War with Iran is a nightmare for oil and gas. What does it mean for clean energy?
Zero: The Climate Race
Bloomberg
4.8 • 296 Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2026
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many consider a widespread war in the Middle East the worst-case scenario for the global oil and gas markets. That war is here, and it could have wide-ranging, long-lasting impacts on energy and climate policy. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi speaks with Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and former energy and climate advisor to President Barack Obama to try to understand what those impacts could look like. Will countries double down on fossil fuels or will they speed up the clean-energy transition?
Links and more:
- For all of Bloomberg's coverage of Iran, visit: https://www.bloomberg.com/uk
- What the War With Iran Means for Renewable Energy Deployment
Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd. Special thanks to Eleanor Harrison-Dengate, Sommer Saadi, Mohsis Andam, Sharon Chen and Laura Millan. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at zeropod@bloomberg.net. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit https://www.bloomberg.com/green.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Your best data center has optimized every drop of water. |
| 0:04.0 | While the world is marveling at AI, you've controlled your energy costs and increased your reliability. |
| 0:10.0 | But you don't have just one data center. You have several data centers across the globe. |
| 0:16.0 | How do you make every data center like your best data center? |
| 0:19.0 | The answer is EcoLab. Better performance, better outcomes, |
| 0:24.5 | better impact. Ecolab. Now every location is your best location. |
| 0:29.9 | Welcome to Zero. I am Akshatrati. This week, what the war with Iran means for the energy transition. |
| 0:47.4 | Yeah. What the war with Iran means for the energy transition? Over the weekend, President Donald Trump announced that the US and Israel had launched coordinated attacks on Iran. |
| 0:54.8 | The early strikes killed the country's leader alongside many members of the regime. |
| 1:00.1 | There have been civilian deaths too, including many girls at a primary school. |
| 1:05.4 | In response to the attacks, Iran, a major oil exporter, launched retaliatory strikes |
| 1:10.2 | across the Middle East, |
| 1:11.5 | killing both civilians and military personnel. |
| 1:14.8 | Ships in the Strait of Hormuz, which carries as much as a fifth of global oil supply, |
| 1:19.2 | have come to a halt. Qatar has stopped a liquefied natural gas facility. |
| 1:23.8 | Saudi Arabia has shut its largest oil refinery. |
| 1:32.2 | All of this will have ripple effects for months to come in the region and globally. |
| 1:39.0 | So today on zero, we try to answer the question, what will the war with Iran do to the energy transition? |
| 1:45.6 | My guest is Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. |
| 1:51.3 | He served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and was the energy and climate expert on the National Security Council. |
| 1:53.9 | As always, if you have any feedback for Zero, get in touch at ZeroPort at Bloomberg.net. |
| 1:59.5 | And just to note, this interview was recorded on |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bloomberg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bloomberg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.