By most accounts, Donald Trump’s “excursion” into Iran is turning into a monumentally expensive disaster, both for his country and the broader global economy. His administration’s failure to anticipate the obvious consequences of its actions, which now include Iran’s weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz, will cost America dearly. But we shouldn’t get too high on our proverbial horse here in Canada. After all, we seem determined to make our own strategic blunder. 

The lesson most countries are speed-learning right now is that depending on fossil fuel imports is far more expensive and potentially destabilizing than they’d been led to believe. The Philippines has already declared a national energy emergency, Slovenia and Sri Lanka have imposed fuel rationing measures, and South Korea is encouraging voluntary fuel conservation. The list of countries and range of measures will grow over the next few weeks, as the full impact of the Strait of Hormuz’s ongoing closure on oil markets becomes clear. As the Trump administration is discovering, that could include oil prices spiking above $200 per barrel. 

Financial markets haven’t come close to pricing that in yet, which means they’re effectively betting on a quick resolution to the conflict. But consumers around the world aren’t waiting to find out if they’re right. Electric vehicle dealerships across Europe and Asia have reported huge spikes in their March sales figures, while a pair of German companies that sell heat pumps told Bloomberg they’ve already seen a major surge in interest. Then there’s Octopus Energy, the UK’s biggest energy supplier, which said that inquiries about home solar systems were 27 per cent higher than in the week the war began. 

“Higher oil prices always help the transition to electric vehicles,” Albert Park, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, told Bloomberg. “It creates economic incentives to accelerate the green transition.” Those incentives aren’t about to go away, either. In a research note on the conflict, JP Morgan’s chairman of market and........

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