Twenty Million Barrels and a Very Old Problem

That's a remarkable number.

And yet, the crisis in Hormuz still bites, even for Spain.

Because electricity is one thing, but transport, industry, heating — that still runs on oil and gas.

Correcto.

Correct.

Esa es la gran asignatura pendiente.

That's the big unfinished homework.

España ha descarbonizado bastante bien la generación eléctrica.

Spain has decarbonized its electricity generation fairly well.

Pero la movilidad, la industria pesada, el transporte de mercancías...

But mobility, heavy industry, freight transport: there we're still enormously dependent on fossil fuels, and that ties us directly to what's happening in the Persian Gulf.

ahí todavía dependemos muchísimo de los combustibles fósiles, y eso nos conecta directamente con lo que pasa en el Golfo Pérsico.

And this is where the climate angle becomes less abstract and more uncomfortable.

Every time there's a Hormuz crisis, every time oil prices spike, you'd think it would be a massive accelerant for the energy transition.

But historically, that's not quite what happens.

No.

No.

Lo que suele pasar es que los gobiernos entran en modo de emergencia energética y buscan cualquier fuente disponible: más gas licuado, más carbón en algunos casos, más extracción doméstica.

What typically happens is that governments enter energy emergency mode and search for any available source: more liquefied gas, more coal in some cases, more domestic extraction.

La transición climática pasa a segundo plano cuando la gente tiene miedo de no poder calentar su casa o llenar el depósito.

The climate transition gets pushed to the back burner when people are afraid they can't heat their homes or fill their tanks.

We saw exactly that after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Germany reactivated coal plants.

Countries that had been loudly committed to net-zero targets were suddenly scrambling for LNG terminals.

And the language shifted — it became 'energy security first, climate second.'

Y es que hay una tensión real ahí que los políticos no suelen reconocer en público.

And there's a real tension there that politicians don't usually acknowledge in public.

La transición energética requiere tiempo, inversión y estabilidad.

The energy transition requires time, investment, and stability.

Las crisis geopolíticas crean urgencia, pánico y presión para tomar decisiones rápidas que muchas veces son las contrarias a las que necesita el clima.

Geopolitical crises create urgency, panic, and pressure to make quick decisions that very often run counter to what the climate actually needs.

Although, and I want to push on this a bit, some economists would argue it cuts the other way.

That an oil shock of this magnitude is the strongest possible argument for speeding up the transition.

The more it hurts to be dependent on Gulf oil, the stronger the incentive to stop being dependent on Gulf oil.

Ojalá fuera tan sencillo.

If only it were that simple.

En teoría, sí.

In theory, yes.

Pero lo que vemos en la práctica es que el dolor del precio del petróleo lo sufre la población de inmediato: en la gasolinera, en la factura del supermercado, en el coste del transporte.

But what we see in practice is that the pain from oil prices hits the population immediately: at the gas pump, in the supermarket bill, in the cost of transport.

Mientras que los beneficios de invertir en renovables tardan años en materializarse.

While the benefits of investing in renewables take years to materialize.

Y esa asimetría temporal es un problema político enorme.

And that time asymmetry is a huge political problem.

That's a really clean way of putting it.

The pain is immediate, the cure is slow.

And in a democratic system, slow cures are a hard sell.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y lo que me preocupa de esta crisis en particular es que ocurre en un momento en que varios países europeos ya estaban revisando sus objetivos climáticos, ralentizando el ritmo de la transición por presiones económicas y políticas.

And what worries me about this particular crisis is that it comes at a moment when several European countries were already revisiting their climate targets, slowing the pace of the transition due to economic and political pressures.

Y ahora llega esto.

And now this arrives.

Let's put some geography on this.

Because the Strait of Hormuz closing doesn't hit everyone equally.

Japan and South Korea are much more exposed than, say, the United States, which is now largely energy self-sufficient from its own production.

Europe sits somewhere in the middle, but uncomfortably so.

Europa importa aproximadamente el setenta por ciento de su energía del exterior.

Europe imports approximately seventy percent of its energy from abroad.

Y aunque desde la crisis de Ucrania ha reducido su dependencia del gas ruso y ha buscado nuevas rutas y proveedores, el petróleo del Golfo sigue siendo crucial.

And although since the Ukraine crisis it has reduced its dependence on Russian gas and sought new routes and suppliers, Gulf oil remains crucial.

No hay una alternativa fácil a corto plazo.

There's no easy short-term alternative.

And Spain specifically, Octavio.

What's the conversation like there right now?

Because I've seen some coverage but I'm curious what you're actually hearing from people.

Hay una especie de ansiedad de fondo, especialmente entre las empresas que dependen del transporte.

There's a kind of background anxiety, especially among businesses that depend on transport.

Los precios del combustible ya han subido notablemente.

Fuel prices have already risen significantly.

Los transportistas están protestando.

Hauliers are protesting.

Y hay un debate político sobre si el gobierno debería intervenir con bajadas de impuestos sobre la gasolina, lo cual es exactamente la respuesta equivocada desde el punto de vista climático.

And there's a political debate about whether the government should intervene by cutting fuel taxes, which is exactly the wrong response from a climate perspective.

Wrong from a climate perspective, but politically almost unavoidable.

Because the alternative is a government that watches fuel prices spike and does nothing, which is also a very hard position to hold.

Y eso me lleva a una pregunta más profunda, que es la siguiente: ¿es posible que una democracia haga la transición energética que el planeta necesita sin que primero ocurra exactamente este tipo de crisis?

And that leads me to a deeper question, which is this: is it possible for a democracy to make the energy transition the planet needs without exactly this kind of crisis happening first?

¿Necesitamos el dolor para realmente cambiar?

Do we need the pain to actually change?

That's a question I've been circling for years.

And my honest read, after watching a lot of governments in a lot of countries under a lot of pressure, is: pain is necessary but not sufficient.

The 1973 oil shock produced a burst of renewable investment, then prices dropped, the urgency faded, and the world went back to its habits.

Es verdad.

That's true.

Y sin embargo, hay algo diferente esta vez, al menos en Europa.

And yet, something is different this time, at least in Europe.

El coste de las renovables ha caído de manera dramática.

The cost of renewables has dropped dramatically.

La energía solar fotovoltaica, por ejemplo, es ahora más barata que cualquier combustible fósil en la mayor parte del continente.

Solar photovoltaic energy, for example, is now cheaper than any fossil fuel across most of the continent.

Eso no era así en 1973, ni en 2008.

That wasn't the case in 1973, or in 2008.

That's the thing that gives me cautious optimism.

The economics have genuinely shifted.

The argument for renewables used to be partly idealistic.

Now it's also financial.

And financial arguments survive political cycles in ways that idealistic ones don't.

Aunque hay un problema: la transición no es solo cuestión de tecnología y economía.

Although there's a problem: the transition isn't just about technology and economics.

Es también de infraestructura, de red eléctrica, de almacenamiento de energía.

It's also about infrastructure, about the electrical grid, about energy storage.

España tiene capacidad de generación renovable extraordinaria, pero le faltan interconexiones eléctricas con el resto de Europa.

Spain has extraordinary renewable generation capacity, but it lacks electrical interconnections with the rest of Europe.

Seguimos siendo, como dicen algunos, una isla energética.

We remain, as some say, an energy island.

I've heard that phrase before.

And it points to something that I think gets lost in the climate conversation: the political geography of energy.

It's not enough to generate clean electricity if you can't move it where it needs to go.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y en ese sentido, la crisis de Ormuz podría, si los políticos toman las decisiones correctas, acelerar las inversiones en esas infraestructuras que llevan años en debate.

And in that sense, the Hormuz crisis could, if politicians make the right decisions, accelerate investments in those infrastructures that have been in debate for years.

A menos que la urgencia del corto plazo vuelva a ganar a la estrategia del largo plazo.

Unless short-term urgency beats long-term strategy once again.

Which brings us back to the tanker sitting dead in the Gulf.

That ship is, in a strange way, a very vivid argument for decoupling from this system entirely.

And yet here we are, still needing the system to function while we figure out how to exit it.

It's not a comfortable place to be.

No lo es.

It's not.

Y creo que esa incomodidad es exactamente lo que la crisis de Ormuz le hace al debate climático: nos obliga a mirarnos en el espejo y admitir lo lejos que estamos aún de la independencia energética que decimos querer.

And I think that discomfort is exactly what the Hormuz crisis does to the climate debate: it forces us to look in the mirror and admit how far we still are from the energy independence we claim to want.

Nicely put.

And on that slightly uncomfortable note — Octavio, I want to go back to something you said a few minutes ago.

You used a phrase I hadn't heard before, or hadn't heard in quite that way.

You said 'a menos que la urgencia del corto plazo vuelva a ganar.' What's the construction there, exactly?

'A menos que.'

Buena pregunta.

Good question.

'A menos que' significa 'unless' en inglés, y lo importante es que siempre va seguido de subjuntivo.

'A menos que' means 'unless' in English, and the important thing is that it always takes the subjunctive.

Siempre.

Always.

Por ejemplo: 'No cambiaremos nada a menos que los políticos tomen decisiones valientes.' No puedes usar el indicativo ahí.

For example: 'We won't change anything unless politicians make brave decisions.' You can't use the indicative there.

Always subjunctive.

So it's in the same family as 'para que' and 'cuando' referring to the future.

The Spanish language has this whole infrastructure for expressing conditions and uncertainty that English mostly handles with auxiliary verbs.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y 'a menos que' es muy útil porque expresa una condición negativa: la única situación en que algo no ocurrirá.

And 'a menos que' is very useful because it expresses a negative condition: the one situation in which something won't happen.

'Seguiremos dependiendo del petróleo a menos que construyamos la infraestructura necesaria.' Es conciso y muy natural en el registro formal e informal.

'We'll keep depending on oil unless we build the necessary infrastructure.' It's concise and very natural in both formal and informal registers.

And I imagine if I tried to use it, I'd manage to insert the indicative in there somehow and you'd spend the next week telling everyone about it.

Eso ya lo doy por hecho, Fletcher.

I already take that for granted, Fletcher.

Pero al menos ya sabes el nombre del error antes de cometerlo.

But at least now you know the name of the mistake before you make it.

Eso es progreso.

That's progress.