UK broadcast coverage shifted sharply towards fossil fuels after the start of the Iran war, with only modest increases in renewable energy reporting and minimal links to climate change.

by Rosie Frost (Journalism Insights Analyst), Alina Sandauer (Content Analyst) & Dr Lissa O’Reilly (Content Analyst)

10 April 2026

Fossil fuel coverage across TV and radio programmes from five UK broadcasters more than doubled in the weeks following the start of the Iran war, far outpacing a smaller rise in renewable energy mentions, a preliminary analysis by Climate News Tracker finds.

The conflict, which began on 28 February, sent shockwaves through global energy markets, reviving questions about the UK’s reliance on imported fossil fuels and its exposure to geopolitical instability. As oil and gas prices surged and supply pressures intensified, broadcasters increasingly focused on energy security in their coverage.

This analysis examines how the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV and Sky, responded in the first weeks of the conflict.

Tracking keyword mentions across 20 TV and radio programmes, it finds a sharp rise in fossil fuel coverage, alongside a lack of connection between the war, the energy crisis it triggered, and climate change.

Key Findings:

• Fossil fuel mentions more than doubled, rising from 40% to 84% of programmes after the war began.
• Renewable energy coverage also increased, but by a much smaller margin, from 12% to 19% of programmes.
• Only 4% of Iran war-related programmes linked the conflict to climate change.

Fossil fuel mentions more than double after start of the Iran war

In the four weeks before the Iran war started, fossil fuel keywords appeared in an average of 40% of the UK TV and Radio programmes we track. In the four weeks after, this rose to 84%, a 108% relative increase.

Renewables coverage also increased, but by a smaller margin. The share of programmes mentioning renewable energy rose from 12% before the war to 19% afterwards, a 62% relative increase.

While both increased after the war began, the gap between them widened. Before the war, fossil fuel keywords appeared in an average of 28 percentage points more programmes than renewables. Afterwards, that gap had grown to 64 points. The conflict raised the profile of both topics, but fossil fuels dominated coverage.

This analysis is based on keyword mentions and is preliminary. Programmes were not individually verified as covering the Iran war, only that they contained at least one relevant word. Further analysis is under way to assess how these mentions relate to the conflict.

A timeline of energy coverage after the start of the Iran war

Fossil fuel keywords surged in the immediate aftermath of the start of the Iran war, as concerns over rising oil prices dominated the news agenda.

While the data points to some instances were renewables where discussed as a potential response to the energy crisis, these were more limited, highlighting missed opportunities to link the conflict to longer-term energy solutions.

On 2 March, broadcasters began covering the domestic economic implications of the war. BBC News at One reported that disruption to the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas passes, had pushed up wholesale energy prices.

In the same programme, Deputy Political Editor Dharshini David cautioned that whether price rises would filter through to household bills depended on how long the disruption lasted. While significant, she noted, the rises were not yet as severe as those seen at the height of the Ukraine war.

On 8 March, US and Israeli forces targeted Iranian oil depots for the first time since the war began. The strikes coincided with a sharp escalation in global energy markets as Brent crude surged past $100 a barrel, at one point topping $119, the first time oil had risen above $100 since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Fossil fuel coverage also peaked with every single programme tracked mentioning at least one fossil fuel keyword.

Coverage of both fossil fuels and renewables spiked again on 18 and 19 March, amid growing debate over expanding North Sea drilling in response to rapidly rising oil prices.

Sky News analysis by Ed Conway, which was widely shared, used data from the North Sea Transition Authority, Offshore Energies UK and others, and focused on whether the UK could be sitting on more oil and gas.

His explainer, broadcast on 18 March on their breakfast programme did not mention renewables at all. The 16-minute extended digital version gave only limited attention to the potential role of renewables in addressing energy security.

Of the programmes mentioning renewable energy on 18 March, three out of seven framed it as a solution to the crisis. On 19 March this rose slightly to four out of eight, suggesting only limited discussion of renewables as a solution.

Fossil fuel mentions peaked again on 23 March after President Trump, citing “productive conversations” with Tehran, announced he was postponing strikes on Iranian power plants. That prompted a fall in oil prices.

On the same day, the UN released its State of the Global Climate 2025 report, warning that the world’s climate is more out of balance than ever and urged a shift away from fossil fuels.

“In this age of war, climate stress is also exposing another truth: our addiction to fossil fuels is destabilising both the climate and global security. Today’s report should come with a warning label: climate chaos is accelerating and delay is deadly,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said.

However none of the programmes which mentioned fossil fuels that day made the direct link between fluctuating oil prices due to the Iran war and the UN’s warning.

Renewables coverage rose again on 24 March following the announcement that all new homes in England would be required to feature solar panels and heat pumps under the newly published Future Homes Standard. The government explicitly linked the announcement to the conflict in Iran, framing clean homegrown energy as the route to escaping dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets.

Coverage was mixed. Of the 11 programmes mentioning renewables that day, six framed the policy as part of the response to the energy crisis while five did not.

How often is climate change mentioned in coverage about the Iran war?

To explore this further, Climate News Tracker identified programmes covering Iran and then assessed how many also mentioned climate change.

After manually reviewing these, preliminary analysis found that just 4% made any link between the Iran war, the energy crisis it triggered and climate change.

Of the 16 programmes that mentioned both Iran and climate change, 14 contained only passing references. Just two explored the connection in any depth.

One was BBC Radio 4’s PM which featured a discussion, framed by the Iran war, of whether drilling domestic gas instead of importing it would reduce the UK’s carbon emissions. The other was from BBC Radio 4’s The World at One, which included a similiar argument about imported gas, alongside a discussion of energy security in the context of reducing emissions and the job market.

Taken together, the findings suggest UK broadcast coverage framed the Iran war largely through fossil fuel supply and price shocks, with climate change and renewables remaining peripheral. Even as the crisis exposed the risks of dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets, coverage rarely explored how renewables could form part of a more resilient energy system.

Methodology

Climate News Tracker analysed TV and radio coverage to examine how reporting on the energy crisis surrounding the Iran war developed in the first weeks of the conflict, with a focus on differences between coverage of renewables and fossil fuels.

Measuring News Coverage

All analysis covers flagship TV and radio news programmes from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, and Sky News.

• BBC ONE (London): Breakfast, News at One, News at Six, News at Ten
• BBC TWO (England): Newsnight
• ITV (London): Good Morning Britain, Lunchtime News, Evening News, News at Ten
• Channel 4: Channel 4 News
• Channel 5: 5 News at 5, 5 News Weekend
• Sky News: Breakfast, Sky News Today, News Hour
• BBC Radio 4: Today, World at One, PM, The World Tonight, The World This Weekend

Keyword Selection

Four topics were tracked: fossil fuels, renewables, climate change and the Iran war. Each topic was defined using a set of keywords.

A sample of each keyword was manually checked to ensure it accurately captured the intended topic.

Keywords with less than 75% relevance were excluded (e.g. “North Sea” and “wind” which captured unrelated weather stories).

A programme was counted as covering a topic if at least one relevant keyword appeared in the transcript. Repeated mentions within the same programme did not count multiple times.

The keywords used were;

Fossil fuels:
Fossil fuels, drilling, Rosebank, oil, gas.

Renewables:
Renewables, clean energy, net zero, solar, turbine, wind farms, wind energy, wind power, offshore wind.

Climate change:
Climate change, carbon, climate crisis, changing climate, greenhouse gases, global warming.

Iran war:
Iran, Hormuz.

Analysis approach

To compare how frequently fossil fuels and renewables featured in coverage (figure 1), keyword mentions were used to calculate the share of programmes covering each topic in the four weeks before the start of the war (31 January – 27 February) and the four weeks after (28 February – 28 March). These included all programmes, regardless of whether Iran was explicitly mentioned.

To assess how often climate change was linked to the conflict, analysis focused on the four weeks after the start of the war (28 February – 28 March). Programmes were manually reviewed to assess whether stories about Iran were substantively linked to climate change.

This is a preliminary analysis. Further work is under way to examine how fossil fuels and renewables are framed within coverage of the energy crisis.