{"id":262881,"date":"2026-02-01T19:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/262881\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T19:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T19:28:08","slug":"what-trump-cant-stop-renewable-energy-is-growing-and-setting-world-records-climate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/262881\/","title":{"rendered":"What Trump can\u2019t stop: Renewable energy is growing and setting world records | Climate"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his disjointed speech at the World Economic Forum<\/a> in Switzerland, Donald Trump once again lashed out against renewable forms of energy, the European Union and its Green Deal, which aims to transform the energy and mobility system to break dependence on fossil fuels, the main cause of climate change. Trump, like the European far-right, dismissed the accord, calling it a \u201cGreen New Scam.<\/a>\u201d But the truth is that, despite his attacks, renewables continued to grow in 2025 and set records, while fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation stagnated.<\/p>\n

The U.S. president, whose last campaign was funded in large part by the oil industry and who has a former fracking executive as his secretary of energy, used his appearance at Davos to urge the EU and the U.K. to abandon renewable energy via lies and insults. He lashed out harshly against wind turbines, with which he seems to be obsessed. \u201cThose damn things,\u201d he called them. \u201cStupid people buy them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But renewable energy makes economic sense, particularly when it comes to European budgets. Implementation of renewables between 2019 (when the European Green Deal was first presented) and 2024 stands to save the 27 countries $70 billion in coal and gas import reductions alone, according to a report<\/a> published a year ago by the Ember analyst group. The gas burned in Europe comes largely from the United States, which is the world\u2019s leading producer of oil and gas. And the Trump administration has openly urged the EU to purchase more of its fuel.<\/p>\n

But Europe, and a large part of the world, is going in the opposite direction, as shown by the first data available from the energy sector from last year. For example, for the first time, in 2025 wind and solar energy (including \u201cthose damn things\u201d) generated more electricity in the European Union than fossil fuels, according to another report from Ember<\/a> that was published a day after Trump spoke out against Europe and renewable energy at Davos.<\/p>\n

Nic Fulghum, a senior analyst at Ember, explains that the speedy implementation of these technologies, particularly solar energy, \u201cis bringing renewables to record levels\u201d in all \u201cthe major economies.\u201d According to his latest calculations, in 2025, the world\u2019s generation of electricity via fossil fuels did not increase due in large part to the \u201crecord growth of solar energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fulghum and his peers predict \u2014 albeit based on data from November, with the final tally due to be presented in April \u2014 that renewable power capacity in 2025 will rise by 11% around the world. There has been a significant streak over the last three years. The annual growth of renewable power capacity was 22% in 2023, and 66% in 2022. Around 18% of the world\u2019s electricity comes from panels and wind turbines, with a year-on-year growth of two points.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long, long way yet to go. And the world is well behind where it needs to be. But there have been undeniable advances: the market penetration of renewable energies is light years ahead of figures from a few decades ago. The total sum of solar, wind and hydro (another renewable source) broke a new record in 2024 \u201cfor the 23rd consecutive year,\u201d said analysts from the International Energy Agency in its latest annual report<\/a>, which was published at the end of 2025. \u201cRenewables grow faster than any other major energy source in all scenarios, led by solar photovoltaic,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n

The study presented an interesting piece of information: 80% of global electricity consumption occurs in regions with \u201chigh-quality solar radiation.\u201d Even oil-heavy states like Saudi Arabia are changing their energy mix, boosting photovoltaic generation and freeing up barrels of crude oil that are still burned today to generate electricity and can now be dedicated to the export market.<\/p>\n

Rafael Salas, professor of economic analysis at the Complutense University of Madrid, says there\u2019s no turning back from the path that will lead to higher prevalence of renewables and electric mobility, even though there may be delays along the way. Technological advances<\/a> have simply made it impossible to compete with solar and wind power. \u201cThere is nothing that can be done against technological improvements,\u201d he sums up.<\/p>\n

Fulghum adds another factor to this reasoning: energy security, which has become a global priority since the 2022 crisis. Far from allaying fears about dependence \u201con coal, oil and gas imports\u201d in many areas like Europe, China, Japan and Brazil, Trump\u2019s return has fueled them. \u201cThere is concern about dependence on energy exports from U.S. sources, such as liquefied natural gas,\u201d explains Fulghum. \u201cDeploying renewables is the fastest way to avoid costly attachment to volatile global fossil markets.\u201d <\/p>\n

In all of this, China is playing a major role<\/a>. Trump attacked the country at Davos, accusing it of selling wind turbines but not installing them in its own territory. Indeed, China is the leading exporter of wind (and solar) technology. But it is also the leader in wind turbine installation: almost half of the world\u2019s wind power capacity is located there. And two-thirds of the panels and wind turbines installed worldwide are located in the country, according to the IEA. The same is true for electric mobility: China leads global sales within its own nation, while its exports are growing as U.S. manufacturers decline.<\/p>\n

This is precisely why the journal Science criticized the Trump administration<\/a> in its special issue<\/a> that designated the global push for renewables as the most important scientific advance of 2025. The publication warned that the United States is not benefiting from \u201cits own innovations.\u201d That\u2019s because a significant portion of the technology that has led to this growth in renewables around the world \u201cwas developed in the United States.\u201d But it is China that has perfected and manufactured the technology. The country already supplies 80% of the world\u2019s solar panels, 70% of wind turbines and 70% of lithium batteries.<\/p>\n

But the U.S. federal government continues to bet on fossil fuels, with a special emphasis on petroleum, as can be seen by its recent actions in Venezuela<\/a>. \u201cGlobal demand for oil is destined to stall out and fall in the next decade,\u201d warns Fulghum. \u201cIncreasing production will not reverse that trend, and will only further undermine the economic case for oil producers in a market on the verge of decline,\u201d he adds. \u201cIn transportation and heating, the world is moving away from oil and toward electric vehicles and heat pumps.\u201d <\/p>\n

More coal in the United States, less in India and China<\/p>\n

2025 was also the year in which, for the first time in half a century, coal-fired power generation fell in India and China \u2014 by 3% and 1.6% respectively \u2014 according to a recent analysis by the energy and climate outlet Carbon Brief. The explanation lies largely in the record rollout of renewables in the world\u2019s two most populous countries.<\/p>\n

Salas warns, however, that at the same time the United States saw a sharp increase \u2014 13% year on year \u2014 in coal-fired power generation in 2025. Some analysts point to rising energy demand from data centers<\/a>. But Fulghum adds that this was largely due to \u201ca shift from gas to coal because of higher gas prices.\u201d \u201cSolar generation still covered most of the increase in demand in the United States in 2025, growing more than fossil fuels,\u201d says the Ember analyst.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his disjointed speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Donald Trump once again lashed out against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[138198,65,273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-262881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-davos","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}