The geopolitical chessboard of global energy is shifting once again. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in New Delhi this week, presenting American liquefied natural gas (LNG) and crude as alternative supplies to India, which faces a potential shortfall after the Trump administration tightened sanctions on Iranian oil. The visit underscores a stark reality: the energy transition is not a linear path but a volatile dance between fossil fuel dependencies and the urgent need to decarbonise.
India, the world’s third-largest oil consumer, imports roughly 85% of its crude, with Iran historically supplying up to 12% before penalties choked that flow. The new US sanctions, coupled with Iran’s escalating rhetoric over nuclear brinkmanship, have spiked global crude prices by nearly 8% in the past month. Rubio’s pitch is clear: buy American. The United States, now the world’s largest oil producer, can offer stable volumes and shorter supply lines. But the price is geopolitical alignment. India walks a tightrope between its strategic partnership with Washington and its historically non-aligned stance.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is doubling down on a parallel track: infrastructure. The government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced a new “Energy Corridor Security Initiative” with Norway, the Netherlands, and Germany. Its aim is to diversify natural gas routes away from chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and the South China Sea. The UK’s strategy focuses on expanding interconnectors, repurposing North Sea pipelines for hydrogen readiness, and fast-tracking floating LNG terminals off the coast of Scotland. The subtext is clear: energy independence is national security.
These moves represent a paradox. While the planet warms at an accelerating pace, the infrastructure for fossil fuels continues to be built. The UK built its last coal plant in 2013, yet it is still laying gas pipes. The International Energy Agency’s latest report shows that global investment in oil and gas supply chains in 2024 was 15% higher than the average of the previous five years. The logic is immediate necessity. Renewable penetration remains too low to cover base loads in many nations, and battery storage costs have not yet fallen enough to smooth the intermittency of wind and solar.
The analogy here is with a hospital during a pandemic. The long-term solution is a vaccine, a public health system, and preventive medicine. But if the wards are overflowing now, you triage with ventilators. The ventilators are fossil fuels. The vaccines are renewables, storage, grid modernisation, nuclear, and hydrogen. The tragedy is that while triage is necessary, it consumes resources and attention that could be accelerating the cure.
For India, the calculus is brutal. Its per capita emissions are less than half the global average, but its total emissions are third-highest. Its development needs are enormous. Prime Minister Modi has set a target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, up from about 180 GW today. Yet coal still accounts for 70% of electricity generation. If India accepts US oil and gas, it buys time but locks in carbon. The same applies to the UK’s pipeline push. Europe’s hydrogen plans hinge on natural gas as a feedstock for blue hydrogen, which still emits CO2 unless paired with carbon capture.
The Rubio visit and UK initiative are not contradictions. They are acknowledgements that the energy transition will be messy, layered, and incomplete for decades. The IPCC’s latest report gives us a carbon budget that requires global emissions to halve by 2030. We are not on track. Every new fossil fuel infrastructure built today is a bet against that budget. The bet might pay off if carbon removal scales miraculously. But miracles are not a strategy.
The only honest position is to see these deals for what they are: stopgap measures in a world that hasn’t yet built enough renewable capacity to replace the old systems. The task for scientists and journalists is to report this with calm urgency: the numbers are clear, the physics is unforgiving, and the policy is limping. We must not mistake activity for progress.
