Despite high-profile pushbacks against renewable energy and a rapidly changing policy environment, the global clean energy transition has picked up speed over the last year. While the last few years have seen slow and stuttering progress toward decarbonization goals, countries around the world are finally gaining momentum in building up cleaner and greener energy grids as 2030 benchmarks loom just around the corner. 

The World Economic Forum’s annual Energy Transition Index 2025 paints a refreshingly hopeful picture for global climate goals. The flagship report, released in June, “finds improvements in energy equity and sustainability driven by easing energy prices, subsidy reforms, lower energy and emission intensity and increased share of clean energy.” Overall, average Energy Transition Index scores improved 1.1% in 2025, representing a more-than twofold improvement over the average rate for the previous three years. 

The profile of the countries leading the charge toward decarbonization is also changing. While the most decarbonized nations are still some of the richest countries in the world, developing economies are making the biggest advances. Emerging economies in Europe and Asia made the most progress in rising through the ranks of the index, respectively.

What is more, late last year, an International Energy Agency (IEA) report found that renewables were “on course to meet almost half of global electricity demand by the end of this decade,” led by a massive increase in solar energy production capacity on a planetary scale. An IEA article accompanying the report went on to illustrate that anticipated global renewable energy additions between now and 2030 – approximately over 5,500 gigawatts – are so significant that they are “on course to roughly equal the current power capacity of China, the European Union, India and the United States combined.”

“Renewables are moving faster than national governments can set targets for. This is mainly driven not just by efforts to lower emissions or boost energy security – it’s increasingly because renewables today offer the cheapest option to add new power plants in almost all countries around the world,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol stated. “This report shows that the growth of renewables, especially solar, will transform electricity systems across the globe this decade,” he went on to say.

However, those IEA calculations were based on “supportive policies and favourable economics” toward the end of 2024. But 2025 paints a different picture. Global politics are changing rapidly, thanks in large part to a major shift in priorities in Washington D.C. The current administration has loudly and repeatedly announced its intentions to shift policy support away from renewables and back toward fossil fuels. 

This shift in political priorities could have widespread impacts not just for the United States’ emissions, but for global progress toward a just energy transition. Donald Trump’s slashing of climate funding may kneecap energy transition projects in a number of developing countries. At the same time, China will likely be happy to fill in those gaps as Beijing increases its own global energy influence. 

Geopolitical uncertainty is leading to many economic and political effects that are just starting to ripple through global energy markets, and there’s no way of knowing exactly how the energy transition will be impacted. However, the IEA reports in no uncertain terms that “the energy transition has been hobbled by a backdrop of geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruption, economic volatility and rising costs.”

The challenges facing continued progress are daunting, and the progress that is being made is still far too slow compared to viable net zero pathways. This April was the second warmest ever recorded and global emissions hit record highs, despite more than $2 trillion in clean energy investment in 2024. Moreover, energy security has not improved meaningfully, indicating vulnerabilities in global energy systems.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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