The ecological dimensions of COVID-19 have become increasingly prominent in much recent discussion, with several important contributions exploring the pandemic in relation to capitalist agribusiness, widespread loss of biodiversity, and the destruction of natural ecosystems.

There is, however, a further element to COVID-19’s “ecology” that deserves much greater attention: the ways that the escalating pandemic intersects with, and is simultaneously acting to accelerate, a profound shock to the fossil fuel industry. Global oil markets are undergoing an unprecedented transformation as a result of this shock, and while longer-term trajectories remain open, this moment will undoubtedly shape the politics of oil — and the prospects of mitigating climate change — for decades to come.

With states representing over 90 percent of global GDP stuck under some form of lockdown, and the simultaneous shuttering of large swathes of global manufacturing, transport, industry, and retail, the demand for oil and oil products has dropped to historic lows. Indeed, it has been estimated that the reduction in US automobile use alone has led to an astonishing 5 percent fall in global oil demand — about the same as if the whole of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East had simultaneously stopped driving.