Nature, Climate, and Geopolitics

How the Iran War highlights the case for renewables & nature-based solutions to enhance the UK’s national security

When Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz in February 2026, UK households felt it within days, with petrol, gas bills and fertiliser prices spiking. But the crisis revealed something the UK government had quietly released weeks earlier. In January 2026, HM Government published the first National Security Assessment to integrate biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse into the UK's security framework (Smith School, 2026). The redacted report concluded, with high confidence, that without major intervention every critical global ecosystem is on a pathway to irreversible collapse, with cascading consequences for food, migration, conflict and pandemic risk that directly threaten UK national security (HM Government, 2026).

The Iran crisis is a systems stress test, exposing the interconnected, often invisible vulnerabilities created by our fossil fuel dependency. Understanding this strengthens the case for investing in renewable and nature-based solutions to make the UK more secure.

The Systems Link, from Iran to Tipping Points

The World Economic Forum ranks biodiversity loss as the second most severe global risk over the next decade, behind only extreme weather (WEF, 2026), both exacerbated by the fossil fuel industry (González et al, 2025). Extreme weather is intensified by the climate change fossil fuel combustion drives. Biodiversity loss is driven primarily by industrial food production, itself heavily fossil-fuel-dependent through gas-derived fertilisers and oil-powered machinery and supply chains (IPCC, 2023; HM Government, 2026).

The Strait of Hormuz crisis demonstrates these interconnections. A single disrupted shipping route has driven up energy prices, raised fertiliser costs, and threatened food and water security across several nations (Werz, 2026). A change in one resource domain affects the others (Lone, 2024). The political pressure to extend fossil fuel dependency further destabilises the natural systems on which our food depends, worsening the cycle.

The Case for Renewables over New North Sea Oil & Gas Exploration

In 2024, the UK's energy supply was primarily natural gas (38%) and oil (36%) (DESNZ, 2025). Since the Iran war began, wholesale prices were up 50% and 60% respectively by early May (CNBC, 2026, Trading Economics, 2026). The political case for expanding North Sea extraction rests on a flawed premise: that domestically produced energy insulates consumers from global price shocks. It does not, North Sea crude trades on the global market and moves with prices set by Gulf production (Carbon Brief, 2026).

For the gas debate, the relevant comparison isn't piped UK gas versus imported LNG, it's gas versus not needing it at all. Wind and solar have near zero fuel costs and lifecycle emissions an order of magnitude lower than gas and cannot be repriced by events in Iran (IPCC, 2022). Gas still sets the wholesale electricity price most of the time (ECIU, 2025), but every additional gigawatt of wind and solar weakens that link. New gas drilling does not, since it’s sold at the same internationally set price regardless of origin (Carbon Brief, 2026). ECIU calculated that British wind farms cut UK wholesale electricity prices by 31% in 2025 by displacing gas (ECIU, 2026).

Timing is also key. According to the North Sea Transition Authority, the average time from licensing to first production is around five years (NSTA, 2024). Even existing-field drilling typically takes two or more years to deliver new barrels (POST, 2025). Any policy change announced today is therefore unlikely to affect supply during this crisis.

The longer the UK delays its renewables build-out, the more exposed households remain to future price shocks that the Iran crisis has produced.

The Case for Regenerative, Zero Inputs Farming over Fertilisers

Another vulnerability the Iran crisis has exposed is the UK's dependence on fossil-fuel-derived synthetic nitrogen fertiliser. The NSA is explicit: "Without significant increases in UK food system and supply chain resilience, it is unlikely the UK would be able to maintain food security if ecosystem collapse drives geopolitical competition for food. The UK relies on imports for a proportion of both its food and fertiliser and cannot currently produce enough to feed its population based on current diets" (HM Government, 2026). The crisis has made this an immediate concern: UK ammonium nitrate prices were 30% and urea prices 39% higher by early April 2026 than pre-conflict levels (AHDB, 2026).

The global food system has been engineered to depend on fossil-fuel-derived fertiliser, whose prices are set by geopolitics beyond most countries' control (POST, 2024). Of UK crops, 82% received a nitrogen application in 2024 (BSFP, 2024), with cereals alone covering just under half of all croppable land (Defra, 2024). A meaningful reduction in domestic yields from fertiliser unaffordability would push food prices higher in an already inflationary economy, tighten food security in lower-income communities, and create conditions for serious and organised crime to exploit food markets (HM Government, 2026). The political argument for drilling more North Sea gas to feed UK fertiliser production fails on the same grounds, it’s globally priced, and more of it would not make domestic fertiliser cheaper.

The NSA frames food and water insecurity as a national security risk because its consequences cascade beyond the farm gate. A one-percentage-point rise in food insecurity is associated with roughly 1.9% more people migrating (Schoonover et al, 2021). Syria is a recent reminder: a five-year drought combined with unsustainable irrigation displaced up to 1.5 million farming families to urban areas, contributing to the conditions preceding the civil war and refugee crisis that followed (Fragile States Index, 2021).

To break the cycle, we need to invest in our soils and shift reliance from synthetic inputs to low-carbon alternatives (Rosa et al, 2025). Soils with adequate organic carbon and microbial diversity enhance nutrient cycling, water retention, and root development, allowing the soil system to absorb shocks and sustain productivity under stress. As soil organic matter declines, so does its ability to regulate water, increasing vulnerability to drought, erosion and flooding (Dhankher et al, 2025). The nitrogen-fixing bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi that thrive in organically rich soils support nitrogen cycle resilience under drought, reducing dependence on synthetic nitrogen inputs (Lazicki et al, 2025).

A farming system that invests in living soil and reduces fertiliser dependency is more resilient and higher yielding (Dhankher et al, 2025; Amoah et al, 2025).

Other Key Risks identified by the NSA exacerbated by Fossil Fuels

Beyond the energy and fertiliser shocks examined above, the NSA identifies a broader set of national security risks from ecosystem collapse, all enabled or catalysed by continued fossil fuel dependency.

• Migration pressure. The unredacted NSA seen by The Times identifies degradation of the Congo rainforest and drying of Himalayan-fed rivers as drivers of displacement toward Europe, intensifying “more polarised and populist politics” (The Times, 2026).

• Pandemic risk. “… as biodiversity degrades, people move between countries and transfer of novel diseases between species becomes more likely” (HM Government, 2026). Roughly 60% of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic (WWF, 2020), and habitat clearance for commodity agriculture (palm oil, soy, beef) is a principal driver of the human-wildlife contact producing spillover events.

• Conflict and military escalation. Within and between states, as groups compete for land, food, water and other resources.

• Serious and Organised Crime (SOC). Scarcity creates new opportunities for SOC, including people trafficking and black markets in scarce food, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals. Climate-driven displacement and food insecurity expand both the supply of vulnerable people and the demand for illicit goods.

• Economic Insecurity. The NSA values UK ecosystem services at £87 billion in 2022 (3% of GDP) and warns that ecosystem collapse risks the loss of pharmaceutical resources, fisheries and agricultural genetic diversity on which long-term economic security depends (HM Government, 2026). Fossil-fuel-driven climate change and the industrial agriculture it enables are the primary mechanisms eroding this asset base (Trust et al, 2025).

• Concurrent ecosystem collapse. The energy system is responsible for around 75% of global greenhouse gas emissions (Lenton et al, 2025), making continued fossil fuel expansion the single largest accelerant of every other risk on this list. Given that ecosystems share drivers and feedback loops they are likely to collapse concurrently.

Addressing Vulnerabilities through Positive Tipping Points

The vulnerabilities the Iran crisis has exposed are not isolated problems requiring separate solutions, but expressions of an industrial economy operating within declining natural capital. The same systems science that warns of catastrophic tipping points also reveals positive, self-amplifying ones via feedback loops in technology, behaviour and ecosystems that can propel rapid change toward a more secure and sustainable state (Lenton et al, 2025). For the UK, the question is whether to absorb successive Iran-style shocks or invest in the levers that can tip the underlying system.

The energy system is already on this trajectory. The Global Tipping Report 2025 finds “positive tipping points are already reducing energy prices worldwide,” with solar PV capacity doubling every two to three years, battery prices falling 84% in the last decade, and 99 countries doubling solar generation in five years. Solar PV is the fastest growing energy source in history, combined with wind it now provides 15% of global electricity capacity (Lenton et al, 2025).

Every pound the UK spends on renewables, heat pumps and grid upgrades has a double benefit. It cuts UK emissions and pushes the global learning curve making clean technology cheaper for everyone and reducing the leverage countries like Iran have over British households. The Climate Change Committee found that cutting UK emissions to net zero by 2050 would cost less than a single fossil fuel price shock, of which the UK has experienced two in four years (CCC, 2026).

Nature-based solutions operate by the same logic. The GTP report identifies positive tipping points of nature regeneration, where ecosystem restoration amplifies itself through reinforcing feedbacks like soil microbial recovery, hydrological regulation, and keystone species reintroduction (Lenton et al, 2025). Investments in watershed and wetland restoration, regenerative agriculture, and community-led conservation move degraded systems back toward stability (JRC, 2022), reducing migration pressures, food-price volatility and pandemic risk the NSA flags as primary security threats. The Nature Conservancy’s 2025 global assessment found NbS investment for water security has grown tenfold between 2013 and 2023, as policymakers and investors recognise these as risk-management tools rather than environmental philanthropy (The Nature Conservancy, 2025).

What makes this combination uniquely powerful is what the GTP report calls super-leverage points: where coordinated policy action can trigger cascading positive change across multiple sectors at once (Lenton et al, 2025). The clearest UK example is an integrated transition where electrifying transport, heating and industry reduces the gas demand making UK fertiliser prices less vulnerable to Hormuz. This weakens the political case for new drilling and frees public investment to flow toward shifts in diet, land use and nature regeneration that simultaneously cut the agricultural emissions driving Amazon and Congo degradation. Each lever reinforces the next, allowing the risks the NSA identifies to recede as ecosystems recover.

The NSA reaches the same conclusion from an intelligence perspective: “protecting and restoring ecosystems is easier, cheaper and more reliable” than technological alternatives, and countries best placed to adapt are those that invest in ecosystem protection and restoration alongside resilient and efficient food systems (HM Government, 2026). The push for more drilling and new exploration licences addresses none of the vulnerabilities the crisis has exposed. New North Sea fields take years to produce and would mostly be exported. They would do nothing for household bills, soil health, water security or pandemic preparedness. They would, however, delay investment in the systems that could.

As global aid budgets for nature conservation and restoration are slashed, it is worth remembering that ecological threats to the Nile, Amazon and Himalaya are not distant or inconsequential. They directly impact on our food, our health, our climate and our security. The UK can either keep responding to each new shock or start tipping the system in the right direction. The Iran crisis makes that choice more urgent, not less.

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 Cover image: By MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC - This image or video was catalogued by Goddard Space Flight Center of the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under Photo ID: 2018-12-10., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=145434088