Energy Security: The “And” Strategy
Geopolitical instability has made energy security a major concern. What does this mean for the future of energy?
Sapienship provides an overview of the changing energy landscape. Current trends show the benefits of pursuing an “and” strategy, combining fossil fuels and renewables, alongside strategic trade agreements.
Key Takeaways
- Energy security is displacing climate change as a topic of global concern
- Increasing energy security and reducing emissions complement one another
- The world’s fossil fuel reserves are concentrated in ten countries, only three of which are democracies. Sunlight and wind are much more evenly distributed
- Renewables are not a silver bullet: key mineral reserves are also unevenly distributed, refinement capabilities are concentrated in just a few countries, and many power grids are unable to rely on them exclusively
- Some countries are taking an “and” strategy to renewables, investing in solar and wind while also increasing the efficiency of fossil fuel energy
- Our analysis suggests a three-component strategy:
1. Diversifying energy resources, with an emphasis on renewable energy
2. Continued investment in more efficient and less polluting fossil fuel energy
3. The pursuit of peace and trade agreements as a foundation for long-term energy security
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Energy Security: The “And” Strategy
The story of nations, and of humanity as a whole, unfolds through the pursuit of energy.
Human creativity has fueled the search for new sources to meet the rising demands of the present and the uncertain needs of the future. This search for power has had many consequences, from rising standards of living to ecological collapse, and it is far from over.
The global landscape is also shaped by the uneven distribution of energy sources, revealing contrasts between those with the power to control the flow of energy and those who depend on it. New energy sources, disruptive trade policies, and rising geopolitical tensions are changing these dynamics.
In this Sapienship Brief, we outline how these changes create opportunities for governments to reshape the energy landscape in ways that reduce risks from global instability while also benefiting the environment.
From Climate to Security
The biggest change in the past five years in terms of energy outlook has been the reduced emphasis on carbon emissions and the growing concern with energy security.
On the one hand, we can clearly see that the effort to combat climate change is losing momentum. Nine of the countries in the G20, including some of the world’s largest carbon emitters, are not on track to meet the commitments they made as part of the Paris Climate Agreement.¹ The “climate agenda” has been under political attack, and public opinion seems to have turned away from it.²
Energy security, on the other hand, is on everyone’s minds. The disruption of supply chains due to wars and the COVID pandemic has made it clear we cannot rely overwhelmingly on a single source of energy imported from one or two countries. For example, when Russia cut off all gas supplies to Germany at the end of August 2022, Berlin was forced to find a new source for more than half of its gas consumption. Together with coal and oil, Germany had come to rely on Russia for one-third of its total energy consumption.³
Concentrated Reserves, Complicated Politics
This type of overreliance on one or two countries is inevitable when it comes to fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are far from equally distributed among countries. 62% of oil reserves are owned by only five countries: Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, and Iraq. 66% of coal reserves are owned by only 4 countries: the United States, Russia, Australia, and China. 50% of natural gas reserves are owned by just 3 countries: Russia, Iran, and Qatar.⁴
Sunlight and wind, by comparison, are much more evenly distributed. 90% of the world’s population lives in countries with ample solar energy potential.⁵ In this sense, the goal of energy security aligns well with the goal of reducing carbon emissions. For example, a recent study asked how energy security would be affected if countries around the world pursued policies leading to net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. It found that the move to renewables would reduce trade-related risks to energy security in 70% of countries and 85% of the world population.⁶
Finite In Principle
Renewable energy also avoids the risks of finite resources. At the current rate of energy production, oil reserves would last for another 54 years, natural gas reserves for another 49 years, and coal reserves for nearly 140 years.⁷ This fossil fuel horizon has more or less stayed the same for the last 30 years, and it could be that companies keep discovering new sources to match the increasing energy demands. But it could also turn out that there is less than we think.
The methods for estimating reserves are diverse and, in many cases, are not transparent. The inflation of reserve estimates is not unheard of. In 2002, Shell overstated its oil and gas reserves by 41%.⁸ The energy research company Rystad estimated that the actual oil reserves held by OPEC countries could be half those that were in official reports, with most overreporting coming from Venezuela, Iran, Libya, and Kuwait.⁹ The fossil fuel horizon is a moving target. Whether it is several decades, like the global estimates, or under twenty years, like the oil and natural gas estimates in the United States, it doesn’t provide the assurances of renewables.¹⁰
Renewables are not a Silver Bullet
But it is not as if switching to solar or wind will solve all problems. While the source of energy is practically infinite, the mineral reserves necessary for producing solar panels and wind turbines are finite and, more importantly, highly centralized. For example, the batteries needed to store electricity generated by solar panels and wind turbines are heavily reliant on nickel and cobalt. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, 59% of the world’s nickel comes from Indonesia, and 76% of the world’s cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.¹¹ The refining of these minerals is even more centralized, with a single country, China, dominating nearly the entire market. Recent events have demonstrated how problematic this is: in 2025, China twice announced export controls on critical materials and rare earths that are key to renewable energy.¹²
Solar and wind are also variable energy sources, whose output changes daily and seasonally. Ensuring regular supply will require a substantial upgrade of existing electricity grids, as well as maintaining some power plants that run on fossil fuels.¹³ The costs of these upgrades and the inability to fully take advantage of renewable energy in their absence have meant higher energy prices in several countries, with particularly high costs in the UK, Italy, and Germany.¹⁴
Cleaner, Not Spotless
Renewables have environmental impacts of their own. Their production requires the mining and refining of large volumes of materials and greenhouse gas emissions. Once operational, however, they do not require any more fuel and produce zero emissions, unlike fossil-fuel plants that require thousands of tons of fuel per year and continuously emit CO₂ during operation. Both solar and wind usually offset the emissions involved in their manufacture within 2 years, depending on the technology and location.¹⁵ In comparison, the emissions from fossil fuels can only be mitigated through expensive carbon capture technologies that are only partially effective.¹⁶
Renewables also produce far less waste. Over the next 35 years, we are projected to produce the same amount of waste from solar panels that coal produces globally in one month in 2025.¹⁷ In fact, the ash produced by coal-fired electric power plants alone could fill more than 11 million shipping containers every year.¹⁸ Beyond polluting the environment with significant amounts of mercury, arsenic, and lead, this ash, along with other fossil fuel emissions, is estimated to cause millions of premature deaths annually.¹⁹
As it stands, renewables are not a singular solution to energy security risks. Certain sectors, such as steel production and aviation, will be especially costly and difficult to decarbonize.²⁰ Nor do renewables completely prevent us from harming the environment – even if they do much less damage than coal or gas.
Nevertheless, we should not forget that climate change itself is a growing threat to energy security. Extreme storms and flash floods can damage transmission lines and power plants while temperature swings can lead to sudden spikes in energy demand, increasing the risk of blackouts.²¹ Although renewable energy sources have limitations, they do reduce the risks of climate-driven shocks to the global energy system.
The "And" Strategy
How should governments and businesses respond to these risks and opportunities? One very effective way to build energy resilience is through relying on diversified energy sources, with each source potentially compensating for shortages and disruptions in the other. We call this the “And” Strategy. Such a strategy will be adapted to each country’s situation: each will have to find its optimal mix of energy sources.
Going in this direction means we are not heading to a zero-carbon-emissions world, relying exclusively on renewable energy. But it will most likely mean that the share of renewables in the global energy mix will continue to increase – which also means decreasing global carbon emissions per unit of energy and having more countries reduce their total carbon emissions.
The Rise of Renewables
Data from the past few years shows that this is happening already. Renewables have in the past five years grown five times more than total global energy demand,²² even though they still only account for about 15% of the world’s primary energy consumption.²³
Much of this surge has been driven by solar and wind. Despite some enthusiasm from tech companies about using nuclear energy to power their data centers, nuclear energy has remained stagnant for decades: the amount of nuclear power generated today is roughly the same as it was in 2006.²⁴ In the first six months of 2025, the world installed the effective equivalent of at least 65 nuclear reactors in solar energy, but connected only one nuclear reactor to the grid.²⁵
Not only are renewables the fastest-growing sources of electricity, they are also much less wasteful. Fossil fuel power plants typically work in two stages: the fuel is combusted to produce heat, and the heat is then used to generate electricity. This process is relatively inefficient. A typical coal-fired power plant loses nearly two-thirds of all the energy stored in coal – most of that loss taking the form of waste heat.²⁶ In fact, one global analysis finds that about 72% of primary energy input is ultimately lost after conversion, with roughly 52% of the input rejected specifically as waste heat.²⁷
But whereas fossil fuels must be burned for heat before they can be converted into electricity, solar panels convert sunlight into electricity directly. This is why adopting renewables allows countries to reduce emissions and their primary energy consumption even as demand for electricity increases. Not only that, but electric technologies are much more efficient than their fossil-fuel-powered counterparts. For example, in a gasoline-powered car, only about 20% of the energy in the fuel tank goes to the wheels. In an electric car, it is up to 90%.²⁸
We can already see these efficiencies at work. In the United States, primary energy consumption is roughly the same today as it was in the year 2000.²⁹ In that same time period, nominal GDP has almost tripled, the population of the country has increased 20%, and annual carbon emissions have decreased nearly 20%. Part of this dynamic can be attributed to the switch to more efficient sources of energy like natural gas and renewables.³⁰
The Red Dragon Goes Green
Currently, the global leader and the most consequential player in terms of global energy is China. China produces more energy than any other country. It produces the most carbon emissions³¹ – nearly a third of global emissions – while at the same time, it is the world’s most ambitious investor in renewable energy.³² China now accounts for more than 40% of the world’s installed wind and solar capacity. In 2024, Chinese renewables generated more electricity than US fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined.³³ China also has a disproportionate share of rare earths and other critical mineral reserves. Because of its timely investments, it also possesses a dominant position in mineral refining.
More nations could learn from China’s example. Investing in renewables is essential for energy security, but no less important is investing in mineral exploration and refining capabilities, and sufficiently diversifying trading partners. Several countries have pursued an “and” strategy to renewable energy, investing heavily in it while improving fossil fuel capacities.³⁴ Australia, for example, has grown its solar electricity outputs by an average of 27% annually for the past ten years, and solar has surpassed natural gas by making up 17.4% of total electricity production.³⁵ Coal still accounts for the majority of electricity generation (46%), but has steadily declined by 29% since 2005, whereas natural gas has more or less plateaued since 2011.³⁶ Australia’s carbon emissions peaked in 2010 and are slowly declining.
Optimism with a Plan
The multipolar world we are entering is also one of multiple and diversified energy mixes. Fossil fuels are not going anywhere, but they are probably going to play a smaller role in our energy supply – at least if we care about our energy security and the safety of our natural environment. Solar and wind are on the rise, but so are other low-carbon sources. We need all hands on deck to build a safe energy future.
Impressive advances in AI have made some think a technological breakthrough solving all our energy problems is around the corner. History should give us all a measure of technological optimism, but also warn against technological utopianism. First, every technology in human history has both solved some problems and created others which no one could foresee. Second, waiting for a breakthrough makes no sense: one still needs to work within existing constraints to make things better.
Finally, while we advocate for greater independence on the part of individual countries, peace remains the greatest source of energy growth and security. It was during the post-Second World War “Long Peace” that energy production began to rise significantly.³⁷ Peace is also the best guarantee for maintaining our present levels of energy production: it ensures seafaring routes stay open, prevents communication disruptions, and reinforces the trust that is vital for all long-term investments. Preparing for bad outcomes should not come at the expense of working towards a better future.
Energy lies at the heart of humanity’s greatest challenges: from the strain on the planet’s resources and climate, to the dire implications of warfare and adversarial geopolitics, to the growing demands created by AI and the technological revolutions still to come. All of these challenges remind us how deeply connected we are, and how our choices radiate beyond our local borders. Pursuing greater energy security does not just benefit individual countries: it is a global good. The more countries adopt this approach, the greater our collective security will be.
For all of our research sources, please download this article as a pdf .
FOOTNOTES
1. United Nations Environment Programme, Emissions Gap Report 2025: Off Target—Continued Collective Inaction Puts Global Temperature Goal at Risk, chief ed. Anne Olhoff, eds. William Lamb, Takeshi Kuramochi, Joeri Rogelj, Michel den Elzen, Jannick Christensen, Taryn Fransen, Manish Pathak, and Dan Tong (UNEP, 2025): 21, https://doi.org/10.59117/20.500.11822/48854.
2. Edoardo Campanella and Robert Z. Lawrence, “The Populist Revolt Against Climate Policy How the Culture War Subsumed Efforts to Curb Global Warming,” Foreign Affairs, July 25, 2024, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/populist-revolt-against-climate-policy
3. See Benjamin Moll, Moritz Schularick, and Georg Zachmann, “The Power of Substitution: The Great German Gas Debate in Retrospect,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2023: 395-455, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Moll-et-al_16820-BPEA-FA23_WEB.pdf
4. According to the most recent reserve estimates from 2020, as reported in the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy 2025.
5. ESMAP. 2020. Global Photovoltaic Power Potential by Country. Washington, DC: World Bank. See also Indra Overland et al., “Are Renewable Energy Sources More Evenly Distributed than Fossil Fuels?,” Renewable Energy 200 (November 2022): 379–386, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2022.09.046.
6. Jing Cheng et al., “Trade Risks to Energy Security in Net-Zero Emissions Energy Scenarios,” Nature Climate Change 15, no. 5 (2025): 505–513, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-025-02305-1.
7. “Years of fossil fuel reserves left,” Our World in Data, updated June 27, 2025, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/years-of-fossil-fuel-reserves-left?tab=line&time=earliest..2020, based on data from the Energy Institute, Statistical Review of World Energy 2025 with major processing by Our World in Data.
8. Bloomberg News, “Shell Inflated Reserves by 41%,” The New York Times, March 8, 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/business/worldbusiness/shell-inflated-reserves-by-41.html.
9. Per Magnus Nysveen and Elliot Busby, “Global Recoverable Oil Reserves Hold Steady at 1,536 Billion Barrels; Insufficient to Meet Demand without Swift Electrification,” Rystad Energy, accessed November 12, 2025, https://www.rystadenergy.com/news/global-recoverable-oil-barrels-demand-electrification.
10. Cutler Cleveland, “Is the Reserve-to-Production Ratio for Fossil Fuels a Meaningful Indicator?,” Visualizing Energy (blog), April 21, 2025, https://visualizingenergy.org/is-the-reserve-to-production-ratio-for-fossil-fuels-a-meaningful-indicator/.
11. U.S. Geological Survey, “Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025,” March 2025, available at: https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/mcs2025. One major advantage of renewable energy over fossil fuels is that the various materials needed to produce it can be switched through technological innovation. For one example of this dynamic, see: Tianyang Chen, et al., “A Layered Organic Cathode for High-Energy, Fast-Charging, and Long-Lasting Li-Ion Batteries,” ACS Central Science 10, no. 3 (2024): https://doi.org/10.1021/acscentsci.3c01478.
12. Lewis Jackson, Amy Lv, Eric Onstad and Ernest Scheyder, “China hits back at US tariffs with export controls on key rare earths,” Reuters, April 4, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/china-hits-back-us-tariffs-with-rare-earth-export-controls-2025-04-04/ (https://archive.is/fxhPb), and “China expands rare earths restrictions, targets defense and chips,” Reuters, October 10, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-tightens-rare-earth-export-controls-2025-10-09/
13. Managing the Seasonal Variability of Electricity Demand and Supply – Analysis (IEA, 2024), https://www.iea.org/reports/managing-the-seasonal-variability-of-electricity-demand-and-supply.
14. Tom Fairless and Max Colchester, “Europe’s Green Energy Rush Slashed Emissions—and Crippled the Economy,” World, Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/europes-green-energy-rush-slashed-emissionsand-crippled-the-economy-e65a1a07.
15. These estimates refer to Carbon Payback Time (CPBT): the time required for a renewable energy system to offset the amount of carbon and greenhouse gases emitted during its production and over its life cycle by displacing more carbon-intensive electricity. Estimates vary according to the PV technology and the carbon intensity of the reference electricity grid. For solar, see: Shijia Chong et al., “Assessment of the Environmental Impacts and Carbon Mitigation Benefits of Photovoltaic Systems in China from the Life Cycle Perspective,” Energy 336 (November 2025): 138459, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2025.138459; Brittany Smith et al., An Updated Life Cycle Assessment of Utility-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Systems Installed in the United States, 2024, https://doi.org/10.2172/2331420; Preeti Nain et al., “Carbon Payback Time (CPBT) and Energy Payback Time (EPBT) of Residential Solar Photovoltaic Repowering,” 2024 IEEE 52nd Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, June 2024, 1221–1224, https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC57443.2024.10749332. For wind: Isabella Pimentel Pincelli et al., “Developing Onshore Wind Farms in Aotearoa New Zealand: Carbon and Energy Footprints,” Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 55, no. 4 (2025): 1005–27, https://doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2024.2344785; Jesuina Chipindula et al., “Life Cycle Environmental Impact of Onshore and Offshore Wind Farms in Texas,” Sustainability 10, no. 6 (2018): 2022, https://doi.org/10.3390/su10062022; Gaia Brussa et al., “Life Cycle Assessment of a Floating Offshore Wind Farm in Italy,” Sustainable Production and Consumption 39 (July 2023): 134–144, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2023.05.006; Luiz Felipe Souza Fonseca and Monica Carvalho, “Greenhouse Gas and Energy Payback Times for a Wind Turbine Installed in the Brazilian Northeast,” Frontiers in Sustainability 3 (December 2022), https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2022.1060130.
16. Mark Z. Jacobson, “The Health and Climate Impacts of Carbon Capture and Direct Air Capture,” Energy & Environmental Science 12, no. 12 (2019): 3567-3574, https://doi.org/10.1039/C9EE02709B; Nan Wang, Nan, Keigo Akimoto, and Gregory F. Nemet, “What Went Wrong? Learning from Three Decades of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Sequestration (CCUS) Pilot and Demonstration Projects,” Energy Policy 158 (2021): 112546, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2021.112546.
17. Heather Mirletz, Henry Hieslmair, Silvana Ovaitt et al., “Unfounded Concerns about Photovoltaic Module Toxicity and Waste Are Slowing Decarbonization,” Nature Physics 19 (2023): 1376–1378, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-023-02230-0.
18. Hannah Ritchie, Clearing the Air (Chatto & Windus, 2025), 92-93. Coal produces 89 kg of waste (mostly ash)/MWh, according to Ritchie. That is 89,000 kg/GWh. The US Environmental Protection Agency gives the density of compacted dry coal ash as 1,190 kg/m3. 89,000 kg of ash equals ca. 75 m3. The world currently averages about 10 million GW of coal-fired electricity per year. That’s 750 million m3 of ash. A 12-m standard shipping container holds 67 m3.
19. Karn Vohra et al., “Global Mortality from Outdoor Fine Particle Pollution Generated by Fossil Fuel Combustion: Results from GEOS-Chem,” Environmental Research 195 (April 2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envres.2021.110754.
20. On the challenge of decarbonizing aviation, see: Paul Bardon and Olivier Massol, “Decarbonizing Aviation with Sustainable Aviation Fuels: Myths and Realities of the Roadmaps to Net Zero by 2050,” Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 211 (2025): 115279, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2024.115279. For a look at steel production, see: Jinsoo Kim, et al., “Decarbonizing the Iron and Steel Industry: A Systematic Review of Sociotechnical Systems, Technological Innovations, and Policy Options,” Energy Research & Social Science 89 (2022): 102565, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102565.
21. Bernard Njindan Iyke, “Climate Change, Energy Security Risk, and Clean Energy Investment,” Energy Economics 129 (2024): 107225, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2023.107225; Kishan Prudhvi Guddanti, et al., “Vulnerability of Power Distribution Networks to Local Temperature Changes Induced by Global Climate Change,” Nature Communications 16 (2025): 5116, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-5116-x.
22. Energy Institute, Statistical Review of World Energy 2025, 8.
23. Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado, “Energy Mix,” Our World in Data, July 10, 2020, updated January 2024, https://ourworldindata.org/energy-mix.
24. From 2005 to 2024, nuclear’s share of electricity generation fell from 15% to less than 9%, Our World in Data, Energy Data Explorer, https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy. Since 2005, the fleet of reactors in operation has shrunk by 6, IAEA, Power Reactor Information System, https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/home.aspx. A third of these reactors have been running for over 40 years, World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2025, 24-25, https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/wnisr2025-v1.pdf. For a chart showing nuclear energy generation over time, see: Hannah Ritchie and Pablo Rosado, “Nuclear Energy,” Our World in Data, July 2020, updated April 2024, https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy.
25. This rough estimate is based on the following sources: Our World in Data, Energy Data Explorer, https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy; “Installed solar energy capacity,” Our World in Data, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capacity?country=~OWID_WRL; IAEA, Power Reactor Information System, https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/home.aspx; Ember Energy, “Global solar installations surge 64% in first half of 2025,” September 2, 2025, https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/global-solar-installations-surge-64-in-first-half-of-2025/.
26. Karin Kirk, “The Little-known, Massive Advantage that Renewables Hold Over Coal,” Yale Climate Connections, May 30, 2023, https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/05/the-little-known-massive-advantage-that-renewables-hold-over-coal/.
27. Anton Firtha, Bo Zhanga, and Aidong Yang, “Quantification of Global Waste Heat and its Environmental Effects,” Applied Energy 235 (2019): 1314-1334,
28. Karin Kirk, “Electric Vehicles Use Half the Energy of Gas-Powered Vehicles,” Yale Climate Connections, January 29, 2024, https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/01/electric-vehicles-use-half-the-energy-of-gas-powered-vehicles/.
29. “Primary energy consumption,” Our World in Data, updated June 27, 2025, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=line&country=~USA&mapSelect=~USA.
30. The relative importance of natural gas and renewables in driving down U.S. emissions, versus other factors, remains a topic of scholarly debate. For differing assessments, see: Kuishuang Feng et al., “Drivers of the U.S. CO2 Emissions 1997–2013,” Nature Communications 6 (2015): 7714, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8714; Matthew J. Kotchen and Erin T. Mansur, “Correspondence: Reassessing the Contribution of Natural Gas to US CO2 Emission Reductions Since 2007,” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 10648, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10648; Kuisheng Feng et al., “Correspondence: Reply to ‘Reassessing the Contribution of Natural Gas to US CO2 Emission Reductions Since 2007,’” Nature Communications 7 (2016): 10693, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms10693; Kristina Mohlin et al., “Factoring in the Forgotten Role of Renewables in CO2 Emission Trends Using Decomposition Analysis,” Energy Policy 116 (2018): 290-296, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.02.006; and Kristina Mohlin et al., “Turning the Corner on US Power Sector CO2 Emissions—a 1990–2015 State Level Analysis,” Environmental Research Letters 14 (2019): 084049, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab3080.
31. Contrary to a common misconception, China’s rising carbon emissions are not primarily attributable to exports. Export-related emissions in China peaked in 2008 and have since declined. According to one study, the emissions embodied in China’s exports to the rest of the world fell 41% between 2007 and 2017. During that same time period, China’s total emissions surged by about 30%. See: Kehan He et al., “The Polarizing Trend of Regional CO2 Emissions in China and Its Implications,” Environmental Science & Technology 57, no. 11 (2023): https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.2c08052; Zhifu Mi et al., “China’s ‘Exported Carbon’ Peak: Patterns, Drivers, and Implications,” Geophysical Research Letters 45, no. 9 (2018): 4309–4318, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077915; Zhiheng Chen and Yaru Tan, “The Imbalance of Embodied CO₂ in China’s Imports, Exports and Its Causes,” Sustainability 14, no. 11 (2022): 6460, https://doi.org/10.3390/su14116460; Monica Crippa et al., GHG Emissions of All World Countries – 2025 Report Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2025, https://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/report_2025?vis=co2tot#emissions_table.
32. China is the biggest investor in clean energy worldwide, spending $627 billion USD in 2024 – 31% of the global total of $2,033bn. See: https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/china-energy-transition-review-2025/ 2024 was also a milestone year, as China achieved its 2030 wind and solar capacity target six years ahead of schedule, see https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2025/china
33. Chinese electricity production using renewables amounted to 3,388 TWh in 2024, while US electricity production from fossil fuels (2,548 TWh) and nuclear energy (782 TWh) totaled 3,330 TWh, see https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/energy. Data from the energy think tank Ember leads to a similar result, https://ember-energy.org/data/electricity-data-explorer/
34. Tom Fairless and Max Colchester, “Europe’s Green Energy Rush Slashed Emissions—and Crippled the Economy,” World, Wall Street Journal, December 2, 2025, https://www.wsj.com/business/energy-oil/europes-green-energy-rush-slashed-emissionsand-crippled-the-economy-e65a1a07.
35. Australian Energy Statistics – Update Report 2025 (Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Australian Government, 2025), https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-08/australian_energy_update_2025.pdf.
36. See the International Energy Agency website at https://www.iea.org/countries/australia
37. “Global direct primary energy consumption”, Our World in Data, updated June 27, 2025, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy.