As Europe uses more renewable energy, U.S. lags behind
As Europe uses more renewable energy, U.S. lags behind
We learned late last week that a record 47% of the European Union’s electricity is now generated by renewable energy sources. That’s according to a report from the global energy think tank Ember. Meanwhile in the U.S., President Donald Trump has pulled the country out of the Paris Climate Agreement and is pushing more fossil fuel development.
For more on this, “Marketplace Morning Report” host Sabri Ben-Achour spoke with Dave Jones, insights director at Ember. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Sabri Ben-Achour: So 47% of electricity in Europe comes from renewables; another 24% comes from nuclear. So that’s 71% of its energy not emitting greenhouse gases. First, how does that compare to the U.S.?
Dave Jones: Yeah, that’s of the electricity supply. When you compare that against the U.S. electricity supply that’s around … 60% is from coal and gas. Gas is by far the biggest. Coal has been falling for quite a few years now and is obviously the biggest climate success from a U.S. perspective.
Ben-Achour: So how did Europe get to this point?
Jones: Much of that of that buildup has been through wind and solar, which have really been the priorities of the European Commission and of countries throughout Europe. And there were a couple of big changes that happened in 2024 when we did our annual review: The first one was that solar generation overtook coal for the first time. And the second one was, even as that coal is falling, we registered a fifth year in a row of falling gas generation.
Ben-Achour: People talk about, “Well, you know, the wind can stop blowing. The sun isn’t shining 24 hours a day, and so you need some amount of constant power.” How much more room is there to grow for renewables, would you say?
Jones: According to some of the countries’ ambitions, absolutely huge. I think that many countries are relying with a mix of generations. So nuclear is still the largest [single] source of electricity generation within Europe. Many people forget that. That’s even as Germany has closed its last reactors. And then you’ve got hydro underpinning all of that, which is really useful in terms of providing some of the flexibility that has been needed to integrate wind and solar throughout the last 10 years or so.
Ben-Achour: Here in the U.S., President Trump wants to halt leases for wind energy projects. He wants to increase domestic oil and gas production, which is already pretty high. The U.S., of course, is a major source of greenhouse gases. So if the adoption of renewables here is going to decelerate, what does that mean for global goals to curb warming and slow climate change?
Jones: When you look at the CO2 emissions per capita within the electricity sector, they’re three times bigger within the U.S. Not just because that mix has more fossil fuels in it, but the average electricity demand use per capita is twice that of what it is within Europe. One of the biggest installers of solar panels last year was in Saudi Arabia. It’s got a target to go from almost zero renewables to 50% renewables by 2030. So this isn’t just an EU story. This is a global story, and already China’s had that big take-off in the last two years, where it’s been playing catch up on wind and solar. And as a proportion of electricity from wind and solar, China overtook the U.S. for the first time last year.
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