Democrats should be more vocal about clean energy affordability and resilience from global shocks, according to some of the party’s leading voices on climate change.
Countries aim to accelerate their transition to clean energy as the Iran war raises oil and gas prices and disrupts economies. But in the United States, where President Donald Trump is seeking to destroy all energy alternatives to fossil fuels, his Democratic opponents are reluctant to link the conflict to any action on the climate crisis.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas normally passes, has caused energy costs to soar around the world in the wake of the US and Israeli attacks on Iran. Gasoline prices have soared to more than $4.10 a gallon nationwide in the United States, and President Trump even acknowledged that prices could be “a little bit higher” by November.
Democrats say this is further evidence of the US president’s broken promise to lower the cost of living for Americans. But amid conflict and frustration from advocates of action on the climate crisis, there are few voices calling for a meaningful shift away from the instability of fossil fuels and towards clean energy.
Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said, “As long as there is a timely conflict over climate and cost, and we have the courage to actually join the fight, Democrats can win.” He added, “True energy independence will be achieved by powering our economy with renewable energy. That fuel source is limitless, free, and independent of geopolitical events.”
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on November 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. Photo: Heather Deal/Getty Images
“If we cede the battlefield to the fossil fuel liars and our party’s misguided climate change opponents, Democrats will continue to lose winnable fights for justice over our clean energy future,” the White House said.
Climate change “muzzling,” in which politicians and companies downplay or ignore the need to reduce global warming emissions, was prevalent in the United States during President Trump’s second term. With a painful loss in the 2024 election and ongoing inflation concerns (polls show Americans’ top concern about war with Iran is gas prices), Democrats are grappling with criticism of affordability rather than the planet’s endangered habitability, despite the clear link between the two.
“A moment of unique opportunity”
Paul Bledsoe, a former climate change aide in President Bill Clinton’s White House, said the Iran war presents Democrats with a “unique opportunity” to extol the benefits of low-emission options like electric vehicles, but the focus “should have been much more about lowering consumer costs and less about climate protection.”
“I don’t think they’ve seized the political opportunity yet,” Bledsoe said. “They need to stay focused on how these next-generation technologies will benefit consumers. If you tout clean energy first, lower consumer costs, and second, overall improvements to the economy, people will be happy to reduce emissions third.”
Translating this into a winning political message has been a struggle for Democrats, who passed a sweeping climate change bill under President Joe Biden to spur new jobs in clean energy, only to be watered down by Republicans who now control Congress. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has proposed restoring some clean energy incentives if his party regains power.
But Democrats need to do a better job promoting solar, wind and battery technologies as ways to reduce U.S. exposure to international fossil fuel costs determined by global events, said Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna. “I really believe that we missed the moment to do that in the Ukraine war,” he said. “We must connect the clean energy agenda to the economic security and national security of Americans, and we must do so again.”
Longer term, Khanna added, the United States “needs to move away from being a petrostate. We need a clean technology moonshot.”
Scientists say this shift away from fossil fuels is essential if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate impacts, but it has been thwarted by President Trump’s implementation of a “drill, baby drill” approach to oil and gas extraction and his extraordinary measures to shut down domestic clean energy generation, calling it a “fraud” and “the work of con artists” even in the midst of the Iran crisis.
Congressman Ro Khanna speaks in Washington, DC on April 14, 2026. Photo: Lenin Nolly/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
President Trump suggested that higher oil prices could even be beneficial because “when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.” This money went primarily to large fossil fuel companies, with the world’s 100 largest oil and gas companies making more than $30 billion in unearned profits every hour during the first month of the war.
President Trump’s approach differs greatly from that of other countries, which seek to rapidly reduce exposure to far-flung conflicts. While sales of electric cars are rapidly increasing in South Korea and Malaysia, electric rickshaws are selling out in Pakistan. “This is a wake-up call,” Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said recently. “We will turn every motorcycle into an electric bike. Every car, every truck, every tractor must (also) be electric.”
The European Union also plans to accelerate the introduction of clean energy to reduce electricity costs. “Delaying investments in the energy transition risks increasing costs for society at a later stage,” the European Commission’s draft proposal states. The plan comes ahead of a conference in Colombia this month where representatives from 85 countries will draw up a roadmap on how to move beyond the fossil fuel era.
According to the United Nations, the Iran war is an example of the need for this transition. “Clean energy is the antidote to the disruption of fossil fuel costs because it is cheaper, safer and faster to market,” said the UN’s climate chief, Simon Stiel. “War does not disrupt the supply of solar power for solar power generation, and wind power does not depend on vulnerable straits.”
But proponents argue that the growing harms of the climate crisis are the main reason to phase out coal, oil and gas. These effects are becoming increasingly evident in the United States as well as other countries around the world, where the country is enduring the hottest and driest start to a year on record, with a record-breaking March heat and severe outbreaks of drought, heat, and wildfires hitting much of the western United States.
Despite the Trump administration’s dismissal of climate science, polls show that two-thirds of Americans are concerned about global warming, and most Americans underestimate how concerned others are about the topic, as the topic is no longer covered in much media.
Anthony Leizerowitz, a Yale University scholar who studies public perceptions of the climate crisis, said there has been a “stunning silence” from Democrats and climate activists about how clean energy is cheaper, more inexhaustible, and more locally managed than fossil fuels. “And, by the way, it reduces carbon pollution, which causes global warming,” he added.
