International Energy Agency (IEA) head Fatih Birol has warned that oil supply disruptions due to the conflict in the Middle East will increase in April, reports CNBC. The outlet adds that Birol said in an interview with the In Good Company podcast that the current energy crisis is more extreme than any that the world has seen before. He also said that the IEA was considering another release of strategic oil reserves, the article notes. Reuters reports that the crisis would now “hit” Europe’s economy, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz continues to curb supplies, according to Birol. It adds that the “lack of ‌jet ⁠fuel and diesel which has already affected Asian countries” is now likely to affect Europe. The Wall Street Journal says Birol pointed to the IEA’s advice to governments to impose energy-saving measures such as work-from-home days and speed limits for cars.

The Guardian has a roundup of how the world is responding to the energy crisis. France is considering new actions to electrify the economy and cut dependence on imported fossil fuels, according to Le Monde. In Germany, the Financial Times reports that the economy minister Katherina Reiche has said the country should reconsider its long-standing opposition to nuclear power. The Guardian reports on how Asian nations such as South Korea and the Philippines are planning to burn more coal due to the energy crisis. Reuters reports that African governments have imposed fuel price increases ​amid increased global oil prices and Bloomberg reports that Colombia will also raise petrol prices this month. Another Reuters story reports that India is using its on-going shortage of cooking gas to accelerate a shift towards piped gas instead.

MORE ON ENERGY CRISIS

• The Financial Times reports on the “global wave of energy rationing”, with countries from Bangladesh to Zambia imposing measures to curb fuel use.
• Climate Home News reports on how, faced with the energy crisis, a growing number of people in Nigeria are ditching their backup generators for solar power systems.
• An Italian official tells Bloomberg that Italy is working on an extension of a fuel tax cut it approved last month, to ease the impact of the energy crisis.
• Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary has called for mandatory targets for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) in the EU to be changed, noting there was “no prospect” of reaching the goal of 6% by 2030, according to the Financial Times.
• CNBC reports that electric-vehicle demand in the US and Europe is getting a boost from the energy crisis “just as auto giants pivot back to combustion engines”. Reuters reports on a similar upward trend in demand in Asia.
• The state of Western Australia has invoked “emergency powers” to force fuel suppliers to provide information on their supply chains, according to Bloomberg. Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Australia is considering measures to ​force domestic gas exporters to prioritise local supplies.

US ​exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) reached “an all‑time high” in March as plants ran at full capacity and ‌new units started up, according to preliminary data from financial firm LSEG, covered by Reuters. The newswire says US shipments to Asia more than doubled from the previous month, after the Middle East conflict took around 20% of the global LNG supply offline. This has forced customers who “depended on cargoes that transited the Strait of ​Hormuz to try and find alternatives”, it explains. Reuters also reports that Russia exported more LNG in the first quarter of 2026 than it did a year earlier, “with shipments to Europe ​increasing”.

Bloomberg reports that Saudi Arabia’s oil exports dropped by half in March “after Iran effectively prevented tankers from leaving the Persian Gulf”. The outlet notes that the drop “would have been much bigger if Saudi Arabia hadn’t been able to divert crude to export terminals on the Red Sea”. The Financial Times reports that Gulf nations are considering new pipelines to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.

MORE ON FOSSIL FUELS

• Oil companies have been making more than €80m a day in “war profits” across the EU since the start of the war, according to a Greenpeace-commissioned study covered by Agence France-Presse.
• The Economist argues that war in the Middle East could make African countries more attractive places to drill for oil.
• Bloomberg reports that Canadian international trade minister Maninder Sidhu has “plugged his nation as a stable and reliable energy supplier amid the latest jump in oil prices”.
• Leaders from South Korea and Indonesia have held talks in which they discussed energy security, including the latter’s role in securing LNG and coal supplies “amid global uncertainty”, according to Reuters.
• Brazilian oil firm Petrobras has announced a 55% increase in jet fuel prices following a surge in ​oil prices linked to the US-Israeli war ​on Iran, according to Reuters.
• The Guardian has an analysis piece that notes: “Experts say the US believes it is entitled to resources it desires – a perspective president [Trump] has supported for decades.”

Scotland’s first minister, John Swinney, has “reversed” his government’s position on domestic oil and gas drilling as energy prices soar amid the energy crisis, reports the Times. Swinney said at a pre-elections hustings that the war in the Middle East “changes the balance of the arguments”, although he still supported climate compatibility assessments for new projects. The Scotsman describes this as a “major shift” in the Scottish National Party’s (SNP) position on new oil and gas developments, making “a clear departure from the position taken by his predecessors, Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf”. The Independent reports that Swinney also said he was “wholly committed” to renewable energy.

A Daily Telegraph article about the UK chancellor is headlined: “[Rachel] Reeves backs North Sea drilling.” It references her saying “I’m very happy that we are” extracting fossil fuels in the North Sea, while appearing on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine show. The Politico London Playbook notes that the remark “could well be about current operations, which the energy secretary [Ed Miliband] publicly supports too”. DeSmog reports on the “vested interests lobbying for North Sea oil and gas expansion” in the UK, citing Carbon Brief’s recent factcheck of various false and misleading claims being used to make the case for more drilling. The Guardian reports on similar lobbying efforts around Europe, pushing fossil fuels as a solution to the energy crisis. The Guardian also has an explainer piece looking at the claims about how North Sea drilling could lower energy bills in the UK.

MORE ON UK

• Reeves tells BBC News that government support for people’s energy bills, inflated by the Iran war, would be based on household income.
• The Daily Express reports that the opposition Conservative party has pledged to “axe carbon taxes in a bid to save British industry”.
• Bloomberg reports that there was a record surge in the price of petrol and diesel in the UK last month, due to the war in Iran.
• BBC News has an article about “the huge task of rewiring Britain’s electricity grid from top to bottom”.
• British Gas is launching new tariffs for people in the UK with plug-in solar panels to help those in smaller houses, flats and with balconies get 50% off electricity, according to the Daily Express.

Scientists studying the long-term effects of climate change are “warning that a recent NOAA decision to discontinue an atmospheric dataset will disrupt their monitoring of sea ice and create a gap in crucial observations of Arctic ice thickness”, reports E&E News. It adds: “The researchers say NOAA’s termination of the dataset on 18 March weakens one of the world’s leading models of long-term changes in ice thickness and scientists’ ability to project future changes. ‘Any gap in this dataset would reduce our ability to assess long-term trends in Arctic sea-ice thickness,’ Zack Labe, a climate scientist and sea ice expert with the nonprofit Climate Central [and Carbon Brief contributing editor], said in an email.” Last week, Carbon Brief covered the latest data: “‘Very alarming’ winter sees Arctic sea ice hit record-low for second year running.”

MORE ON CLIMATE SCIENCE

• Both Inside Climate News and Climate Home News carry articles about the latest IPCC meeting, which concluded last Friday in Bangkok. Carbon Brief has published a detailed summary of the meeting which includes an interview with IPCC chair Prof Jim Skea.
• The Independent reports that at least 23 scientists have left the US for Norway in the wake of Donald Trump returning to office, including those escaping from the president’s “anti-climate crisis agenda”.

Recent extreme rainfall in southern China highlights the “growing challenges posed by climate change”, reports state broadcaster CGTN, citing Wu Hongyu at the Guangdong Meteorological Administration. Wu said the “real concern” lies in the “evident trend” of extreme weather events becoming “more frequent, stronger and more severe”, according to the outlet. China’s Ministry of Water Resources said yesterday that China has officially entered the flood season in 2026, with the country expected to face a “complex” pattern of “flooding in the north and drought in the south”, reports state broadcaster CCTV. The ministry also said flooding in northern regions will be “relatively severe” this year, meaning that northern areas, traditionally dry and less prone to heavy rainfall, will face “greater flood control pressure”, adds the outlet. Reuters quotes the ministry saying that typhoons may move “northward and affect inland areas” this year, with southwest China expected to experience periods of drought.

MORE ON CHINA

• China’s clean-power generation sales revenue accounted for 36.3% of the total power production revenue in 2026’s first quarter, reports Xinhua.
• The South China Morning Post reports that the US House committee has called for a “major crackdown on China’s alleged sanctioned oil import”, while Bloomberg notes the US will allow Kazakhstan to “continue transiting Russian pipeline crude to China until next March”.
• Japan aims to secure 20% of future dysprosium and terbium demand from a French project, “reducing reliance on Chinese EV motors”, reports Reuters. Japan will reduce “purchase subsidies” for China’s BYD EV models under “revised rules that place greater weight on domestic production”, reports Caixin. 
• China’s new energy storage capacity accounted for more than half of the global market for the first time in 2025, reports People’s Daily. The country’s annual production of “green hydrogen” accounts for more than half of the global total, says another People’s Daily report.
• People’s Daily reports that China launched its national NEV battery “traceability information platform” on Tuesday.

Bloomberg columnist David Fickling has an article about a supposed trend that various media outlets have reported on in recent days, namely, that the energy crisis is driving more Asian countries to return to burning more coal. “That’s not what’s going to happen. Any shift to burn more coal in 2026 will be short-lived and overwhelmed by more quotidian factors, such as the weather… Europe’s much-touted return to coal in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine turned out to be a squib. Asia’s won’t be any different,” argues Fickling, adding: “With the LNG drought pushing up electricity prices and photovoltaics providing a cheaper, easier alternative, a boom in rooftop solar is far more likely than a return to coal.” The Economist, meanwhile, has an article titled “coal is back in fashion”, which, nevertheless, concludes that “cheap, clean renewables will win out in the end as countries seek to conflict-proof their energy mix”.

MORE ENERGY COMMENT

• An editorial in the Hindu notes that moving away from fossil fuels in response to the energy crisis “risks creating new technological and supply chain dependencies” – and stresses a “conscious strategy rooted in the global south’s legacy of non-alignment”.
• CNN analysis by Matt Egan notes that the US “walking away from the Strait of Hormuz won’t make [petrol] cheap again”.

UK energy security and net-zero secretary Ed Miliband writes in the Daily Mirror about the measures being taken by his government to keep energy bills low. He cites policies from the most recent budget and new funding for those reliant on heating oil, as prices rise due to the global energy crisis. However, he also stresses the wider need to transition to clean energy. “This conflict is the latest reminder that Britain’s only route to energy sovereignty and bringing down bills for good lies in our drive for clean homegrown power that we control,” writes Miliband. Given this, he stresses that the government is bringing forward the next renewables auction to July, “speeding ahead on new nuclear power” and accelerating funding for home upgrades “that will cut bills and shield families from fossil fuel shocks”. As for North Sea oil and gas, Miliband notes that they remain “a valuable resource and we are keeping existing fields open for their lifetime”.

MORE UK COMMENT

• The Guardian’s financial editor Nils Pratley criticises UK prime minister Keir Starmer’s “five-point energy plan”, which he says largely rehashed existing measures.
• The Daily Mail provides a whole page to platform climate sceptic Ruper Darwall to call for energy secretary Ed Miliband to be sacked, describing the UK’s net-zero policy “nonsensical” and “deeply dangerous”.
• Sunday Telegraph editor and climate-sceptic Allister Heath writes in the Daily Telegraph about how “Labour is doubling down on its extreme geopolitical naïveté”, stating that “it is unrelenting in its quasi-religious obsession with net-zero”.
• Times columnist Alex Massie criticises the decision of successive UK governments to prioritise renewables over fossil fuels, claiming that a grid that depends on renewables is “obviously more expensive to build, operate and maintain”.
• Chaitanya Kumar, head of economic and environmental policy at the New Economics Foundation, writes in the Guardian that the current crisis provides an “opportunity to protect people’s living standards and build a clean, secure energy system for the unstable decades to come”.

The Washington Post, which under the ownership of Jeff Bezos has recently taken a largely pro-Trump stance, has an editorial arguing that the US president is “not wrong about [Europe’s] green mistakes”. The editorial says: “The question is whether the rough rhetoric that pushed Europe to increase defense spending can get the continent to wake up on energy security.” It criticises the UK’s climate policies and concludes: “Europe needs to do more than convene planning sessions if it wants to ensure the free flow of goods in a world of escalating geopolitical rivalry.”

MORE US COMMENT

• An editorial in the Economist about how China is benefiting from the Iran war notes that US allies will be worried, as “they are paying for its hot-headedness in expensive energy and raw materials”. It adds: “Many countries worried about future embargoes in the Strait of Hormuz will want to buy Chinese green technology, including gear from solar, wind and battery producers – all of which have overcapacity.”
• A New York Times guest essay by journalist Jonathan Mingle is titled: “Remember the oil shocks of the ’70s? This is going to be worse. Much worse.”

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Josh Gabbatiss, with contributions from Henry Zhang and Anika Patel. It was edited by Leo Hickman.

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