The Israel-Hamas war has imperiled already-fragile climate diplomacy ahead of COP28.

The Israel-Hamas war has imperiled already-fragile climate diplomacy ahead of COP28. - The New York Times

The Israel-Hamas war has imperiled already-fragile climate diplomacy ahead of COP28.

Global efforts to address climate change were already clouded by bitterness and distrust among countries.

Now, a widening gyre of conflict in the Middle East threatens to fracture an already divided world, raise oil and gas prices at a time of persistently high global inflation and direct financial resources to the business of fighting wars instead of the business of slowing down climate change.

The fact that the fighting between Israel and Hamas, which flared on Friday after a truce expired, is in the middle of an energy-rich region amplifies the risk. It tempts countries to secure their supplies of oil and gas rather than transitioning away from them, even after the hottest summer on record and what will very likely be the hottest year in human history.

The winners so far are the producers of weapons and, to a lesser degree, of oil. Defense stocks have rallied. Oil prices have inched up. The historical echoes are chilling, coming 50 years after the Arab oil embargo roiled energy markets. That episode was provoked by the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

All of this makes the next round of climate negotiations, which began on Thursday in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, itself a Persian Gulf petrostate, even more complicated.

If the conflict spills across the Middle East, it would most likely shatter hopes of mustering global agreement on anything else, including the shared crisis of climate.

Leaders of the U.A.E., who continue to expand oil and gas production, face a particularly acute challenge. They are responsible for bringing countries together at the climate talks, even as they are expected by many countries to take up the Palestinians’ cause at the United Nations Security Council, where they hold a rotating seat this year.

Somini Sengupta is The Times’s international climate correspondent. She has also covered the Middle East, West Africa and South Asia and is the author of the book, “The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India’s Young.” More about Somini Sengupta

Jim Tankersley writes about economic policy at the White House and how it affects the country and the world. He has covered the topic for more than a dozen years in Washington, with a focus on the middle class. More about Jim Tankersley