Climate policies have become targets in election campaigns. Governments are revisiting net-zero emissions commitments. Populist parties frame wind, solar, and hydro as symbols of elite overreach, industrial decline, or rising household costs.
Yet beneath the political noise, something unexpected is happening: renewables are booming.
Environmentalists long assumed the energy transition would rise or fall with political support. Today, the opposite appears closer to the truth. Political support is weakening across much of the West. The transition is accelerating anyway. Renewables are no longer advancing primarily because governments want them to. They are advancing because economics and energy security support them.
The fallout from the recent conflict in the Gulf sent oil prices soaring and reignited concerns over the vulnerability of global energy supply chains. Fears of disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz once again highlighted how dependent modern economies remain on fuel imports and maritime chokepoints.
Energy security returned to the center of political debate — and many policymakers now view renewable generation less as a climate tool than as insurance against geopolitical instability. The latest Middle East tensions reinforced a lesson Europe first learned in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine: energy dependence remains a strategic vulnerability regardless of whether the source of disruption lies in Moscow or Tehran.
Europe’s fundamental problem is fossil fuel dependence, argues Jan Rosenow of Oxford University. Every major energy shock of the past several decades has ultimately originated in hydrocarbons. The correct response is not merely to diversify suppliers but to reduce exposure to fossil fuels through electrification, efficiency improvements, heat pumps, electric vehicles, and cleaner industrial processes.
Europe entered the decade expecting climate policy to be the main driver of renewable deployment. Instead, it has become a national security imperative. Governments that once discussed renewables through the language of emissions have begun discussing them through the language of resilience, sovereignty, and strategic autonomy.
The results are striking. In 2024, renewables generated 47% of EU electricity, up from 34% only five years earlier. Wind and solar alone supplied nearly 30% of electricity generation. By 2025, wind and solar overtook fossil fuels in Europe’s power mix for the first time. Solar generation has increased by more than 20% annually for four consecutive years.
The renewables boom is unfolding amid growing political resistance. Across Europe, debates over net-zero targets and the cost of decarbonization have become contentious. Yet deployment continues because many governments have reached a simple conclusion: domestically produced electricity is strategically preferable to imported fuels.
A similar dynamic is at play in the US, where Republicans increasingly believe the US should prioritize fossil fuel energy sources. Since returning to the White House, Donald Trump has rolled back Biden-era incentives and tax breaks for clean energy and struck massive deals to pay billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to energy developers to voluntarily abandon and cancel their offshore wind leases.
Yet American solar, wind, and battery investments have remained remarkably resilient. In 2025, wind and solar generated a record 17% of US electricity. Utility-scale solar generation grew by 34% in a single year. Renewable sources supplied more than a quarter of total American electricity generation, while solar accounted for roughly half of all new generating capacity additions.
Some of the fastest renewable expansion is occurring not in traditionally progressive states, but in Texas and across the American South. Although local politicians may oppose climate mandates, they rarely oppose investment, jobs, tax revenue, and reliable electricity.
Renewables are increasingly economical. For much of the past two decades, renewable energy was often portrayed as a premium product requiring subsidies and public support. Today, solar modules and wind farms have become dramatically cheaper. Battery costs are falling. Wind and solar now produce electricity much cheaper than gas or coal-fired plants.
Still, a green transition is not guaranteed. Grid infrastructure remains inadequate across much of Europe and North America. Permitting procedures remain slow. Supply chains remain concentrated in China and fears about how to cope with weak wind or breaks in sunshine remain.
Yet the broad trajectory appears difficult to reverse. The International Energy Agency projects that renewable power capacity additions between 2025 and 2030 will reach 4,600 gigawatts globally, equivalent to the combined power capacity of China, the European Union, and Japan today.
Utilities need electricity. Industries need predictability. Governments need energy security. Consumers need lower costs. Increasingly, renewables represent the best way to satisfy these crucial needs.
Maciej Bukowski is the Head of Energy and Resilience Program at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation in Warsaw, and is a non-resident fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), where he writes about issues including Central European security.
Bandwidth is CEPA’s online journal dedicated to advancing transatlantic cooperation on tech policy. All opinions expressed on Bandwidth are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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