When Energy Ceases to Soothe
For more than a century, energy has underpinned global stability. Oil and gas were not only the fuel of industry but also the glue of geopolitics. Producers in the Middle East kept the pipelines flowing while consumers in the West built their prosperity on predictability.
That equilibrium has fractured. Energy, once a source of calm, has become a source of unease.
Spiking oil prices, an uneven green transition, and the geopolitics of critical minerals have created the most unstable energy landscape since the 1970s.
As Russia throttled gas supplies to Europe and conflicts in the Middle East reignited, the world rediscovered a simple truth: energy security can no longer rest on a single source — or a single superpower.
A Rushed Transition
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global investment in clean energy reached a record US$1.8 trillion in 2024, surpassing fossil-fuel spending for the first time. Yet the transition has been anything but smooth.
In Europe, renewable costs have jumped 40%, squeezed by supply-chain dependence on China. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act has turbocharged green subsidies — but also ignited new trade frictions with Europe and Asia.
For developing nations, the paradox runs deeper: they are urged to abandon coal yet lack the capital to go green. The World Bank estimates a global climate-finance gap of US$2.4 trillion annually through 2030.
Without real support, the world risks creating a Green Divide — a chasm between rich countries that can afford clean technology and poorer ones left behind in carbon dependency.
Politics of Raw Materials
If the 20th century was defined by the battle for oil, the 21st is shaped by the race for lithium, nickel, and cobalt — the backbone of electric batteries and energy storage. Over 70% of their refining now takes place in China.
Washington and Brussels have responded with de-risking strategies to loosen Beijing’s grip, prompting a new “resource belt” stretching across Indonesia, Chile, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Indonesia alone has drawn major investments from Tesla, LG, and CATL, building a vertically integrated nickel industry worth over US$30 billion. Yet beneath the euphoria lies a familiar concern: environmental degradation and the unequal capture of value along the green supply chain.
ASEAN’s Strategic Balancing Act
Southeast Asia stands at the frontline of the global energy transition. With 680 million people and one of the world’s fastest-growing electricity demands, the region faces a delicate trade-off between affordable power and decarbonization.
Vietnam has emerged as the region’s solar leader, boasting over 20 gigawatts of installed capacity — more than the United Kingdom. Indonesia is pursuing a Green Industrial Park in North Kalimantan, while Malaysia and Thailand are deepening solar-panel and EV manufacturing. Yet fossil fuels still dominate: roughly 42% of ASEAN’s electricitycomes from coal.
According to the World Bank, unless regulatory reforms accelerate, ASEAN could forfeit up to US$200 billion in potential green investment over the next decade.
Energy Source of Tension
The energy transition, once expected to bring stability, now fuels new rivalries. Green tariffs between the U.S. and China, power shortages in Eastern Europe, and a scramble for battery minerals across Asia all suggest that energy has become less a source of unity than a weapon of competition.
As the world moves from oil to minerals, geopolitical risks have not vanished — they have merely changed form. Energy, once the lubricant of the global order, now mirrors its anxieties: between green idealism and hard politics, between vast investments and new inequalities.
In a world growing hotter — both literally and politically — serenity may no longer flow from nature’s resources, but from humanity’s capacity to rethink how it lives, powers, and cooperates.
DS
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