The family of Lewis Rimmer have given an update on his care

A beloved dad-of-two who has spent nearly five months in hospital after being knocked down by a Range Rover in Bolton last year is recovering well, his wife has said.

41-year Lewis Rimmer, who owns a garage in the Bromley Cross area, was knocked down outside a Sainsburys Local on October 27 last year.

He had gone inside to buy a lottery ticket and was in the car park outside the store when he was struck, getting crushed against a steel pillar before the car then ploughed into the shop building.

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Lewis sustained severe injuries in the incident, including a broken pelvis, broken femur and ruptures to his internal organs. He was airlifted to the Royal Preston Hospital where he spent more than four months being treated – including three weeks in a coma – before being moved to Salford Royal at the end of February.

Lewis’ wife Sarah told the M.E.N that the move to Salford Royal would make outpatients appointments easier when he is ‘hopefully’ discharged.

“He is doing really well,” Sarah said. “It’s about the physical and rehab side of things now, doing really simple things. He’s been in hospital for nearly five months so it’s building everything up again, being able to sit up and sit on the edge of the bed.

“Everyone at Salford and Preston have been amazing, the care he has had has been incredible,” she continued. “I think it’s just time he needs now.”

Describing the months since the accident, she said: “It has turned our lives upside down. We’re coming to terms with a different way of life.

“The start was just getting through it, he was in a coma for 3 weeks and we were told to prepare for it all as nobody know how it would go.”

In the intervening months, Lewis has undergone approximately 40 hours of surgery and multiple tests. The couple’s two young daughters have been able to visit their dad ‘a couple of times a week’.

“It’s hard on him being away from the girls, he really misses them,” Sarah said. “It’s five months he shouldn’t be away from his children.

“They’ve had to adjust to a lot, and we all will. There are things we used to do so normally before, but there’s now there’s adaptations we’re still getting our heads around.”

The driver of the Range Rover, a 56-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and driving whilst unfit through drugs.

He was later bailed pending further enquiries. The M.E.N understands from GMP that no-one has been charged in relation to the incident.

“The police have been fantastic,” said Sarah. “They’ve been keeping us updated throughout and I can’t fault them. We’re in their hands, we’ll trust the process and wait to hear from them if something has changed.”

Despite the hardship they have endured, Sarah said that being positive has helped them come to terms with what’s happened. “Lewis is a very positive person and I think we’re all following that,” she said.

“When you read what happened on paper, it is horrific and it shouldn’t have happened. It would be easy to get into a negative headspace but doing that isn’t going to change anything or do us any favours.

“All the energy is concentrated on Lewis being alright. We’ll have days where things are really difficult, but I need to be strong for the girls.

“There might come a time when that changes, we might get home and come back to reality. I’m still running on adrenaline five months later. But we’re concentrated on getting Lewis back home.”

In the meantime, Sarah said she had received countless messages from the local community and beyond. “People we don’t even know have been reaching out, he is well known in the village and it happened practically on people’s doorsteps.

“The local area has been really supportive and people have sent a lot of well wishes. That, and close friends and family, are getting us through.”

Six North Yorkshire Police vehicles, including a dog unit, an unmarked car, and armed officers, were spotted this afternoon at the junction of George Street and Long Close Lane.

The armed officers were seen in the front garden of a property in the area for a short period, but it was not clear if they entered any of the houses or why they were at the scene.

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One witness said: “It was all really weird. They came and went within about 10 minutes – they arrived at 4.19pm and were in their cars leaving by half four.

“We have no idea what was going on, we thought we’d be here waiting for ages. They didn’t peel away like they were going anywhere else.”

The Press has contacted North Yorkshire Police for a comment and when we hear back, we will update this story with the response.

In 2021, dozens of governments quietly agreed to stop using public money to finance fossil fuel projects overseas.

Their pledge – now known as the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP) – has helped drive a 78% reduction in public finance for fossil fuel projects among signatory countries.

What makes this especially striking is where the idea came from: a grassroots campaign in the UK initially targeting the government’s export credit agency.

With governments withdrawing from climate commitments, and some administrations – most notably Trump’s – tying them to security and trade deals, international climate cooperation is increasingly fragile. Yet the CETP stands out as a genuine success among a litany of failed international climate initiatives. My new research set out to understand what made it such a success.

Climate policy (and campaigning) is messy

Many assume that international climate commitments emerge from polite diplomatic negotiations, with small changes accumulating over time. The reality is far messier. Domestic and international climate policy is fiercely contested and victories are only ever provisional, with each settlement shaping the terrain for the next battle.

My research, based on interviews with campaigners and policymakers, shows that the partnership came about through a series of political confrontations – “battle-settlement events” in the academic lingo – moments when activists, governments and institutions clashed and new compromises emerged.

The CETP traces back to a UK grassroots campaign from 2017 onwards led by environmental and human rights campaign organisations including Global Witness and Oil Change International, partly inspired by a parallel European push targeting the European Investment Bank over its fossil fuel financing.

Campaigners initially pushed for a full fossil fuel phase out. However, they soon switched to a more strategic target: UK Export Finance (UKEF). They saw this as a more achievable battle that would provoke less resistance from industry and politicians.

UKEF is a government agency that helps UK companies sell goods and services abroad. It provides loans, guarantees or insurance to reduce the financial risk of exporting.

Campaigners built up evidence and pushed parliament to investigate. The resulting 2019 House of Commons committee report found that 96% of UK Export Finance’s energy sector support went to fossil fuel projects, predominantly in low- and middle-income countries, and called for a halt by 2021. Despite these damning findings, Theresa May’s government initially refused to budge.

So campaigners upped the ante. They drew attention to the contradiction between the UK’s climate leadership rhetoric and its public funding of fossil fuel projects linked to conflict and displacement overseas. Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon weighed in to urge the UK to “recalibrate its export finance policy”, while activists from the climate campaign group Extinction Rebellion covered the Treasury in red paint to symbolise its claims the government was complicit in violence and suffering. People I interviewed who were involved at the time said this created “insurmountable pressure” on the government to act.

The Cop spotlight

The announcement in August 2019 that Glasgow would host a major UN climate summit transformed the campaign. The summit, known as Cop26, became an opportunity to both expose the gap between UK climate ambition and its export policy, and to use any domestic win as a launchpad for coordinated international action.

The government felt it too. The then prime minister, Boris Johnson, wanted to use the summit to cement his image as a climate-friendly conservative, and a restructured “Cop Unit” within the Cabinet Office had genuine agency to develop ambitious policy ideas and secure buy-in across government.

Though Cop26 was delayed until 2021 due to COVID, this gave campaigners more time to build internal support and sustain the narrative that the UK government was a “climate hypocrite” in reputable outlets like the Financial Times and The Times. Johnson’s government eventually conceded, announcing a unilateral ban on public finance for overseas fossil fuel projects in December 2020. Given that his government was simultaneously consumed by Brexit and internal power struggles, it was a massive achievement.

Glasgow and beyond

With the UK ban secured, attention turned to getting other countries on board. The Cop Unit used the UK’s diplomatic relationships to convince other governments to make similar commitments at Cop26, pointing to the UK ban as proof of concept.

On the conference floor, campaigners and UK officials played ambitious governments off each other in a spirit of friendly competition. Those I interviewed for my research noted that some countries signed up before fully understanding what was required, causing some delegations to get a shock when they realised.

As the summit closed, 34 countries and five public finance institutions signed the Glasgow Statement on aligning international public finance with climate change goals. Signatories to this statement, which would go on to become the CETP, included major fossil fuel funders like Canada and the US.

Walking the talk

Then came the hard part. Keeping up momentum meant regular meetings with signatories to troubleshoot implementation, while domestically the initiative had to survive an attempt by Liz Truss’s short-lived government to kill it altogether. That threat was repelled, and arguably strengthened the initiative by reinforcing signatories’ commitment.

Implementation remains uneven. Most signatories have ended or curtailed fossil fuel finance, and the CETP has cut between US$11.3 billion (8.4 billion) and US$16.3 billion in annual public finance to fossil fuel production.

But the critical counterpart – scaling up public finance for clean energy – has lagged badly. The CETP’s own data shows clean energy financing actually fell between 2022 and 2023. The US has since exited under Trump and some signatories, including Italy and Switzerland, are still way behind on both stopping fossil finance and scaling up finance for renewables.

Yet the CETP’s impact is real. It has redirected tens of billions away from projects that would have locked in fossil fuel infrastructure for decades, and demonstrated that coordinated civil society pressure can shift both domestic policy and international norms. In a political environment where climate ambition is being systematically dismantled, that matters.

The partnership’s future is uncertain. But its journey – from a small UK campaign targeting export finance to a global coalition of governments – shows that domestic activism can still lead to ambitious and durable policy change.

The five teenage foreign nationals are all charged with assault offences, relating to four complainants, arising from an incident last year.

Two further teenagers have been charged over their alleged involvement in an affray on Ballyholme beach last year.

The development means that five teenagers are now facing charges and the case had been set for a preliminary enquiry on Tuesday, which, if it had gone ahead, would have seen the case returned to the Crown Court for trial.

However, Newtownards Youth Court heard that due to the officer in charge being on leave, papers were not served on one of the defendants and would not be served until later this week.

Although the prosecutor said she had been instructed to ask for a six-week adjournment, District Judge Amanda Brady told her, “I find that unacceptable.”

The five teenage foreign nationals are all charged with assault offences, relating to four complainants, arising from an incident in Co Down on 11 April last year.

On the face of it, the most serious charges are against the 17-year-old boy accused of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, possessing a knuckle duster and a knife, three counts of actual bodily harm and affray “within the vicinity of Bank Lane, Bangor.”

A co-accused, also 17, faces four charges of ABH, possessing a knuckle duster and a broken bottle and affray while the last defendant, who has also turned 17 since he was first charged, is charged with three counts of ABH and one common assault.

The two defendants who have been added to the bill of indictment are a 16-year-old, who cannot be identified because of his age, and 19-year-old Ahmed Izeldin Mohamed, with an address at Kansas Avenue in North Belfast.

They are jointly charged with three counts of causing actual bodily harm to three separate complainants, and a single count of affray.

Although the alleged facts have not yet been opened in court, it was reported at the time that police were called to Ballyholme beach after receiving reports of a “large fight” where “weapons had been used.”

Videos taken at the scene were widely shared online and on social media platforms and at one point, there was speculation that someone had died but that was dismissed as an “unhelpful” rumour.

The PSNI statement appealing for information and witnesses at the time said: “At around 8.15pm last evening, Friday, we responded to reports of a large fight at Ballyholme beach. Further reports from the area suggested that weapons had been used.

“We attended the scene and dealt with a large number of young persons in the area and we remained at the beach dealing with the incident for some time.

“Our investigation into this incident is at an early stage however, we are aware of a number of videos circulating online showing fights between large groups of people.

“We are asking for witnesses to this incident to come forward and work with us as we investigate and try to identify those responsible.

“We are also aware that there are rumours circulating that following the incident, a male has died – this is not the case and this sort of speculation is not helpful. We are not aware of any serious injuries. People need to be responsible when posting online.”

In court on Tuesday, a clearly angry Judge Brady highlighted the fact that the case has been “carefully managed” for the last ten months and that everything had been set in place so that the case would be returned to the Crown Court.

“I find it unacceptable that an officer goes on leave and hasn’t served the papers,” she told the court, “are there no other officers in the police who could take that duty on?”

Judge Brady told the PPS lawyer: “There is absolutely no way the prosecution are getting six weeks… nobody in the PPS seems to be doing their utmost to address the issue.”

“I find it astonishing and concerning about the lack of attention to detail,” she added, refusing the application for a six-week adjournment, and instead putting the case back to 24 March.

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But one staff member told the BBC that the third and fourth floors had been blocked off for the police investigation, with the displaced people staying on them moved elsewhere. He said the hotel was large and busy, and he and his work friends did not know who had been staying in the specific room that was hit, but had heard the reports.

It is believed that this is the first time a licensing amendment of this kind has been applied within the city

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A popular Portuguese restaurant in Peterborough has been told it can no longer play loud music late at night. Restaurant O Sado, on Lincoln Road, had the conditions of its premises licence modified by Peterborough City Council at a Licensing Sub Committee meeting on Friday (March 6).

The venue will now only be allowed to play ambient music, live or recorded, from 8am until 11pm from Monday to Sunday. It is believed that this is the first time a licensing amendment of this kind has been applied within Peterborough.

The application to review the restaurant’s current licence was made by the council’s Pollution Control Team, a branch of the authority’s Environmental Health department.

They told the sub-committee that the long-established restaurant had been the source of numerous noise nuisance issues stemming from the playing of loud music from mid-2024 onwards.

The meeting also heard how the premises continued to cause noise issues, even after the Pollution Control Team had served noise abatement notices and installed noise monitoring equipment.

Pollution Control Officer Georgina Flack confirmed the restaurant had “caused noise nuisance while operating within current opening hours”.

“We received complaints regarding loud amplified music late at night and early in the morning,” she said. Ms Flack went on to say that the music could be heard “at least 30 metres away” from the restaurant premises.

She suggested that, even though the restaurant operates as a café, it is “more of a nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights.”

The owner of Restaurant O Sado, Dora Marques, was present at the meeting. She was joined by her sister, Vera Marques who helps run the restaurant, and her solicitor, Kashif Khan. Dora Marques accepted the council’s evidence and apologised for the noise nuisance issues.

She explained that some of the noise could be attributed to people not using Restaurant O Sado who would congregate outside the property late at night. Vera Marques said the much-loved venue “is a place where the [Portuguese] community gathers at weekends”.

“When we received the abatement order we tried our best to control it [the music],” she added. “We will do our best to reduce any noise.”

Mr Khan explained that Dora and Vera Marques were often away at weekends – the time when the bulk of the noise complaints were made – tending to their ill father.

Mr Khan disputed claims that the venue was anything like a nightclub, calling it a “relaxed environment” and “culture hub” that serves as “a meeting place for the Portuguese community.”

He did however acknowledge that the presence of a DJ on Friday and Saturday nights increased noise in and around the venue.

Mr Khan said Dora Marques was prepared to remove the use of DJs entirely, and get rid of any sound equipment that produces heavy bass. These assurances however were not enough for the sub-committee.

“We are of the opinion that there may have been different ways in dealing with the situation, thus our decision is to modify the conditions,” said chair of the meeting, Cllr Chris Harper.

Cllr Harper also stated that the new conditions will insist all music played at the venue must be background noise only, “i.e. it is possible to hold a conversation at normal volume with the music playing”.

Within the first hour of this year’s Cheltenham Festival – by the time the Skybet Supreme and Singer Arkle have been run – the die will be cast and the tone set for the week.

Will the week belong to Willie Mullins – let’s hope his horses are moving better than he is with his chronic back problem – or Nicky Henderson, both of whom fire aces at those races? Gordon Elliott or Dan Skelton? The Irish or the British? The bookmakers or the punters?

And, given that it seems to be the sole metric by which the Jockey Club is judged, will anyone have paid to come and watch it? No one can deny that with strong attendances elsewhere – indeed, a record one at this course on New Year’s Day – it is an important year for the Festival itself.

About the only question I do know the answer to is that the best way to view the preparations for another Festival are from the back of a horse. Will Do, a 28/1 shot for the National Hunt Chase from the 1st battalion Cullentra House, was my viewing platform on Monday from which my main conclusion was; I wish my lawn was like that.

He was taking it all in and was agog at the watering system in action. He was no doubt as surprised as all of us that after such a wet winter the course still needs a drop of water on it to prevent it becoming too lively.

His message, I think, to me and you was that the ground will be much quicker than it has been all winter. His form has not been great in the mud this season but, maybe this is some misguided loyalty after our hour together, if Will Do will do any talking today, it will be on this ground.

Coronation Street fans are divided, as they believe the new trailer teasing Megan Walsh’s downfall gives away whether she will be the one who dies next month on the ITV soap

Fans think Megan Walsh’s fate on Coronation Street has been given away ahead of a shocking murder.

The character has been grooming her teenaged student in a horrifying abuse storyline. Only teen Sam Blakeman has figured out his school friend Will Driscoll’s inappropriate relationship with coach Megan.

It’s all about to be exposed though, as the Driscolls uncover Megan’s abuse and the fact that Will has been groomed. It comes ahead of a murder on the cobbles, with Megan one of five potential victims.

Fans now think the trailer of the downfall of Megan could give away whether she lives or dies. They’re pretty divided though, as some think it’s a given she dies, as others think it’s too early for her to be the victim.

READ MORE: Coronation Street love triangle erupts – and Maggie’s antics exposedREAD MORE: Emmerdale and Coronation Street tease multiple exits as EastEnders’ Mark exposed

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A fan posted on social media: “Is it too obvious to think she’ll be the one in the body bag?” Another fan said: “I am now thinking it will be Carl. I think Megan and Theo will go to prison and hopefully never to be seen again.

“I think Jodie’s storyline will go on until later this year and she’ll leave to get mental health help. Maggie I reckon will be around for a while longer but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ben ends up dying of a heart attack at some point and she ends up leaving.”

A further post read: “Leanne & Eva v Megan, and Swainey arresting her is exactly what I want to see,” as another said: “Surely Megan can’t be found out too quickly if she’s one of the 5 who might get killed off.”

Others thought maybe she could be killed off. A fan said: “As this is being revealed quite quickly, so a long time before April 23rd, I’m wondering if Megan will end up not being charged as Will won’t testify against her and that could lead to her being the potential murder victim as someone looks to get their own form of justice?”

Another agreed: “That’s a good theory, I wonder who would though. Maybe Maggie as it’s been hinted she’s very possessive and ‘would do anything for her boys.’.” A final post said: “It’s got to be Megan who’s the mystery murder victim. Killed by Maggie ‘You don’t know what I’ve done for my boys. I’ll do anything for my boys’ Driscoll.”

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The man, who cannot be named because of a court order, told court this week he wanted to ‘tell the truth for Natalie’ even if he self-incriminated himself about other matters

An ex-partner of Natalie McNally had been “lying and lying and lying again” to police to help himself, Belfast Crown Court has heard.

The man, who cannot be named because of a court order, described Ms McNally as his best friend, and said he had wanted to help police.

He told court this week he wanted to “tell the truth for Natalie” even if he self-incriminated himself about other matters.

However, it was put to him that he reset his phone before being interviewed by police and lied about the level of contact he had been in with Ms McNally.

Defence barrister John Kearney KC put to the man that he had been “doing his best to help himself” and “deliberately left out anything that you thought would be a problem for you”.

“I want to suggest to you what you were doing was lying and lying and lying again,” he said.

The man said there had been “little white lies” to police around contact, but that his statement was “not full of lies”.

“Someone’s just been killed, there are detectives in your house, you don’t know what’s going on, yeah, I got arrested a day later and you can see I addressed all of the lies in it,” he said.

Ms McNally, 32, was 15 weeks pregnant when she was killed at her home in Lurgan on December 18 2022.

Her partner, Stephen McCullagh, 36, of Woodland Gardens in Lisburn, is on trial for her murder. He has denied the charge.

Previously, McCullagh’s trial heard he told police that Ms McNally’s ex had been responsible.

The man responded saying that was “ridiculous” when that was put to him in court on Monday.

He described Ms McNally as his best friend, and insisted that McCullagh was responsible for her death.

A jury of six men and six women has been sworn in to serve during the trial, which is expected to last about five weeks, before Mr Justice Patrick Kinney.

Ms McNally’s family and friends have been watching on from the public gallery during the trial.

The former partner returned to continue his evidence on Tuesday.

He was reminded several times during his evidence of his right not to answer a question if he risked self-incrimination.

“I know, I don’t care, I’m here to tell the truth for Natalie, and that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

On Monday, the court heard that the man had been watching the World Cup final with his then partner on the night that Ms McNally was killed, and that his then partner had a video of him on that night asleep on the sofa.

On Tuesday, he said he first learned Ms McNally was dead after one of her neighbours contacted him on the Snapchat app to tell him.

“She said she’s been murdered, I think she said Natalie has been stabbed at the top of her stairs,” he said.

He also said he thought the killing might have been accidental, or that she might have miscarried and taken her own life after some negative messaging between them recently.

He was also told by his then partner that police had been to the house to speak to him about Ms McNally while he had been at work.

Mr Kearney KC asked him about how he had factory reset his mobile phone days after her murder.

The man said that had been nothing to do with Ms McNally’s murder.

He said he did it before he spoke to police because he was concerned about drugs he had in his house.

“I factory reset it for a reason… it had nothing to do with deleting messages between me and Natalie.”

He described having two detectives sitting in his flat while he had a “big bag of weed” in a cupboard.

“It was because there would have been messages to do with drugs, and weed in particular,” he said.

Asked why he had not just deleted those particular messages, he responded: “My best friend had just been murdered, detectives were in my house, I wanted to get there quick, I factory reset the phone because I had a feeling they’re going to smell the weed.

“That didn’t happen, in hindsight I didn’t need to do that and I shouldn’t have done it, but I was worried they were going to want my phone.”

Mr Kearney also asked if he had told Natalie’s neighbour that there had been some “nasty” messaging between McNally and himself.

He responded: “I was probably telling her everything, the truth, I had been sending nasty messages, dirty messages, whatever.”

He conceded some of his messages to Ms McNally “weren’t nice”, and that he had taken advantage of her.

“I’m not proud of any of them, this is so difficult to sit here and look at these, the poor girl is dead and this is what we’re talking about, these emails from me, and it’s so bad,” he said.

“I have had a drinking problem, I’m eight weeks sober tomorrow… it’s been a really big issue. I didn’t think it was that bad of an issue but it is, and I have only come to terms with it.

“Back then I was drinking every night, I wasn’t getting any sleep, my head’s been up my ass my whole life, and I’ve sent these horrible messages… I would have been drunk in most of these emails.”

The trial continues.

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When US and Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Iran, the shock waves were felt far beyond the region. As the conflict escalates, understanding who benefits from this crisis might be as important as counting its costs.

The timing could hardly be worse for the UK economy. Official forecasts for GDP growth in 2026 had already been downgraded to 1.1% before a single missile was fired. Predictions that inflation might dip now look optimistic; and expectations of an interest rate cut on March 19 have fallen sharply.

The energy shock is immediate. Tanker traffic in the strait of Hormuz has fallen by around 90%. Qatar, the world’s second largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, halted production indefinitely. Although the UK sources little gas directly from the Gulf, energy markets are global so UK households could see more than £500 added to their annual bills.

Beyond energy, UK stocks have fallen, the pound has come under pressure and the UK government’s £23.6 billion fiscal headroom could erode rapidly.

For defence stocks, however, the picture is different. London-based BAE Systems surged around 6% on the first day of the conflict. And the American defence industry seems determined to quadruple production of some weapons.

Peace benefits ordinary citizens, small businesses, global supply chains and the planet’s climate trajectory. The beneficiaries of war are more concentrated.

One of the most uncomfortable truths about this conflict is that while it inflicts pain on some, it creates windfalls for others. In my co-authored research, we call this the “paradox of incentives”. Determining who benefits is essential to understanding why wars persist long after it may seem rational to stop.

Defence contractors and the arms economy

On Wall Street, defence firms including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and RTX rose between 4% and 6% on the first day of the strikes. The three firms’ combined shareholder gain on that one day was US$25–30 billion (£18.7-£22.5 billion).

In Israel, Elbit Systems briefly became the country’s most valuable listed company, with its shares up 45% since January. In Europe and the UK, defence stocks surged against a falling FTSE 100.

The rally ‘round the flag effect

Wars may also be good for incumbent politicians in the short term. Before the strikes began, the fallout from the release of the Epstein files was reverberating globally, and piling scrutiny on to many with connections to the White House. Within hours of the first strikes, web searches for the Epstein files collapsed.

But perhaps the most counterintuitive application of the paradox concerns Iran itself. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) controls up to half of Iran’s oil exports. Its engineering arm, Khatam al-Anbiya, has become one of the largest contractors in the country, controlling construction, telecoms, agriculture and energy.

Economic sanctions designed to weaken Tehran have actually entrenched the power structures they were meant to erode. As foreign firms exited and domestic companies struggled, IRGC-linked entities used access to informal trade routes, currency controls and security networks to expand their dominance.

At the same time, according to the World Bank, close to 10 million ordinary Iranians fell into poverty between 2011 and 2020 as the sanctions tightened.

The energy windfall

The oil and gas price shock is already providing a windfall in unexpected places. The US could benefit as Europe’s reliance on American energy exports, accelerated by the Ukraine war, grows even more.

For the Gulf petrostates, the picture is nuanced. Saudi Arabia and the UAE together hold a huge share of the world’s spare production capacity. They face real costs from the conflict, but their exposure to the Hormuz closure is lower than neighbours Kuwait, Qatar and Iraq. Both countries built bypass pipelines specifically to export oil without transitting the Strait.

And for Russia, the war diverts price-sensitive buyers such as India and China away from competing suppliers in the Gulf.

The green transition

Higher oil and gas prices make new fossil fuel extraction more commercially attractive. The same crisis that bolsters the case for renewables also makes fossil fuels more profitable. This could slow the transition by redirecting attention back towards oil and gas.

In our research, we argue that breaking the paradox of incentives is possible. But it would require the financial interests of powerful actors like those mentioned above to become aligned with solutions. In the context of this conflict, that principle points towards four routes.

The first would be a windfall tax on companies benefiting exceptionally from wars. The UK already has a precedent: its energy profits levy hits oil and gas profits above a set threshold until 2030. Although this levy has come under fire recently, there is a strong case for extending its principles to defence contractors whose share prices and profits surge during conflicts.

For oil-producing nations, a release of emergency stocks coordinated by the International Energy Agency (IEA) could cap price spikes. This happened in 2022 when IEA member countries released 60 million barrels from strategic reserves. The G7 nations have now said they “stand ready” to do this.

On the political side, democratic accountability, independent economic institutions and a free press all narrow the window within which leaders can exploit wartime popularity. These things can’t always be changed from the outside however, and underline the need for robust domestic institutions.

The green transition paradox is perhaps the hardest to address in the short term, but it is also where the fix is clearest. It has been argued that the more dependent economies become on the profits of war through arms exports, fossil fuel revenues or defence procurement, the harder it becomes to divert funding and attention to climate issues.

The solution is not to stop countries defending themselves – but to ensure that the transition to a green and secure energy system proceeds, precisely because of crises like this one.

The costs of this war are already being counted in energy markets. Before long, they will show up in national and household budgets. What makes this crisis particularly hard to resolve is the paradox at its heart: the actors best placed to end it are among those with the most to gain from its continuation.