RENEWABLE energy systems have advanced at an unbelievable pace in the last three decades. On technological grounds, the progress has been undeniable. On social levels, acceptance has grown across continents. In larger economies like Germany and Denmark, wind and solar installations have multiplied. In developing countries across Asia and Africa, renewable projects have flourished. Pakistan is one of the best examples of solar uptake. It has penetrated metropolitan centres and agricultural communities in remote villages. The infrastructure has spread with remarkable speed.
These systems have shown promise in multiple dimensions. They have contributed to energy security through distributed generation. Their transformative ability has appeared to be exemplary. They have nearly toppled the fossil economy and defied the bureaucratic red tape that once constrained energy projects. They have challenged the energy status quo and established power structures.
The International Energy Agency, which was established in response to the oil crisis of the 1970s, has increasingly focused on renewable energy. In its 2025 report, it projected that renewable capacity would increase by 4,600 gigawatts between 2025 and 2030, equivalent to the combined power generation capacity of China, the European Union, and Japan.
Hence, the renewable energy systems turned ‘arrogant’ — an arrogance rooted in their advances. It manifested in declarations about inevitable energy transitions. It emerged in confidence that renewable systems would simply displace conventional energy without negotiation. The sector spoke with the certainty of inevitable victory.
The Hormuz crisis brought everyone back to the fossil fuel debate.
But all this confidence was challenged when a new geopolitical reality intervened and the US-Iran tensions escalated into a war, with the Strait of Hormuz surfacing as a critical news highlight. Through a single narrow waterway controlling a significant share of global energy flows, the entire discourse around renewable energy vanished from the public consciousness. This brought everyone back to the fossil fuel conversation.
The commitments that renewables had made to energy independence suddenly fell short. Their role, once heralded as transformative, appeared insufficient when energy security was actually threatened. Their prominence in the energy debate was overshadowed by the immediate need to secure oil and gas supplies. Their ability to replace conventional energy had been overestimated.
This conflict proved something fundamental: the technological advances in renewable energy systems are not yet ready to eliminate the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. Renewable systems also depend on governmental decisions, infrastructure investments, and political priorities. They are unsafe in isolation and the industry is sensitive to geopolitical interests. Their success is conditional on the fossil fuel economy itself.
What else has this war taught us? That energy transition cannot proceed through wishful thinking or technological optimism alone. The path forward requires cooperation between the fossil fuel economy and the emerging green economy. The latter has yet to demonstrate the ability to recognise that governments remain important actors, not obstacles. They hold real power in the equation that involves energy policy, infrastructure, and national security. Ideologies have relevance when they align with national interests. Policies have tangible influence on energy markets and security.
The conversation around a ‘just transition’ must, therefore, be fundamentally refra-
med. A just transition will not be born in a vacuum or exist as a parallel system operating independently. It cannot emerge from disconnected green economy initiatives alone. The green economy, as a parallel vertical operating separately from existing energy systems, is not sustainable. It is an approach that the geopolitical crisis has now exposed.
Instead, genuine transition will be born through cooperation with the fossil fuel economy. Through negotiation, mutual interest, and acknowledgement of interdependencies. Through recognition that energy security remains a global concern that transcends ideological preferences. Through acceptance that the transition will be messier, slower, and more politically complicated than renewable advocates may have imagined.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis delivered a necessary lesson in humility. Renewable energy remains important, but it is not yet the complete answer to energy security. The path forward requires not the triumph of one system over another, but rather the difficult work of integration and transition that respects both technological capacity and geopolitical reality.
The writer is an energy policy adviser.
Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2026
