Global oil prices have risen after at least three ships were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, reports BBC News, as “Iran continues to launch strikes across the Middle East in response to ongoing attacks by the US and Israel”. The broadcaster explains that Iran has warned ships not to pass through the strait, which carries about 20% of the world’s oil and gas. It reports that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said three tankers from the UK and US had been “struck by missiles and are burning”. It adds: “At least 150 tankers have dropped anchor in open Gulf waters beyond the Strait of Hormuz, although a handful of Iranian and Chinese vessels have passed through today.” The Financial Times says that insurance companies are already cancelling policies and raising coverage prices for ships passing through the Gulf.

Brent crude jumped by as much as 13% during early trading – to hit $82 per barrel, a 14-month high, says the Guardian. It adds that while it “fell back slightly”, Brent “remained up 7% during early trading, above $77 per barrel”. Analysts warn that prices could rise as high as $100 or $120 a barrel, says Bloomberg. Prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz “could spark a 1970s-style energy shock”, says CNBC. Al Jazeera has an explainer on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow channel which links the Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea beyond. It notes that while Iran has not officially closed the strait, the IRGC instructed ships that none would be allowed to pass. A Forbes comment says a closure would be “self-defeating for Iran” and “very difficult to maintain” under pressure from China, the main customer for Iranian oil. The Daily Telegraph says that Beijing is “fum[ing” about the US airstrikes.

In a meeting scheduled before the conflict began, eight members of OPEC+ – including Saudi Arabia and Russia – agreed to increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day from April, reports Agence France-Presse. The move is “unlikely to calm markets”, one analyst tells the newswire. The Financial Times reports that the US is not considering releasing oil from its strategic petroleum reserve, signalling that “Washington believes any surge in prices following its attack on Iran will be limited”. The Financial Times also looks at how global energy flows could be affected by the conflict. Reuters has an explainer of Iran’s main oil and gas infrastructure. Finally, the Times says the conflict could push petrol prices in the UK “to record highs”, while the Daily Express reports that lobby groups have already urged the chancellor Rachel Reeves to reverse a forthcoming end to a fuel duty cut.

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy and industry fell “slightly” last year, reports the Financial Times, “after a solar boom helped to meet a larger part of its growing power needs”. It cites official statistics showing a 0.3% fall in CO2 emissions in China last year, confirming analysis published by Carbon Brief last month that also found a 0.3% drop. The Financial Times says: “The figures lay the ground for Beijing’s continued support for renewables and clean-tech industries when it signs off its five-year plan at a meeting next week.” State-owned broadcaster CGTN says the statistics show a 5.1% decline in China’s emissions per unit of GDP.

US utility companies generated a record amount of electricity from renewable sources last year, reports Bloomberg, “even as the Trump administration implemented a range of policies to stymie green energy”. Citing federal data, the outlet says that “some 1,162 terawatt-hours of the country’s electricity was generated from renewable sources in 2025, a 10% increase over the prior year”. It says this represents 26% of all US electricity generated and adds: “While several large natural gas plants opened in the US last year, their capacity was eclipsed by a wave of smaller renewable facilities that came online.” One analyst tells the outlet: “Even though there’s plenty of hurdles for renewables coming out of DC, we’re coming out of four years where there weren’t a lot of hurdles.” In related developments, E&E News says the US interior department “could be softening its hard-line stance on solar energy” and is reviewing permits on 20 large projects that had been delayed.

MORE ON US

• The Guardian reports that almost all US coal plants were able to meet air pollution rules that have now been weakened by the Trump administration.
• Politico reports on the MAGA influencers that are “solar power’s newest friends”. The Times has similar reporting.
• The Trump administration has given a “$370m windfall” to one of the world’s largest gas exporters by allowing the company to claim an “alternative fuels” tax incentive for operating ships powered by liquefied natural gas, reports the Washington Post.
• The Wall Street Journal reports that “coal power’s comeback isn’t spurring new investment”.

Eight former UK energy ministers have called for the government to curb restrictions and taxes on the North Sea oil and gas industry, reports the Financial Times, “arguing that current policy is worsening energy security while doing little to cut global carbon emissions”. The newspaper continues: “The cross-party group – which includes former Tory energy secretary Amber Rudd and one-time Labour business and energy secretary Lord John Hutton – expressed their ‘deep concern’ over the decline of UK oil and gas production.” In a letter to prime minister Keir Starmer, the group called for the government to end the windfall tax on the oil and gas sector and to drop the ban on new exploration licences in the North Sea, noting: “Energy security is national security. Without urgent reform we will become increasingly reliant on imported liquefied natural gas.” [The North Sea Transition Authority forecasts massive reductions in output even if new licences are issued.]

In other news, BBC News reports that ministers have confirmed that plans to build a gas drilling rig in a North Yorkshire village will not be called in by the government. It says the proposal by Europa Oil & Gas for a 125ft rig in Burniston will instead be decided on by North Yorkshire Council. The Press Association reports that 60 MPs and MSPs “have made public their opposition to the planned Rosebank oil field”. The Times reports that Scottish Power has warned that “shovel-ready” windfarms are losing out on government contracts to “speculative projects”. The Scotsman reports that the “UK’s independent climate experts have lashed out at ‘slogan-based’ net-zero opposition from Reform and the Conservatives”.

MORE ON UK

• American airlines have urged the UK government to stop “runaway” spending on a third runway at Heathrow amid fears that the airport’s expansion costs will “balloon to £73bn”, reports the Sunday Times.
• Both the Sunday Telegraph and Daily Express report on a letter to prime minister Keir Starmer from Labour MPs, urging him not to hand the EU a “blank cheque” over rejoining the bloc’s emissions trading system.
• Developers in data centres in the UK are facing calls to disclose their potential impact on the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, reports the Guardian.
• In a frontpage story, the Daily Telegraph claims that “millions of electric car drivers in Britain were spied on by the government through their mobile phones”.
• The Daily Telegraph claims that a memorandum of understanding signed a year ago by energy secretary Ed Miliband has “opened the door to greater investment by Chinese companies in Britain’s energy infrastructure”.
• New polling suggests UK drivers of petrol or diesel cars believe a switch to an electric car will not save them money, reports the Times, with the “blame” pinned on the forthcoming per-mile tax on zero-emission vehicles.

A meeting of the Communist Party’s top decision-making body, the Politburo, called for accelerating the “comprehensive green transition” of its economy and society, reports state news agency Xinhua. State-run Economic Daily reports that proposals for China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) at last year’s “two sessions” centred around building a “Beautiful China”, “dual carbon” goals and pollution control accounted for 85% of total suggestions, according to Pei Xiaofei, the ministry’s spokesperson. State news agency China News also cites the MEE, saying that “new energy” heavy truck sales reached 198,000 units in 2025, accounting for more than 20% of new sales. CailianPress says an MEE meeting calls for “effective advancement of reform” in the field of ecology. A director with the National Energy Administration (NEA) writes in the 21st Century Business Herald that China will improve power market mechanisms to make it more “compatible” with a “new energy system”.

MORE ON CHINA

• China Daily says the MEE’s new pollution control standards will cut carbon emissions by more than 7bn tons from 2026 to 2035 as a “co-benefit”.
• The print edition of People’s Daily has an article bylined by the foreign ministry’s party leadership, calling for addressing climate change with “concrete actions”.
• A front-page article in People’s Daily says that “prioritising green development” in south-west China’s Yunnan province represents the “correct set of values”.
• People’s Daily says China’s 2025 revenue from clean energy, including wind, solar, hydropower and nuclear, accounted for 42.6% of total power generation revenue.
• China Electric Power News says while “extreme cold” triggered “large-scale” blackouts in the US, China’s power supply remained “stable and orderly” this winter.
• Losses at China’s top solar manufacturers have reached 50bn yuan ($7.3bn) in 2025 as the situation on overcapacity “failed to improve” last year, reports Caixin.

A North Dakota court has reaffirmed that Greenpeace must pay $345m in damages to the operator of the US oil pipeline it protested against, reports Agence France-Presse. The article explains that Dallas-based Energy Transfer accused Greenpeace of orchestrating violence and defamation during the controversial construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline nearly a decade ago. The final judgment is “in line with a decision” issued in October, notes Reuters, which cut the original damages award of $667m that a jury had awarded in March. The newswire quotes a statement from Greenpeace, which says the campaign group would seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision to the North Dakota supreme court, calling the lawsuit “a blatant attempt to silence free speech”. The New York Times says the latest decision is a “potentially fatal verdict” for Greenpeace that may force it into bankruptcy in the US. Euronews and CBS News also have the story.

Reacting to the conflict in the Middle East, oil market analyst John Kemp writes in the Financial Times that it is “very different” from the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June 2025 when oil prices briefly spiked above $80. He says that the current war “has already escalated, with Iranian strikes on US allies around the region”. Kemp adds: “Washington has made regime change an explicit objective. And following the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, the conflict has entered a much more unpredictable and dangerous phase.” He continues that the “biggest risk” would come from a prolonged interruption of tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, given that this “handles all the seaborne exports from Iraq, Kuwait and the smaller Gulf producers”. He adds: “Most analysts agree it is unlikely Iran could force a total and prolonged closure given the air power and naval superiority of the US and its Gulf partners, but partial closure might still be disruptive.”

In other reaction, Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas suggests that the conflict will be “nasty” for oil prices, but is unlikely to trigger the “type of full-blown oil shock we’ve seen in the past”. He says the main reason is the “US shale revolution, which hands the US a much stronger hand in controlling prices”. In Reuters, columnist Ron Buosso says the war throws the oil market into its “biggest crisis in decades”, while columnist Clyde Russell says the decision by eight OPEC+ countries to raise production is “probably the least consequential decision the group has made in nearly a decade of existence”. On his Substack, veteran author and climate campaigner Bill McKibben writes about how “so much of the geopolitics of the last century has been about the control and the flow of oil”.

MORE US-RELATED COMMENT

• A Guardian editorial says that US president Trump’s “war on science” has been “particularly hard on crucial fields such as vaccines, and infectious disease and climate crisis research”.
• An editorial in the Washington Post criticises “alarmism” about new data centres, noting that “legitimate concern” about electricity bills is a “manageable logistical issue, not a reason to block development”.
• In Forbes, Ariel Cohen, a contributor who covers energy and security, writes on Trump’s “clean-energy dilemma” – where his attacks on renewables will see “new winners and losers in Trump’s energy economy, with China’s global domination of the renewable industries looming large”.

There is widespread reaction to the Gorton and Denton byelection last week, won by the Green party, ahead of Reform and Labour. The Guardian’s environment editor Fiona Harvey writes that while prime minister Keir Starmer has a “genuine and rationally thought-out” view in favour of climate action, “Downing Street has also been home to senior advisers sceptical about green issues”. Harvey says this group has “sought to stifle Starmer’s pro-climate interventions” and it “has now seen the results of its actions”. Starmer “faces stark choices”, she continues: “Will he reassert his pro-climate instincts? Is there enough time to ditch the anti-green advice that has brought him to this point?”

In further reaction, Bloomberg columnist Rosa Prince says that Labour “failed to acknowledge the obvious danger from the Greens”. Political scientist Prof Ben Ansell writes in the Guardian that the result shows that “progressive voters are now voting against Labour as well as Reform”. An editorial in the Independent says that “like it or not, the [Green] party is now becoming a more established force in British politics”. A Financial Times editorial agrees that the “Greens have moved closer to establishing a viable populist left force”. Similarly, Bloomberg correspondent Lucy White says that Green party leader Zack Polanski is “making the once-fringe Greens a political force”. Polanski reflects on the win in columns for the Independent and the Observer. 

The Times, along with other right-leaning newspapers, attack the Green party for its “shamelessly sectarian” politics. A Sun editorial says the Greens have “reinvented themselves from eccentric environmentalists into a bile-spewing coalition of white, woke lefties and hardline Islamists”. The Daily Mail follows suit, claiming that the Greens “now peddle the politics of envy, divisiveness and ugly sectarianism”. Daily Telegraph columnist James Kirkup argues that the “rise of the Greens will force Labour into a hard-left turn”. In the Sunday Telegraph, James Frayne – director of communications at the Department for Education under Michael Gove – writes that the Green party, rather than Reform, “are the extremists”. Finally, in the Sunday Times, former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak urges chancellor Rachel Reeves to resist “those voices urging her to lean green”.

MORE UK COMMENT

• Writing on the “great British electricity puzzle”, Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, says that the “government has to find a way to lower prices while ensuring huge investments in an ambitious energy transition”.
• In the Observer, Sharon White, former head of the John Lewis Partnership and chair of Frontier Economics, writes that the UK’s “big bet” on renewables will “pay off if the government gets the transition right”.
• A Daily Express editorial warns that not reversing the planned end to a 5p fuel duty cut would be the “road to ruin” for drivers.
• The climate-sceptic Sunday Telegraph continues its attacks on energy secretary Ed Miliband, with two columns over the weekend.

This edition of the Daily Briefing was written by Robert McSweeney, with contributions from Henry Zhang. It was edited by Simon Evans.

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