real risk is not moving too fast on clean energy, but too slowly. The clean transition is Europe’s shield against volatility.”
According to the South Korean newspaper Chosun Daily, the country’s president Lee Jae Myung said the crisis presented a “good opportunity to swiftly and extensively transition to renewable energy”.
In the UK, where there has been mounting pressure to relax government restrictions on the expansion of fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea, prime minister Keir Starmer used a speech responding to the conflict in the Middle East to say:
“We…have the right plan for our energy supplies. Building up clean British energy like never before, decreasing our dependence on volatile international markets and creating the energy security and independence we need.”
Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief, said the crisis “shows yet again that fossil fuel dependence leaves economies, businesses, markets and people at the mercy of each new conflict or trade policy lurch”.
According to the Guardian, he added:
“There is a clear solution to this fossil-fuel cost chaos – renewables are now cheaper, safer and faster-to-market, making them the obvious pathway to energy security and sovereignty.”
UN secretary-general António Guterres said in a statement that renewable energy offers countries an “exit ramp” away from fossil-fuel dependence. He added:
“Homegrown renewable energy has never been cheaper, more accessible or more scalable. The resources of the clean-energy era cannot be blockaded or weaponised. There are no price spikes for sunlight and no embargoes on the wind.
“The fastest path to energy security, economic security and national security is clear: speed up a just transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy.”
Dr Markus Krebber, chief executive at the German energy giant RWE, wrote on LinkedIn that the crisis raised the importance of “fixing the grids”, electrifying “everything that makes sense” and “relentlessly scaling renewables”. He said:
“The imperative of our time: The more we electrify, the less we import fossil fuels. The less we import, the more resilient we become.”
BusinessGreen reported on how the disruption to energy supplies is “pushing up petrol prices – and boosting the case for electric vehicles”, citing analysis of potential costs for UK drivers by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
News outlets have cited Nepal and Ethiopia as examples of countries that rely on fossil-fuel imports, which have taken steps to accelerate the electrification of their road transport.
Some commentators noted that the rhetoric around boosting energy sovereignty through renewables matched narratives seen following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
While European countries have cut their dependence on pipeline gas from Russia, much of that dependence has instead moved to imports of LNG from the US. Prof Jan Rosenow, energy programme lead at the University of Oxford, told a recent briefing for journalists:
“There’s a lot more LNG in the mix. But when you look at the dependency rate of Europe on oil and gas, it hasn’t really gone down. We have diversified, but we haven’t really managed to scale the alternatives fast enough and I think now we pay the price for that.”
Despite this ongoing reliance on fossil fuels, there has been growth in wind and solar capacity both in Europe and elsewhere in recent years. There has also been rapid growth in some developing countries.
Some analysis has pointed to the example of Pakistan, which massively increased its use of solar power amid a surge in LNG prices linked to the war in Ukraine, as a possible model for other countries. This could be particularly appealing for other countries that rely heavily on fossil-fuel imports – and are, therefore, exposed to price spikes.
Isaac Levi, an analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told Heatmap News:
“This is the first oil and gas crisis-slash-pricing scare in which clean alternatives to oil and gas are fully price-competitive…Looking at the solar booms, we can expect this to boost clean-energy deployment in a major way, and that will be the more significant and durable impact.”
The solar panels driving such “booms” are cheap imports from China. Some experts have noted how China is well-placed to navigate a new energy crisis. Prof Jason Bordoff and Dr Erica Downs, both from the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, wrote in Foreign Policy that the Iran war “could consolidate China’s energy dominance”. They wrote:
“Rapidly expanding grids or deploying large volumes of solar, wind and storage is exceedingly difficult without deepening reliance on Chinese firms and materials.”
Tom Ellison, deputy director of the Center for Climate and Security and a former member of the US intelligence community, wrote in Sustainable Views that reliance on the “autonomous electricity production” of wind and solar would be preferable to fossil fuels:
“They do not rely on continuously operating pipelines, ports or shipping lanes that can be switched off, blockaded or hit by a hurricane. There is no Strait of Hormuz or Nord Stream II for clean energy.
“That is not to say clean energy is risk-free. No system is. But the challenges of clean energy, including China’s dominance of key material and mineral supply chains, are more manageable than those of fossil fuels.”
King’s College London researchers writing in the Conversation considered the geopolitics of a similar conflict in a world “powered by renewables, not fossil fuels”. They noted that renewable construction depends on critical minerals, adding:
“While mineral supply chains remain uneven…they do not converge on a single chokepoint.”
Some analysts noted that increases in fossil-fuel prices and the benefits of a cleaner energy system would not necessarily guarantee a surge in low-carbon investment.
Bloomberg cited David Hostert, global head of economics and modeling at BloombergNEF, who explained that higher energy prices could spark inflation, leading to higher interest rates and, therefore, higher costs to deploy clean energy.
According to Morningstar equity analyst Tancrède Fulop, this was part of the reason why the last energy crisis did not lead to a universal surge in renewable capacity. “Renewable companies materially under-performed because of those high interest rates,” he told Climate Home News.
The post Q&A: What does the Iran war mean for the energy transition and climate action? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What does the Iran war mean for the energy transition and climate action?
In recent days, prominent climate sceptics and rightwing commentators have shared charts on social media incorrectly implying that Europe is having its “quietest” year for wildfires in 2026.
These include Dr Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile”, who was recently appointed by the Trump administration to lead the US Global Change Research Program.
However, these charts paint a misleading picture as they are skewed by encompassing the entirety of Russia in the data – including the vast plains of Siberia.
These charts also use data that include fires that are deliberately lit to manage cropland, which is a declining practice across much of Europe.
In this factcheck, Carbon Brief shows that the area burned by wildfires across the European Union in 2026 is second only to 2022 for this time of year.
The latest data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) also shows that France has set a new modern record for area burned and Spain’s wildfire season is among the worst on record.
The fires have displaced more than a third of a million people across south-western Europe, while an impending heatwave has also raised fears of the fires worsening in the coming days.
‘Quietest year’
On 27 July, as wildfires raged across multiple European countries, former Conservative peer and climate-sceptic commentator Matt Ridley posted on Twitter that “2026 is the quietest year for wildfires in Europe by some distance”.
Ridley, who sits on the academic advisory council of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a UK-based climate-sceptic lobby group that refuses to reveal the sources of its funding, was responding to an article by Daily Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley.
Stanley’s column, headlined: “Climate change is real – and the right needs to get serious about it”, warned:
“This is no longer a matter of speculation: the wildfires of Europe, pitiless and persistent, are the way we live now.”
Ridley included a chart from Our World In Data, showing the cumulative area burned by wildfires by week for Europe. The chart puts 2026 as having the smallest area for this time of year in a dataset going back to 2012.
Ridley’s post was widely shared by prominent rightwing figures – including Richard Tice, deputy leader of the hard-right, climate-sceptic Reform UK party, former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and multiple commentators.
Separately, Wielicki also shared a chart on Twitter to imply that wildfires in Europe are declining. Wielicki has previously claimed that the “science is not settled on climate change”.
The charts posted by Ridley and Wielicki both use data from the Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS). The GWIS category for “Europe” encompasses all the countries on the continent and includes the whole of Russia.
As a result, Russia accounts for about 74% of the area included in the GWIS definition of “Europe”.
Wildfires in Russia typically account for 80-90% of the burned area in the GWIS Europe dataset. In 2026, fires in Russia are substantially below average. Therefore, including Russia in this comparison creates the false impression that wildfire activity across Europe is unusually low.
Dr Calum Cunningham, a research fellow at the University of Tasmania’s Fire Centre, says that such claims are “highly misleading”, noting that “they rely on aggregating fire activity across an enormous and climatically diverse region”. He tells Carbon Brief:
“A relatively quiet season in Russia can easily mask an exceptionally active season in France or Spain. If the analysis is focused on the regions actually experiencing the current fires, the picture is very different.
“The reality is that western Europe has experienced an extraordinary sequence of climate conditions this year.”
In contrast, the EFFIS provides a subset of wildfire data specifically for the area covered by the 27 nations of the EU, which, therefore, excludes Russia.
Another difference between the two datasets is that GWIS monitors all fires – including those on agricultural land that are intentionally set alight. The burned area as measured by GWIS contains significant cropland area.
By contrast, EFFIS uses land-cover data and other information to filter specifically for forest fires.
Looking at the EU-only data from EFFIS reveals that Europe is far from having its “quietest” year. The bloc’s burned area, as of 29 July, is almost 435,000 hectares (ha) – second only to 2022 for this time of year.
Notably, Wielicki has actually continued to post charts based on GWIS data, even after acknowledging that “includ[ing] all of Russia, including vast areas of Siberia…isn’t a good proxy for Europe”.
French fires
Even looking at EU-wide data misses the scale of this year’s wildfires for some individual countries.
The chart below shows the surge in burned area in France since mid-July.
For much of the first half of the year, the country was having a wildfire season that was only slightly above average in terms of total burned area. However, a notable uptick began in the first week of July.
The third week of the month saw France break its previous cumulative annual record by more than 19,000ha. That gap has widened as the fires continue to burn; as of 29 July, the cumulative burned area in France during 2026 was nearly 24,700ha above the previous record.
The fires in France follow a record-breaking June heatwave that “dried out vegetation across the region, allowing fires to spread quickly”, wrote the New York Times.
On 27 July, French president Emmanuel Macron called a “crisis cabinet meeting” in order to address the fires “ravaging several areas of south-west France”, said France 24.
More than 220,000 people have been evacuated due to the Gironde fire, west of Bordeaux, in “what may be France’s largest peacetime evacuation”, reported the Associated Press.
In the Conversation, Cunningham and two other University of Tasmania researchers write that evacuation orders “protec[t] human lives, but makes it more likely houses and other structures will burn if there’s no one to defend them”. They add:
“There is little doubt climate change has made France and Spain’s wildfires worse. They represent yet another reason to redouble our efforts to tackle climate change and stabilise our climate.”
Central Spain scorched
While Spain’s fire season has not broken records in the same way that France’s has, it is on track to be among the worst since EFFIS began reporting data in 2006.
The chart below shows the rapid increase in burned area in Spain since 8 July. The latest data from EFFIS reveal that, as of 29 July, Spain has almost matched its previous record at this point in the year. It is also nearly five times the average area burned for this time of year.
In Spain, the wildfires have been concentrated in the central part of the country, near Madrid.
BBC News reported that the fires outside the capital have burned “an area more than twice as large as the city itself”.
Nearly 90,000 people were forced from their homes in central Spain by the fires, said the Associated Press.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister, called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change.
Meanwhile, the UK, French and Spanish governments have issued joint statements this week in response to the fires. The UK/Spain statement begins:
“This summer’s wildfires demonstrated that climate change was now a national security emergency facing Europe and threatening our way of life.”
Related
The post Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Factcheck: No, Europe is not having its ‘quietest’ year for wildfires
The general public often underestimate support for climate action, while overestimating the real-world actions taken by other people to address the problem, according to new research.
The study, published in Nature Climate Change, explores the differences between people’s support for climate change, their behaviour and their assumptions about other people’s behaviour.
It is based on multiple surveys of more than 5,000 people across Germany and the US.
The study expands on previous research on how the general public systematically underestimate the climate commitment of their peers.
The difference between actual and perceived support for climate action among the public is sometimes known as a “perception gap”.
The surveys tested how people’s perceptions of climate attitudes and behaviours relate to their own willingness to contribute and undertake “climate-friendly” actions.
One of the authors tells Carbon Brief that this perception gap is not due to “ignorance or bias”, but because “people are just not good at making good estimations”.
The research also reveals that people’s opinions and behaviours are more “nuanced than previously assumed” and suggests that simply “correcting misperceptions” does not automatically lead to greater climate action.
Measuring climate actions
The study notes that correcting the perception gap is often seen as a “cost-effective” way to promote public engagement and drive action to reduce the intensification and impacts of climate change.
Most studies that explore the perception gap have primarily focused on surveys that have asked people to report their willingness to support climate change.
In other words, researchers have relied upon people saying they would support efforts to tackle climate change, rather than measuring people’s real-world actions, such as financial donations, attending protests or changing their behaviour.
To fill this gap, the researchers behind the new study surveyed a total of more than 5,000 people in Germany and the US over 2024-25. Surveys were split across five different experiments, each focused on public perceptions of climate attitudes and how they relate to individuals’ actual behaviour:
| Experiment | What they did |
| Survey one | Participants were asked if they were willing to donate 1% of their household income to WWF – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many actually donated to the charity. |
| Survey two | Participants read a constitutional complaint against the German government, led by Greenpeace, which demands for stricter climate policies. They were asked if they were willing to participate as a claimant and/or donate to the cause – and then were given the chance to do so. Follow-up questions asked participants to predict how many of their peers said “yes” and how many went on to support the complaint. |
| Survey three | Participants were requested to complete an online “work for environmental protection task” where the more “pages” they completed resulted in more donations to WWF. They then predicted how many pages their peers completed. Participants also rated their individual behaviours and support for eight climate policies and then estimated the same for other people. |
| Surveys four and five | Participants were split into three groups that were either informed that 4% of participants had donated 1% of their household income to WWF, that “68% were willing to contribute” or given no information. They then had to state whether they were willing to support WWF and then were given the opportunity to do so. |
The authors note that Germany and the US are two of the “top 10 CO2 emitters” and are places where climate action is “especially necessary”. However, they add that the two countries are not reflective of “diverse cultural contexts” and further research is needed across the world.
The perception gap
The researchers find that most of their participants supported climate action, but much fewer actually performed verifiable behaviours.
For example, survey one finds that 37% of participants said they were willing to donate to WWF, yet just 4% did when given the opportunity.
Participants generally overestimated the climate actions of their peers, predicting that 23% of other people donated. Willingness, on the other hand, was slightly underestimated with respondents averaging around 34%.
The results from survey three suggest that this perception gap is likely due to general cognitive processes within the human brain that make accurate estimations about large groups difficult, say the authors.
The chart below shows the actual percentage of people who supported different environmental policies and performed climate-friendly behaviours (blue dots) compared to average predictions from the surveys (red dots).
They reveal a “consistent pattern” where “small proportions were overestimated and large ones were underestimated”, the authors say, driving predictions towards the middle. This phenomenon is known as “regression to the mean”.
In other words, where public support for a policy was high, participants in the survey estimated it was lower than it was. When the support was lower, estimates would be higher.
The study finds that individual and environmental factors played a role in shaping people’s perceptions of their peers’ climate actions, which were distinct from general misestimations.
For example, people who were already involved in climate action, had more frequent climate discussions and consumed more climate-focused news and media predicted a higher proportion of climate support “across the board”.
The results from the fourth and fifth surveys show that knowing the context of other people’s beliefs and behaviour in surveys can impact the attitudes of participants.
Participants that were told that 68% of people were willing to donate 1% of their household income to the WWF were more willing to donate.
In contrast, participants that were told that 4% of people actually donated did not report more willingness to “discuss climate change, sign petitions or donate” than the control group.
However, there was no obvious impact on actual donations for any of the three groups, the study notes.
Lead study author Dr Kevin Tiede, scientific managing director of the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour at the University of Erfurt, tells Carbon Brief that the findings suggest that “just telling people how many people support climate action is likely not enough to really change something”.
However, Tiede adds that “direct comparability” between people saying they would donate and actually donating is “limited” and that giving people more time to answer and autonomy over where to donate might result in more people taking action.
‘Pluralistic ignorance’
Tiede explains that the study findings demonstrate the existence of “pluralistic ignorance”, where a person believes their own views differ from the majority.
For climate change, this means that the “vast majority of people around the world support climate action, but people considerably underestimate the extent of this support”, the study says.
However, the surveys reveal that pluralistic ignorance “in the climate domain” is more nuanced than previously thought, say the authors.
Prof Madalina Vascleanu, an assistant professor at Stanford University’s Doerr School of Sustainability, who was not involved in the study, tells Carbon Brief that encouraging climate action is complex.
It may take multiple and repeated “attempts” at effective communication, or for people to directly “experience” the “norm” that climate change is widely supported, she says, rather than simply being told.
“Observable” behaviours, such as “identity signalling” – which could involve anything from protesting to vegetarianism – might have more of an impact on encouraging climate action among peers than “private behaviours like donations”, she adds.
The study is a “great addition to the literature”, Vascleanu says, because “correcting” the perception gap did not have an effect on climate-friendly behaviour, as “scholars had previously assumed”. She adds that it has “sparked several new hypotheses” that her “lab is now working on”.
Prof Mauro Bertolotti, associate professor of social psychology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, explains that the “attitude-behaviour gap” revealed by the research is a “rather common finding”.
However, he is “sceptical” of the “simplified and abstract” measures, warning that experiment environments often come with “assumptions and expectations” that are different from real life.
As a result, they might not “replicate” the process people go through when choosing to “make a donation to an environmental cause”, he says.
‘Targeted’ communication strategies
The researchers argue that it is more effective to focus on “targeted” communication strategies – encouraging climate-friendly behaviours that aim to reach the majority who already support climate action, rather than trying to convert climate sceptics.
They call for attention to be paid to the attitude-behaviour gap between people saying they support efforts to tackle climate change and following up with real-world climate actions.
The study suggests strategies for decision-makers to reduce the attitude-behaviour gap, such as “facilitating climate-friendly behaviour” with “convenience and subsidies”. They also recommend ensuring environmental policy prioritises fairness to gain visible and widespread public support.
They add that the public would benefit from understanding the “effectiveness and co-benefits” of climate action.
Tiede, K.E. et al. (2026) People systematically under- and overestimate public engagement in climate action, Nature Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-026-02668-z
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The post Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Correcting climate ‘misperceptions’ may not boost climate action
The spiking price of oil helped increase global sales of electric cars in the second quarter of 2026 despite total car sales falling, a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report shows.
The IEA’s latest update on the market for electric cars said sales increased by 4% in the second quarter, after the war between the US, Israel and Iran disrupted oil supplies around the world and caused oil prices to jump at the end of February.
The increase in electric car sales was achieved despite customers buying fewer vehicles in total due to economic problems and, in China, a reduction in government subsidies for cheap cars. Total car sales fell 5% globally in the first half of 2026.
“While a lag in consumer responses and policy implementation means the full effects will take time to materialise, the crisis has clearly reinforced the case for [electric vehicles] as a way to address energy security and fuel cost concerns,” the IEA’s report said.
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Import subsidies, abundant hydropower and charging investments have spurred EV adoption, with electric vehicles now making up about three-quarters of new car sales
The IEA predicts that sales of electric cars will speed up in the second half of the year, increasing by 10% for 2026 in total compared to 2025. Electric car sales will be 29% of total car sales over the full year, it forecasts, up from 24% in the first half.
The IEA expects sales of fossil fuel-reliant internal combustion engine vehicles to continue declining, as they have been doing for a decade because of economic shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and, since around 2020, the rise of electric cars.
Road transport – which also includes two- and three-wheeled vehicles like scooters and rickshaws – currently accounts for half of global oil use. The oil industry has been trying to expand markets in newer, growing sectors like plastic to replace its declining business in petrol and diesel for road transport.
Pro-EV policies
As well as the higher oil price, the IEA said this year’s electric car boom is being driven in some countries – particularly in Europe and Southeast Asia – by government policies that have been put in place since the Iran war blocked shipping of oil and other commodities through the Strait of Hormuz.
It highlighted the Netherlands and Ireland, which have both announced subsidies for scrapping old internal combustion engine cars and replacing them with electric ones.
Australia, Spain, Chile, Vietnam and the US state of California have introduced, or are introducing, tax benefits for electric cars.
Australia, the UK and Hungary have announced funding or support for charging infrastructure, while Cambodia, Brazil and Kenya have reduced taxes on imports of electric vehicles.
Growth in electric car sales was particularly strong in Europe, Brazil, Australia, India, South Korea, Vietnam, Colombia, South Africa and New Zealand.
On the other hand, electric car sales fell 16% in China – the world’s biggest electric car-buying country – in the second quarter. This was driven by a decline in total car sales, which was more extreme for internal combustion engine cars than electric ones.
In the US, electric car sales rose 20% in the second quarter compared with the first quarter of 2026. But this was about 25% less than in the same period of 2025, when Americans were taking advantage of expiring Biden-era federal tax credits.
These statistics back up Climate Home News’ reporting from the ground since the oil price spiked. As we reported from Yemen in May, the IEA data shows Chinese electric car companies are having success in the Middle East.
And as our correspondents found in Nepal and Bangladesh, there has been a surge of interest in electric vehicles across Asian countries outside of China. Yet while EV adoption in Nepal has been enabled by investments in charging and import subsidies, drivers in Bangladesh have been put off by a lack of chargers and high prices for electric two-wheelers.
The post Hormuz crisis speeds up transition to electric cars, IEA data shows appeared first on Climate Home News.
Hormuz crisis speeds up transition to electric cars, IEA data shows
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