Recent calls for a more realistic shift from “decarbonization” to “low carbon” suggest that discomfort with ideology-driven climate policy is finally beginning to surface in public debate. For years, climate discussions in many countries have been dominated by abstract targets, slogans, and numerical commitments. Yet behind these lofty ideals lies a deeper and more practical question: have we come to understand energy far too narrowly? Tensions in the Strait of Hormuz in early 2026 have made that question impossible to ignore.

Today, under the banner of decarbonization, energy is often treated as if it were synonymous with electricity. Public discussion tends to focus on how to generate electricity without carbon emissions, how quickly electric vehicles can replace conventional cars, or how far renewable electricity from wind turbines and solar panels can expand. These are important questions, but they are not the whole picture. From the perspective of a chemical engineer, reducing the energy debate to electricity alone is equivalent to seeing only half of civilization.

Fossil fuels are not merely inputs for electricity generation. They are also indispensable raw materials for the modern industrial world. In addition to supporting transportation systems, more than 6,000 products that sustain daily life—including clothing, medical equipment, fertilizers, plastics, synthetic fibers, housing materials, detergents, packaging, and countless industrial components—owe their existence to the material benefits of fossil fuels. Oil and natural gas are not simply burned; they are transformed into the feedstocks from which modern life is built.

This distinction is crucial. When policymakers and activists speak as though the problem can be solved simply by replacing fossil-fuel-based power........

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