It has been 100 days since the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran on 28 February 2026. In that time, communities in Iran and across the wider Middle East have faced death, displacement, bombardment, blackouts, water shortages and deepening insecurity, while the shockwaves of war have spread far beyond the region through higher energy costs, rising food prices and worsening economic instability.

The attacks were predicted to trigger the worst energy crisis in history, according to the International Energy Agency, with around 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) and 25% of its seaborne oil supplies at risk in and around the Strait of Hormuz. The impact, on paper, was set to be bigger than the oil shocks of the 1970s.

Since then, there have been multiple rounds of negotiations, ceasefire proposals and back‑channel talks, but fighting and strikes have continued, and the Strait of Hormuz has still not fully reopened to normal traffic, keeping markets and people on edge.

Why it matters

This is not just a foreign policy story. It is about the price of fuel, food and transport, about who gets left exposed when economies depend on fossil fuel chokepoints, and about who gets rich when everything goes wrong. One hundred days on, the war on Iran has become another brutal reminder that fossil fuel dependency turns geopolitical violence into a global cost of living crisis.

100 days of war, deaths, destruction and pollution

War is killing thousands of people and wrecking lives. In Iran and neighbouring countries, just as in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, civilians have been killed and injured in airstrikes and missile attacks, homes and apartment blocks have been reduced to rubble, and critical infrastructure like hospitals, water systems and power grids has been damaged or pushed to the brink. Families are living through repeated blackouts, water cuts and fuel shortages, and many have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety.

The financial cost of the war on Iran is staggering too. Independent trackers – based on sources such as the Pentagon’s briefing to Congress and a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies – estimate that, in its first 100 days, the war on Iran has already cost US taxpayers more than 100 billion US dollars in direct military spending and related economic losses, money that could have funded schools, hospitals and clean energy instead. That does not include the much longer‑term costs of rebuilding shattered infrastructure, treating physical and psychological trauma, or dealing with the climate impacts of a conflict built on fossil fuel infrastructure.

The war is also a major source of carbon pollution. An analysis of the first 14 days of the US–Israel war against Iran estimates that it generated around 5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, roughly equal to the combined yearly emissions of the 84 lowest‑emitting countries in the world. Those emissions come from military jets, ships and vehicles, from burning fuel and munitions, and from fires and damage to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure.

Scientists are warning that this war is part of a wider pattern in which oil, gas and water infrastructure are deliberately turned into targets, with consequences that can last for decades. Strikes on refineries, fuel depots, desalination plants and pipelines do not only kill and injure in the moment, they also poison air, soil and water and undermine the basic systems people rely on to survive.

Beyond direct strikes, the war has intensified the dangers posed by oil tankers moving through one of the world’s most sensitive chokepoints. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow corridor carrying a huge share of the world’s oil and LNG, and Greenpeace and other experts have long warned that it is a high‑risk zone for accidents, collisions and spills. In recent months, satellite images have shown oil slicks and pollution from tanker incidents and damaged infrastructure in and around the Gulf, underlining how quickly a military escalation in such a crowded shipping lane can turn into an environmental disaster that is literally visible from space.

100 days of higher fuel prices and obscene war profits

In the weeks after the attacks, fears over the Strait of Hormuz and wider regional escalation pushed Brent crude above 100 US dollars a barrel, with the spot price spiking to about 138 US dollars on 7 April and averaging around 117 US dollars for the month. These are levels not seen since the energy price shock that followed Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For households, that meant one more squeeze on already stretched budgets. For fossil fuel companies, it meant another jackpot.

• The world’s top 100 oil and gas companies were making more than 30 million US dollars in extra profit every hour in the first month of the US‑Israeli war on Iran.
  
• If prices stay around 100 dollars a barrel, they could pocket around 234 billion US dollars in additional profit by the end of 2026, with giants like Saudi Aramco, Gazprom and ExxonMobil among the biggest winners.
  
• Shell alone made 6.9 billion US dollars in first‑quarter profit, more than double the previous quarter, as the war on Iran helped keep prices high.
  
• Europe’s four biggest oil majors – Shell, TotalEnergies, BP and Equinor – reported over 18 billion US dollars in adjusted earnings after tax in Q1 2026, an 80 percent jump quarter on quarter.
  
• In the European Union, oil companies were making about 92.8 million US dollars a day in war profits in the first weeks of the conflict, with diesel driving much of the excess.
  
• In the UK, the market value of major North Sea drillers including Shell, BP and TotalEnergies rose by about 73.5 billion pounds in just four weeks after the first attacks.

This is what fossil fuel dependence looks like in practice: people pay more to drive, heat their homes and move goods, while producers and traders cash in on volatility.

If that sounds familiar, it should. This is the fossil fuel industry’s war playbook: a crisis hits, supply fears are amplified, prices rise, profits surge, and then the same companies argue that the answer is more drilling, more gas terminals and more dependence on the very system that made everyone vulnerable in the first place.

100 days of rising food prices and Big Ag windfall profits

The war did not just hit energy. It hit food systems. Food prices rose to their highest level since 2023 in April, driven in part by the conflict in the Middle East, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. This matters because when energy and fertiliser prices rise together, food inflation can spread quickly through farming, transport, packaging and supermarket shelves.

In March, Greenpeace warned that disruption to fertiliser supply chains caused by the war and the closure risk around the Strait of Hormuz could trigger a new global food price shock. Its reporting showed how the crisis was exposing the fragility of a food system hooked on fossil fuel-based fertilisers and long, vulnerable supply chains.

By May, the pattern of profiteering became clearer. Fertiliser firms made bumper profits off the back of the Iran war supply crisis, as farmers’ livelihoods were squeezed. 

Farmers face more expensive fertiliser and fuel. Families around the world face higher grocery bills. And as with oil, a handful of giant firms are turning the crisis into another revenue stream. The result is a food system that is profitable for shareholders, but dangerously brittle for everyone else.

100 days of transport costs, disruption and protest

The transport sector is responsible for around 60% of total oil demand. When fossil fuel prices rise, transport becomes the messenger that delivers the shock to everyone else.

Higher fuel costs push up bus fares, airline tickets, freight rates and eventually the price of everyday goods. In the weeks and months after the first strikes on Iran, protests over fuel and transport costs erupted from Kenya, where people took to the streets against record petrol prices and fare hikes and at least four people were killed, to Haiti, where workers demanded wage increases to keep up with fuel and food inflation. In Pakistan, truckers and commuters protested over diesel and bus fares, while in France and other European countries, farmers and drivers blocked roads and fuel depots to denounce soaring costs and government inaction.

These protests are a rational response to a rigged system that expects ordinary people to absorb each new fossil‑fuelled crisis, while those with private jets, mega‑yachts and record dividends carry on as usual. Without a rapid shift away from oil‑based economy and a fair sharing of costs, every new shock will keep landing hardest on those who did least to cause it.

100 days of governments responding to the crisis

The last 100 days have exposed a system designed to fail people and reward profiteers. Trump’s war on Iran has deepened suffering in the region, but it has also made life harder and more expensive for tens of millions of people thousands of kilometres away because our economies remain tied to fossil fuels for energy, plastics and fertilisers.

Global demand for oil has dipped slightly: the International Energy Agency now expects oil demand to fall by more than 2% this quarter, with most of that drop coming from developing countries in Asia, the region most dependent on Middle Eastern oil. Alongside this, 76 countries have rolled out emergency measures to cut oil use further, from speed limits and work‑from‑home schemes to fuel‑saving campaigns and support for public transport.

These moves, combined with painful price‑driven demand destruction, have helped richer and more resilient economies insulate themselves from the worst impacts for now. But these measures have clear limits, especially for poorer countries that cannot easily shield their populations or absorb another price spike. The crisis is by no means over, and each day the world remains hooked on oil and gas, the next escalation or supply disruption will bring the same vulnerability back again.

What needs to happen

No one should be getting rich off war and chaos. Governments should tax fossil fuel and agribusiness war profits, protect households from rising bills, and accelerate the shift to renewable energy, efficient homes, better public transport, reuse systems and more local, resilient food production.

A serious response to the last 100 days would be not to double down on the system that caused the shock. It means taxing windfall war profits from oil, gas and fertiliser companies. It means faster public investment in renewables, storage, insulation and efficient transport. It means protecting people first through social tariffs, public transport support, emergency food measures and help for farmers to move away from fossil fuel fertilisers.

It also means treating the last 100 days as a warning. Efficient government responses, people-centred solutions, taxation of windfall war profits and ambitious renewable energy deployment are not side issues. They are what energy security, food security and economic stability look like in a world where fossil fuel dependency keeps turning crises into global punishment.

Make war profiteers pay

Tax fossil fuel profits to support communities hit by disasters and invest in energy independence.

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Bonn, Germany – The UN climate negotiations in Bonn will be a critical moment to sustain emerging political momentum towards a just transition away from fossil fuels and efforts to end forest destruction by 2030 amid new warnings of a looming 1.5°C exceedance.

The Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB64) comes 100 days after the US-Israel war on Iran sparked a global energy shock and after 57 countries met in Santa Marta, Colombia in April for the world’s first conference on the transition away from fossil fuels – a landmark moment signalling political winds of change. 

It also comes in the wake of a milestone UN General Assembly resolution aimed at advancing implementation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion on climate change and state responsibility, making it clear that climate action is an irrefutable legal obligation.

Tracy Carty, Climate Politics Expert, Greenpeace International said: “In the midst of an energy crisis that has exposed the risks of fossil fuel dependence, some countries remain rusted onto the ‘drill, baby drill’ approach. But elsewhere, momentum is progressively building for a just transition from countries ready to plan for and implement a post-fossil-fuel future.

“The task now for all of these willing states is to spearhead ambitious national action at home and, in a turbulent geopolitical space, drive concrete progress at COP31 and beyond. That involves the development of national fossil fuel phase out roadmaps as part of fair, fast and funded transition plans that protect people and build long-term climate and energy stability.” 

Ahead of SB64, Greenpeace International has produced a policy briefing outlining the core elements of a just transition away from fossil fuels and the urgent, priority actions needed from national governments and through global co-operation to make it a reality.[1]

The Bonn conference also comes after the World Meteorological Organization warned in May it’s “very likely” the global average temperature increase will temporarily exceed 1.5°C for at least one year between 2026 and 2030.[2] Greenpeace is calling for that scenario to become a rallying call to action, especially for developed countries, to urgently ramp up climate and biodiversity ambition.

An Lambrechts, Biodiversity Politics Expert, Greenpeace International said: “Ending deforestation and forest degradation is an essential element of the 1.5°C solution and it’s now mission critical that we maximise synergies across a fragmented landscape of current climate, biodiversity and finance initiatives to secure an end to forest destruction by 2030. 

“The COP30 presidency-led forest roadmap is a major opportunity that can help accelerate delivery of forest protection commitments. Bonn is a crucial moment to build a coalition of frontrunner countries and ensure the roadmap becomes a practical pathway to align existing and emerging actions to not only ensure forests remain standing, but whether they remain functioning. The time to act is now.”

Greenpeace International has also produced a policy briefing Beyond Deforestation, outlining how the 2030 forest and biodiversity targets are increasingly not only a political aspiration, but also significant benchmarks that inform State and corporate legal obligations as part of an emerging legal-policy paradigm centered on ecosystem integrity.[3]

ENDS

Notes:

[1] A Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels: Policy Briefing

[2] WMO: Global Annual to Decadal Climate Update 2026-2035

[3] Beyond Deforestation: Ecosystem Integrity and the Emerging Legal Paradigm

Contacts:

Aaron Gray-Block, Climate Politics Communications Manager, Greenpeace International, aaron.gray-block@greenpeace.org

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

At a time of geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty and growing competition for strategic resources, gold has re-emerged as a symbol of a secure investment. Investors buy it. Central banks stockpile it. Luxury brands sell it.

But behind part of this global trade lies a hidden cost: one measured in destroyed forests, contaminated rivers and Indigenous territories under attack.

A new Greenpeace Brazil investigation, Gold Laundering in the Amazon: Anatomy of a Fraud, reveals how illegally mined gold from the Brazilian Amazon can be laundered into legal supply chains and reach markets around the world. 

How gold laundering happens in Brazil

At the centre of the scheme, revealed by the report, are the permits provided by the Brazilian Mining Agency, a licensing system originally created to regulate artisanal mining. Because the permits can be granted without prior geological surveys and rely on self-declared estimates of a site’s productive potential, there are no reliable technical parameters to verify whether reported production volumes are realistic. According to the report, this loophole allows gold extracted illegally from Indigenous Territories and conservation areas to be laundered into legal supply chains.

What the investigation found

Greenpeace Brazil analysed 187 mining permits between 2018 and March 2026, and identified 98 with signs of irregularities. Together, they accounted for 25.3 tonnes of declared gold worth approximately US$3,66 billion at current market prices. 

The Greenpeace Brazil investigation shows a gold laundering scheme that, for decades, has used a legal instrument to insert gold stolen from Indigenous Territories and other protected areas in the Amazon into national and international markets. 

The impacts of illegal gold mining in the Amazon

The consequences of this system reach far beyond the mining sites themselves. Between 2023 and 2025 alone, more than 5,249 hectares of rainforest were destroyed by gold mining inside Indigenous Territories in the Brazilian Amazon, an area equivalent to around 7,500 football fields. Illegal mining contaminates rivers with mercury, destroys biodiversity, fuels violence and accelerates invasions into protected areas.

The impacts are particularly severe for Indigenous communities. Mercury contamination threatens food systems and water sources, while violence associated with illegal mining disrupts community life and undermines territorial security. Indigenous women often face some of the harshest consequences, including increased harassment, exploitation and violence. In the Munduruku Indigenous Territory, a recent study found that 98.5% of pregnant Indigenous women examined had mercury levels above safe thresholds in their bodies.

We want to live in a standing and living Amazon, with our rights protected, with clean rivers, with fish free from contamination, and without the constant threat of invasions.

– Alessandra Korap Munduruku, Indigenous Leader

How Indigenous Peoples are resisting and taking action

For generations, Indigenous Peoples and local communities have stood on the frontline of forest protection. Through ways of life deeply connected to and respectful of nature, they have safeguarded the most important ecosystems on Earth long before the world began discussing climate negotiations, biodiversity frameworks or rights-based solutions. Despite representing only 6% of the global population, Indigenous Peoples manage or hold tenure rights over 25% of the earth’s surface and at least 37% of the remaining natural lands worldwide.

As illegal gold mining advances across the Amazon, Indigenous Peoples are once again leading the response. This June, prominent Indigenous leaders are traveling across France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Italy as part of “The True Cost of Gold” tour. 

The group includes: 

• Alessandra Korap Munduruku, winner of the Goldman Prize Award in 2023 for her fight against a mining company in her territory

• Juma Xipaia, founder of the Juma Institute, an organisation dedicated to environmental conservation, Indigenous self-determination and women’s empowerment, and the first woman leader of the Xipaya Tukamã village

• Megaron Txucarramãe, a key figure in the modern Indigenous rights movement and the official successor of Chief Raoni

• Beptuk Metuktire, Indigenous Youth leader and coordinator of the Raoni Institute 

Together with Greenpeace, they are meeting political leaders, journalists, decision-makers and other influential actors to demand stronger accountability in global gold supply chains, greater protection for Indigenous territories and increased support for Indigenous-led forest protection.

Their message is simple: protecting Indigenous rights is not only about justice for Indigenous Peoples. It is about protecting some of the most important ecosystems left on Earth, preserving climate stability, safeguarding water systems and defending the conditions that make life possible for everyone. 

Because in the end, what is truly priceless is not gold. It is the possibility of a livable planet for all of us.

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Jaqueline Sordi is the Communications and Engagement Lead for the Tropical Forests campaign at Greenpeace International.