There is something profoundly troubling about the historical moment we are living in. While science warns with increasing urgency that humanity has a rapidly closing window to contain global warming, some major powers continue to act as if war can be separated from the climate crisis. It cannot.

Military devastation, the destruction of infrastructure, the revalorization of oil, and the erosion of international cooperation make war one of the most powerful saboteurs of climate goals.

In this context, the current escalation in the Middle East reaches the very core of the global climate challenge. The conflict is not only causing deaths, displacement, and material destruction, but also pushing the world back toward fossil fuel dependence, militarized energy security, and permanent emergency — precisely the opposite of what is required for a planned ecological transition.

The Strait of Hormuz is a striking example. No longer a distant risk invoked by analysts, it has become a severely disrupted route through which roughly one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas flows.

When global energy flows are threatened at this scale, the international system does not respond with climate rationality but reinforces military escorts, increases the militarization of energy infrastructure, and places oil back at the center of economic survival strategies.

The consequences are even more alarming when military escalation affects basic systems of human survival. Reports indicate that water supply systems in the region are under threat. Essential infrastructure — power plants, pumping systems, distribution networks, and desalination facilities — depends on energy and logistical stability. When these systems collapse, millions face not only bombs but also thirst. In a region already marked by water stress and extreme temperatures, the consequences can be devastating.

Here lies the central contradiction. For years, climate conferences have emphasized that energy transition requires predictability, coordination, financing and a rapid reduction in dependence on fossil fuels. War does the exact opposite. It generates supply disruptions, speculation, price shocks and fears of scarcity, creating pressure to expand fossil fuel production. Instead of accelerating the transition, conflict revives the old energy paradigm under the logic of strategic urgency.

Moreover, war itself is carbon intensive. Military operations, bombings, troop movements, reconstruction of destroyed cities, arms production, and logistical systems all increase emissions directly and indirectly.

Studies have shown that armed conflicts and rising military expenditures significantly increase the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions, while recent analyses warn that the global surge in military spending directly undermines climate action objectives.

In other words, war is not only a humanitarian or diplomatic tragedy — it is also a regressive climate dynamic, even if it is never presented as such.

Every missile launched, every refinery threatened, every sea route militarized, and every public budget shifted from ecological transition to arms procurement widens the gap between what governments promise at climate summits and what they do.

This escalation has broader systemic implications. By destabilizing a region central to global energy markets, it reorganizes international priorities around security concerns rather than decarbonization. Recent UN assessments indicate that current national plans would reduce global emissions by only about 12 percent by 2035 compared to 2019 levels — far from sufficient given the scale of the challenge.

There is also a less visible but equally critical dimension. Climate action depends on large-scale international cooperation, requiring trust among states, effective multilateral institutions, and coordinated financing and technology sharing. War precisely undermines this environment.

It replaces cooperation with coercion, climate diplomacy with strategic competition, transition funding with defense spending, and multilateral agreements with fragmented alignments.

In a world of persistent confrontation, climate governance becomes increasingly fragile.

In this evolving landscape, China presents an important — though complex — contrast. While still a major consumer of coal, it has simultaneously expanded its renewable energy capacity. In 2025, China recorded its first annual decline in thermal power generation in a decade. It continues to scale up solar, wind, and energy storage capacity, consolidating its position as a global leader in clean energy infrastructure. While parts of the world revive oil-centered geopolitics under military protection, China points toward a different trajectory — one in which energy security is increasingly grounded in industrial capacity and technological transformation.

This contrast reflects a broader historical bifurcation. On one side, security is defined in military terms, dependent on fleets, bases, oil, and coercion. On the other, security is grounded in productive investment, energy innovation, and long-term restructuring. The first deepens climate risk. The second, despite its contradictions, offers a more rational path forward.

The current trajectory reinforces the idea that "global order can continue to rely on military supremacy and control over strategic regions".

This vision is not only morally problematic but also climatically unsustainable. One cannot defend the planet while preserving the strategic centrality of fossil fuels. One cannot speak of ecological transition while normalizing wars in key energy regions.

The most serious consequence is that war does not merely delay future targets for 2030 or 2050.

It reshapes the present by altering relative prices, fiscal priorities and political narratives, thus creating institutional inertia against transition. Each month of conflict makes ecological transformation more difficult, more expensive, and less politically feasible.

The tragedy is therefore twofold. Bombs kill people, and the possibility of global climate coordination erodes further. The international system that struggles to protect civilians also struggles to protect the basic conditions for life on Earth. This reflects a deeper contradiction: a global order that continues to treat military power as a solution when it is, in fact, part of the problem.

If the world is serious about confronting the climate emergency, it must break not only with fossil fuels but also with the political logic that sustains them. It must recognize that militarization, war and ecological transition are incompatible.

And it must acknowledge a difficult truth: conflicts that destabilize key energy regions not only threaten immediate security but also undermine the future of the global climate.

The author is a political economist and former professor at the University of Brasília in Brazil.

The views don't necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

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