Never let a good crisis go to waste. That seems to be the strategy of fossil fuel interests trying to leverage the oil-related conflict in the Persian Gulf to lock in another chapter of oil extraction.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith flagged the unfolding war as a rationale to fast track bitumen export infrastructure, telling a Calgary news conference, “We’re here to help..Part of the way in which we can help is, of course, with expansions to the West Coast pipelines”. Prime Minister Mark Carney was quick to promote the proposed offshore oil Bay du Nord development in Newfoundland as, “a very attractive project” that will produce “very low carbon oil”.

Pro-extraction talking points were similarly trotted out four years ago when Russia invaded Ukraine, causing European allies to restrict Russian energy imports and inflating prices.

This is the “Shock Doctrine” in action, where oil-related interests exploit crises like armed conflict to catalyze ever more extraction. Canadian author Naomi Klein coined the term for her 2008 book of the same title on “the rise of disaster capitalism”.

Oil producers outside the Gulf region now reap windfall profits while publicly trying to curb their enthusiasm. “The idea that the industry profits from war and death is not one a VP of public relations wants to promote,” Mark Jones, political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, said to Politico. Canadian oil investors are likewise licking their chops, calling the Iran conflict a “massive opportunity” for oil companies here.

While fossil fuel producers might rake in short-term profits from war-related price instability, consumers instead are demanding a more ethical, sustainable and secure supply of energy.

Electric vehicle sales just eclipsed gas cars in Europe, with EV purchases jumping a whopping 50 percent over the same time last year. The EU also saw renewable power generation overtake fossil fuels for the first time in 2025, a milestone rooted in the last energy security shock when  Russia marched on Kyiv. For decades, carbon-based energy was essentially the only option for rapidly developing economies in Asia. China drove global oil demand for over twenty years, which only peaked in 2024. That energy security calculus flipped in the last few years with wind, solar, and batteries already outcompeting fossil fuels on cost, without the added risk of catastrophic supply disruptions now unfolding in the Persian Gulf.

Canada’s potential LNG customers are the countries most affected by Trump’s latest war. To understand how insecure fossil fuel supply lines can be, consider that Iran struck the world’s largest LNG facility in Qatar with a $30,000 drone, shutting down production for one-fifth of the global supply. Qatar declared a force majeure, meaning it washed its hands of legal contracts to supply countries like India and Pakistan with LNG, which rely on Qatar for 50 percent and 99 percent of their supply respectively.

Pakistan in particular has seen this predicament before. Global gas prices spiked after the Ukraine invasion, causing a European energy panic. Pakistan’s LNG supply contracts were promptly ignored by international brokers who re-routed their shipments to Europe at a massive profit. Pakistan has since pivoted heavily toward renewables and the latest supply crisis will only accelerate that transition.

The current war could be seen as Asia’s Ukraine moment. Yet unlike Europe in 2022, nations like India now have alternatives to unstable energy in the form of increasingly affordable renewables. Solar and batteries already beat fossil fuels on levelized costs of operation, and they will also soon be cheaper even on capital costs.

That means a new solar installation coupled with energy storage will cost less than building a coal or LNG plant, with no ongoing fuel costs or risks of supply disruptions. This approaching tipping point will further propel the global move to renewables.

This war will not last forever (hopefully) and perhaps in the coming months energy shipments will return to something approaching normal. The question for Canada and our potential export customers is whether we should double-down on fossil fuel infrastructure, further destabilizing geopolitics and our climate. Experts tracking the rapidly accelerating energy transition have the opposite view.

“Do you want to invest in an industry that’s dying, where you can maybe get a couple of windfalls? This is not a sustainable growth market for jobs, for the economy,” Ember energy analyst Daan Walter told the National Observer.

This ugly war and the speeding energy transition present Canadians with a stark choice: which side of history do we want to be on?