In a fragmented world with distributed power, how can philanthropy support a just energy transition?

The fallout from the war in Iran was felt outside of the region almost immediately. Oil prices have seen sharp swings, with Brent crude briefly spiking by more than 10 percent in the immediate aftermath of escalation. Shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly a fifth of global oil supply, remain constrained.

Governments are once again confronting the exposure of their energy systems to geopolitical shocks, after recent years with ‘once-in-a-generation’ events like COVID and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This is a familiar pattern. But what is less familiar is what is happening alongside it. Despite renewed instability in global energy markets, the energy transition is not slowing down. In many places, it is accelerating not because of coordinated global action, but because of decisions being taken elsewhere.

This reflects a deeper shift. As geopolitical fragmentation weakens multilateral coordination and constrains national governments, power is becoming more distributed. Increasingly, the pace and direction of the transition are being shaped not in international negotiations, but by states and regions, by regulators and utilities, and by corporate supply chains responding to cost and risk.

Fragmentation is not just a constraint. It is actively reshaping how the transition happens, and in many cases making it more distributed, pragmatic, and implementable.

The economics are a large part of this story when thinking about how to support a just energy transition. The cost of solar has fallen by close to 90 percent over the past decade. In many markets supporting a just energy transition, new renewables are now the cheapest form of power generation. When combined with storage, they offer not only emissions reductions but also a hedge against precisely the kind of price volatility and supply disruption that geopolitical crises expose.

We are seeing the consequences of this play out in real time. In Pakistan, a surge in distributed solar adoption. largely outside formal policy frameworks, has added significant generation capacity in just a few years, driven by businesses and households seeking reliability and affordability rather than climate ambition.

Read the full article about a just energy transition by Champa Patel at Alliance Magazine.