For ordinary households, the “energy crisis” is no longer a headline—it’s a permanent line item. The price shock that began during the COVID era and intensified after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not cleanly reversed. In many Western countries, energy costs have settled into a new, higher plateau—one that acts like a stealth tax on families, small businesses, and national competitiveness.
Some will argue this is merely the unavoidable price of war, supply chain disruption, and decarbonisation. Others see something deeper: a pattern of policy choices that reliably produce the same outcome—scarcer domestic supply, more expensive energy, and a public trained to accept it as “necessary.”
Is it co-ordinated? Proving deliberate coordination across governments and institutions is difficult. But the effect of policy alignment can look coordinated even if it’s not: when many nations adopt similar constraints at the same time—through sanctions, windfall taxes, supply closures, and licensing restrictions—the outcome is a predictable squeeze on consumers.
Exhibit A: Germany—Household Gas Nearly 80% Higher Than Pre-War
Germany provides one of the cleanest “before and after” snapshots.
According to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), private households paid an average of 12.28 euro cents per kWh for gas in the second half of 2024—almost 80% higher than the second half of 2021, prior to the Ukraine-war shock.
This matters because Germany is Europe’s industrial engine. Higher household energy costs also signal broader cost pressure across the economy. And it wasn’t just gas: reporting based on Destatis data noted household electricity prices roughly a quarter higher than pre-war levels in the same comparison.
Even Eurostat has acknowledged the broader European pressure: EU household gas prices rose in the second half of 2024, with the EU average reaching €12.33 per 100 kWh, the highest recorded since data collection began in 2008, with the increase “largely driven by raised taxes” as earlier relief measures were wound back.
So the public story isn’t just “markets.” It’s also policy—taxes, levies, and the managed withdrawal of relief.
Exhibit B: The UK—A High-Tax Regime and a North Sea in Decline
In the UK, the debate is framed as “windfall taxes” versus public fairness. But the structural consequence is reduced investment and faster decline in domestic supply—meaning more dependency on imports and global pricing.
The UK government’s own documents explain that the Energy Profits Levy has pushed the headline tax rate on upstream oil and gas to 75% (at the time of that publication). Later reporting (including Reuters) describes the overall burden as 78% following subsequent changes.
Now to the claim you referenced: that oil companies are taxed at 92%. That number has circulated widely, including via political speeches. But it has also been explicitly challenged by fact-checking and mainstream reporting: The Times reported that Trump’s Davos claim of 92% was incorrect, pointing instead to the UK’s 78% rate under the current structure.
This matters because if we want to make a persuasive case, we must anchor it to what can be proven.
Even at 78%, the UK sits among the highest-tax jurisdictions for upstream production. Reuters notes industry arguments that the regime has deterred investment and accelerated decline. The UK’s regulator also describes a 78% marginal tax rate as the current position.
A country that taxes its remaining domestic energy base heavily while simultaneously restricting future licensing is choosing a path: import dependence. Whether you call that climate policy, ideological policy, or strategic miscalculation—the dependency effect is real.
Exhibit C: New Zealand—Refinery Closure and Reduced Fuel Resilience
New Zealand’s situation is more fragile because we are remote, trade-dependent, and energy-import dependent.
The closure of Marsden Point in 2022 changed the nature of New Zealand’s fuel-supply risks. MBIE’s fuel security materials say exactly that: the closure “changed the nature of risks” to fuel supply. RNZ has also quoted ministers warning that reliance on imported petrol, diesel, and jet fuel carries risks of price shocks and disruptions that could cost billions.
This isn’t theoretical. When you refine domestically, you hold at least some industrial capability and flexibility. When you import all refined fuels, you’re exposed to:
- international refinery constraints,
- shipping disruptions,
- currency weakness,
- geopolitical supply realignment.
That does not automatically mean “someone planned it.” But it does mean policymakers accepted an outcome that reduces resilience.
On coal, the story is more complex than “NZ banned coal mining.” There have been restrictions—especially around conservation land and consenting pathways—but recent policy has also moved in the opposite direction, with government announcing RMA changes to reduce consenting barriers for coal mining.
So the honest argument is: New Zealand has sent mixed signals—yet remains deeply exposed on liquid fuels regardless.
The Mechanism: How Energy Becomes an Economic Weapon Without a Single “Conspiracy Meeting”
If you want to argue the existence of an “energy war,” you don’t need to claim a single puppet master. You only need to show a repeatable mechanism:
1. Constrain domestic supply (taxes, licensing restrictions, closures, moratoria).
2. Shift supply relationships (sanctions, forced supplier changes, long-distance imports).
3. Add policy costs (levies, compliance, carbon pricing, removal of relief).
4. Result: higher prices become “baked in,” hollowing out industry and households.
Germany’s “80% higher” household gas price is not a marginal change. The EU’s record gas pricing—driven in part by taxes and scaled-back relief—shows policy can be the price. The UK’s 78% tax environment shows how domestic production can be made less attractive, accelerating decline. New Zealand’s refinery closure shows how resilience can be traded for dependency.
Where the WEF / “New Monetary System” Argument Gains Traction
It is easy for people to dismiss claims about global monetary redesign as conspiracy. But the public doesn’t need to believe in secret meetings to recognise a lived pattern:
- their costs are up,
- their governments say it’s necessary,
- their local productive capacity declines,
- and “solutions” increasingly involve new systems of pricing, tracking, and managing demand.
This is the point where critics tie energy policy to broader governance trends. If households become permanently squeezed, they become more dependent—on subsidies, on managed markets, on emergency interventions. And the more “managed” an economy becomes, the easier it is to justify “new frameworks” as the answer.
But here’s the editorial discipline: we can argue that the outcome creates the conditions for deeper centralisation without claiming a single co-ordinator. The outcome speaks for itself.
The New Zealand Bottom Line
New Zealand should treat energy as national resilience, not just an emissions target.
That means:
- rebuilding liquid fuel resilience (stocks, infrastructure, redundancy),
- prioritising stable domestic energy inputs where practical,
- avoiding policies that accelerate import dependence faster than alternatives can replace it,
- and demanding transparent cost–benefit analysis whenever energy policy raises the cost base for the entire economy.
Because energy isn’t just another commodity. It is the input cost to everything: food, freight, construction, healthcare, policing, defence—civilisation itself.
When energy is deliberately constrained, over-taxed, or structurally mismanaged, the damage ripples outward. Families feel it first. Small businesses follow. Industry hollows out. National resilience erodes quietly, then suddenly. This is not accidental. History shows that controlling energy supply has always been a primary lever for reshaping societies.
What we are witnessing bears the unmistakable fingerprints of ideological capture rather than technical necessity. The pattern aligns closely with classic Marxist doctrine: weaken productive capacity, centralise control, and induce dependency—not through overt revolution, but through internal exhaustion. Instead of tanks and barricades, the tools are policy harmonisation, regulatory pressure, sanctions, and moral narratives that make resistance socially unacceptable.
This is how modern regime change works—not by invasion, but by self-inflicted decline. Nations are not conquered from the outside; they are persuaded to dismantle themselves from within. Energy scarcity becomes the justification. Climate becomes the banner. Crisis becomes permanent. And populations, squeezed by costs they did not vote for, are nudged toward ever more centralised “solutions.”
If we price energy beyond reach, we don’t “transition.”
We decline—slowly, politely, and exactly as planned.