Clean energy sources provided a record 47 percent of European electricity last year, outperforming fossil fuels.

A new report issued by the London-based Ember Research Foundation concluded that solar energy has achieved record growth, providing Europe with 11 percent of its electricity needs and overtaking coal for the first time.

Solar and wind combined outperformed gas, which has declined over the past five years.

These are important milestones towards achieving the European goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent compared to 1990 levels by 2030.

Ember found that Europe’s energy sector emissions have now fallen to less than half their 2007 levels.

This happened because politicians of all stripes supported renewable energy sources, the report said.

“Several national and European elections have raised concerns that the transition to clean energy will lose support. On the contrary, progress has continued at a rapid pace.”

Some of this shared political momentum is economic.

Imber found that since 2019, solar and wind energy have saved Europeans 59 billion euros ($61 billion) in fossil fuel imports, mostly gas.

During those five years, the share of fossil fuels in the energy sector fell to 29%, while renewables grew.

“The United States risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution.”

Europe has few oil and gas resources and currently spends about half a trillion dollars annually on importing fossil fuels. Its main hope for achieving energy independence lies in the development of renewable energy sources.

In contrast, the United States is the largest oil producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas in the world. President Donald Trump It wants to increase LPG production further.

On Monday, his first day in office, he declared a national energy emergency that will expedite drilling permits and pipeline construction.

He also signed an executive order temporarily freezing all onshore and offshore wind farms in the United States.

These policies point to differences between the United States and Europe over energy.

“The United States is falling behind global trends in wind energy,” said Dave Jones, director of insights at Ember. “Major economies are embracing wind energy as a source of cheap and clean electricity.

“The United States risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution.”

Imber found that the United States produced only 10% of its electricity from wind energy last year, compared to 17% in Europe and 29% in the United Kingdom.

On January 7, Trump said that leasing ocean areas to wind farms destroyed their value because they made them out of reach of oil and gas producers.

Hours before he signed the executive orders, during his inauguration, Trump said: “America will be an industrialized nation again, and we have something that no other industrialized nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any nation on Earth.” “.

“The United States currently enjoys oil and gas autonomy, producing 20 million barrels of oil equivalent per day,” Kostis Stamboulis, head of the Athens-based Southeast European Energy Institute, told Al Jazeera.

“Trump wants to make it an export powerhouse in both.”

The United States is not the only country working to increase energy supplies.

Several other countries, including Australia, Qatar and Mauritania, have announced new gas liquefaction trains, which will increase supply and lower prices.

“We believe there will be an abundance of LNG globally from 2026 to 2030, and this will lead to fierce competition and lower prices,” Stambolis said. This would cover Europe’s needs at a lower cost. It is very difficult to determine what impact this will have on the development of renewable energy sources.

Imber believes Europe will continue to invest in autonomy.

“The European Union is moving closer to a clean energy future powered by domestic wind and solar,” wrote Beatrice Petrovic, who co-authored the report. “This new energy system will reduce the bloc’s exposure to fossil price shocks, address the climate crisis and provide affordable energy.”

“Replacing fossil fuels in transportation is more difficult.”

Not all energy analysts are confident that Europe will succeed.

“Renewables in electricity are the ‘easy’ part of the transition, especially at a time of rising fossil fuel prices. Replacing fossil fuels in transport It is more difficult, and in the heat sector it is still more difficult.”

Beyond Europe’s ambition to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, there are two things in particular that have spurred its transformation.

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to the creation of a fund designed to lift Europe out of recession.

The Recovery and Resilience Fund, as it was called, made investments worth 1.8 trillion euros ($1.87 trillion), a third of which was in green energy.

Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 accelerated Europe’s flight from fossil fuels, with Russia cutting off pipeline gas flows to the continent in an apparent attempt to blackmail Europe into halting military aid to Kiev.

Previous Ember reports found that Europe’s solar and wind sectors grew at record rates of 5 percent in 2022 and again in 2023.

Meanwhile, Europe has turned to buying LNG from other producers, such as the United States, Australia and Qatar.

Russia has gotten in on the act, investing in gas monetization and shipping its gas in LNG tankers to disguise its origin as Russian.

Stern warned that these shifts in the gas market have given renewables a boost that may be temporary.

“Gas prices were very high in 2024 due to the shift from Russian gas to LNG where we are in a tight global market. This has greatly benefited renewables,” he said.