Investing in clean energy bolsters EU security

Observer

20-05-2025

The United States has, at least for the time being, relinquished its role as the leader of the global energy transition. In addition to abandoning the clean-energy goals laid out by his predecessor, Joe Biden, US President Donald Trump has refused to acknowledge the profound health, economic, and security risks climate change poses to Americans, much less to traditional US allies and partners around the world. The Trump administration has instead turned its focus to revitalising the coal industry and increasing oil and gas exports in an attempt to achieve 'energy dominance' over friends and foes alike.
The fallout has been swift. In March 2025, the US intelligence community failed to mention climate change in its annual threat assessment for the first time in over a decade, and the White House recently did away with the congressionally mandated national climate assessment, produced every four years since 1990. The US Environmental Protection Agency, for its part, is attempting to overturn the long-held scientific finding that greenhouse gases (GHGs) harm human health, which is the basis for US emissions regulations.
With the US turning its back on climate action, and China still heavily dependent on coal, it falls to Europe to lead the global decarbonisation agenda. To be sure, the European Union and its member states are also under immense pressure to increase defense spending, which some European politicians believe should take precedence over green investments. But this is a false choice. For Europe, continued investment in clean energy is an investment in security.
The EU has made considerable progress increasing renewable energy as a share of its energy mix since adopting the 2021 European Climate Law, which formalized the goals of the European Green Deal and set the intermediate target of reducing GHG emissions by at least 55% by 2030. These decarbonisation efforts were temporarily sidetracked by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when Europe had to scramble to replace imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Russia. Despite (or perhaps because of) this challenge, nearly 50% of the electricity generated in the EU in 2024 was from renewables, with gas declining for the fifth year in a row and solar surpassing coal for the first time. Nuclear and wind have become the bloc's leading energy sources.
What the EU has achieved is impressive. The bloc reduced its dependence not only on fossil fuels, which now account for only 29% of electricity generation, but also on its belligerent neighbor: its gas imports from Russia declined from 150 billion cubic meters in 2021 to less than 52 bcm in 2024. The problem now is that Europe risks becoming reliant on two increasingly unreliable partners: the US and China.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations were more than happy to compensate for the shortfall in Russian gas supplies: Europe's LNG imports from the US have more than doubled since 2021, from 18.9 to 45.1 bcm in 2024. But given Trump's obvious disregard for America's traditional allies, as illustrated by his capricious tariff policies, his administration might be willing to weaponize US energy resources – much like Russia has – to get his way on, say, how to end the Ukraine War, or how many US-made weapons Europe should buy.
Similarly, the EU's decarbonisation drive has made the bloc increasingly dependent on China, which dominates the processing and supply of the critical minerals essential for clean-energy technologies. The Chinese government has amply demonstrated its willingness – most recently in response to the imposition of US tariffs – to restrict foreign access to critical minerals and rare-earth elements to advance its economic and foreign-policy goals.
For Europe, continued investment in clean energy is an investment in security.
The recent Summit on the Future of Energy Security, organized by the International Energy Agency and the United Kingdom, offered an opportunity for policymakers to assess how Europe might advance both its security and climate objectives in this shifting geopolitical landscape. Despite efforts by the Trump administration to scupper support for the clean-energy transition, organizers of the recent summit held firm, reasserting that renewables and battery storage are crucial for energy security.
Investments in fighter jets and missile systems are important to deter high-end threats. But in the near term, the EU should focus on developing mechanisms to protect against the more immediate risk that energy-related influence and coercion – whether from Russia, China, or the US – will stymie the Green Deal, or even undermine the bloc's capacity for independent decision-making. To avert these scenarios, Europe should continue to invest in renewable-energy generation and transmission, increase recycling of critical minerals, and create a critical-mineral stockpile.
At a moment when many in Europe are pressuring the EU to choose between following through on its climate commitments and investing in hard security, policymakers should remember that advancing the clean-energy transition – largely through continued investment in renewables – will bolster the bloc's security. With the US abandoning its claim to international climate leadership, Europe must take up the mantle. The world needs a credible model of successful decarbonisation to follow. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025.