Contested futures in the new energy order

The worldwide contest over the future of energy is unfolding along sharply divergent paths, with the Trump administration doubling down on fossil fuel expansion just as much of the world, particularly China and the Global South, accelerates a dramatic transition toward renewables. The global energy map is being redrawn by technological leaps, policy choices, and strategic investments — offering a revealing lens into how economic and political priorities shape national and regional destinies.

A global surge in renewables — led by China and the Global South

The U.S. government’s pivot toward fossil fuels starkly contrasts the global surge toward renewables, most dramatically visible in China and a fast-expanding coalition of countries in the Global South.

Arguably unparalleled in economic history, China’s energy revolution saw an astonishing 197.9 GW of new solar generation added in just the first five months of 2025, a monthly capacity greater than the entire U.S. installed over two years. Wind and solar accounted for 89% of all added capacity, with solar alone surging 75% year over year. These additions are not just contributing incremental gains; in many Chinese provinces, clean energy is displacing, not merely supplementing, thermal generation.

China’s motives for this massive push extend beyond economic growth. Energy security is paramount as Beijing seeks to reduce dependence on volatile fossil fuel imports and avoid geopolitical vulnerabilities exposed in past crises. Furthermore, the government views clean tech manufacturing as a cornerstone of global industrial dominance, exporting solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles to cement China’s soft power and economic influence worldwide. This export-oriented strategy aligns with broader geopolitical ambitions to lead the green technology sector while binding trading partners, particularly in the Global South, into China-led supply chains.

While U.S. policy veers toward fossil fuel entrenchment, the global momentum tells a radically different story. Critics correctly note that fossil fuels still provide about 80% of global primary energy, a modest decline from 85% in 1990. Yet this apparent stagnation obscures the transformation underway, especially in the electricity sector, where wind, solar, and other renewables made up 74% of new electricity growth and 92.5% of all new capacity in 2024. Renewables powered nearly 30% of global electricity last year, double their share at the turn of the millennium, with the International Energy Agency projecting these clean sources will account for almost half of all generation by 2030, with solar PV alone set to surpass both wind and hydropower.

China stands at the epicenter of this revolution. Clean energy technologies now represent over 10% of Chinese GDP, surpassing established sectors like real estate or agriculture. China also leads in electric vehicles, battery exports, and the manufacturing of clean energy components, reshaping the country’s economic landscape. Policy-driven market reforms have spurred a historic installation boom, but regulatory changes are expected to slow growth later this year, highlighting the cyclical nature of such surges while underscoring the need for industry consolidation. Still, China’s renewables expansion has been so strong that 2025 may mark the first decline in coal-fired power generation, potentially peaking national carbon emissions five years ahead of Beijing’s 2030 pledge.

Just as striking are the renewable energy advances across the Global South — spanning India, Brazil, and Southeast Asia. Facing chronic energy import bills that corrode foreign reserves and undermine macroeconomic stability, these nations are seizing on declining technology costs and Chinese cleantech exports to reach capex parity with fossil fuels. Major energy importers now see renewables not just as a means of reducing emissions, but as essential to economic sovereignty, resilience, and long-term growth.

The Global South’s energy transformation is exemplified by diverse cases highlighting its leapfrogging potential. Morocco, for example, is exporting solar power to Europe via undersea cables, positioning itself as a regional renewable hub; Indonesia is leveraging its geothermal resources as a clean baseload alternative to coal; and Kenya’s Lake Turkana Wind Power Project, Africa’s largest, is expanding access and cutting costs in East Africa. These examples show how countries tailor renewables to local resources and development goals.

A report by RMI underscores that the Global South, home to 60% of the world’s population but just 20% of fossil fuel reserves, has seen solar and wind output grow by 23% annually over five years, supplying 9% of electricity today — just five years behind adoption rates in the Global North. One-fifth of these countries now generate more electricity from wind and solar than their northern counterparts. India stands out, with renewables accounting for 46% of installed capacity and a 500 GW target by 2030 within reach. Clean energy is therefore both a growth strategy and a means to reduce poverty and balance-of-payments challenges. 

The Trump administration’s fossil fuel revival

Since returning to power, the Trump administration has worked assiduously to privilege the development of oil, coal, and natural gas while erecting new hurdles for wind and solar. Within days, executive orders such as “Unleashing American Energy” and the declaration of a “national energy emergency” reframed national priorities, asserting a manufactured crisis of supply to justify a wide rollback of support for renewables and green projects.

Federal agencies have rapidly moved to block or slow wind and solar farms, despite these sources supplying 16% of U.S. electricity last year and representing most new capacity seeking grid connection. In August, The New York Times reported new federal restrictions, including heightened political scrutiny, fresh environmental reviews, and the withdrawal of large federal waters previously open to offshore wind leasing. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum mandated personal approval for any wind or solar project on federal lands and waters, while officials have overturned approved wind projects, imposed minimum setback rules, and intensified avian impact reviews.

Further reporting by The Hill and Renewable Affairs details the administration's efforts to toughen permitting requirements and delay timelines for wind and solar on both public and private land, while simultaneously reducing or eliminating tax credits and other incentives for these technologies. The White House and the Department of the Interior meanwhile fast-tracked permitting and approval of oil, gas, and coal development. According to the Institute for Energy Research (IER), the Trump administration, in its first eight months of office, and allies in Congress took over 200 actions aimed at “unleashing U.S. energy.”

Specific policy moves have made the administration’s approach unmistakably clear:

• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed repealing emissions limits on power plants, including rollbacks targeting coal and natural gas. The administration aims to revive coal, long in decline due to cheaper gas and renewables, linking its survival to the United States’ quest for AI dominance. In areas where renewables or gas capacity fall short, coal plants are seen as a stopgap to meet surging demand from AI data centers. 

• Seeking to expand fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and waters, officials have canceled permits for new wind energy projects, and revoked state waivers that allowed stricter clean vehicle standards in California and other places.

• New executive guidance and legislative action together ended mass federal subsidization of green energy, especially wind and solar, while giving a green light to oil, gas, and coal projects for years to come.

State-level resistance to the federal fossil fuel revival has created a fragmented energy landscape. California, New York, and several other states continue to pursue ambitious renewable mandates and climate policies, opposing federal rollbacks through litigation, legislation, and regulatory innovation. California’s aggressive offshore wind leasing program, New York’s clean energy standard, and multistate regional transmission initiatives showcase how subnational actors are sustaining a parallel energy transition, even as federal policy retreats. However, this patchwork approach complicates national grid integration, creates regulatory uncertainty, and may slow the scaling of renewables at a pace needed to meet climate goals.

The administration’s messaging leans on familiar tropes, portraying fossil fuels as reliable and affordable while dismissing renewables as “gargantuan, unreliable, intermittent projects.” This rhetoric accompanies efforts to deregulate mining and power plant emissions, including attempts to overturn long-standing findings on mercury and greenhouse gas dangers, despite industry and health expert warnings about public health risks. Meanwhile, although the coal industry hails this as a lifeline, utilities continue retiring coal in favor of natural gas, citing economics and renewables. 

Despite the administration’s claims of energy scarcity, underlying data reveal a different reality. U.S. oil and gas production stands at historic highs, fueling an export boom and easily outpacing domestic demand. According to open access data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration EIA) and in-depth analyses from Ember, wind and solar combined supplied 17% of U.S. electricity generation in 2024, surpassing coal’s share, which fell to a historic low of 15%.

Yet the new regulatory regime poses serious risks for the clean energy sector. BloombergNEF now projects wind and solar installations to be 50% and 23% lower, respectively, than prior forecasts. A July 2025 analysis by the Rhodium Group estimates that the rollback of clean energy subsidies, via the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” will increase average national household electricity bills by $78–192, raise industrial energy expenditures by $7–11 billion by 2035, and cut new clean energy capacity additions by over 50%.

Despite global clean energy momentum, U.S. public support for renewables is fracturing along partisan lines. Republican backing for wind and solar has dropped sharply, while favorability toward fossil fuels and nuclear power rises, signaling deepening polarization. This shift underpins federal rollbacks that cut renewable incentives and tighten project eligibility, threatening sector growth. Analyses by Evergreen Action and Resources for the Future (RFF), and a recent ScienceDirect study forecast these policies will raise energy costs and suppress clean energy jobs — outcomes at odds with claims of economic benefit, highlighting the complex politics-energy economics interplay in the U.S.

A world divided by energy choices

The future of energy is not preordained but fiercely contested. While the Biden-era momentum for clean energy in the U.S. is stalling under a renewed fossil-first regime, powerful market and policy forces overseas, especially in China and the Global South, are propelling an irreversible shift. The divergence is more than technical; it is rooted in the interplay between national interests, public opinion, and economic strategy. In sidelining renewables, the Trump administration risks ceding leadership in the industries of the future, even as the rest of the world accelerates toward a cleaner, more resilient, and economically dynamic energy order.

This global divergence in energy policy is already redrawing the map of economic leadership, industrial competitiveness, and planetary risk. The rush to fossil fuels in the U.S. amid declining real electricity demand growth seems almost deliberately at odds with the overwhelming direction of global investment and innovation. As the Trump administration celebrates oil, gas, and coal as “energy independence,” more than three-quarters of new global energy capacity is flowing to wind, solar, and batteries — sectors dominated by China, but now rapidly scaling across the Global South as well.

Industrial strategies are bifurcating. China’s ecosystem, anchored by exporting cleantech, batteries, and vehicles, and supported by a policy machine capable of reacting instantly to global cost curves — demonstrates how countries can align economic development with environmental imperatives. The Global South’s leapfrog is equally transformative, with entire economies positioned to benefit from local value chains in installation, financing, and equipment manufacturing, offsetting decades of fiscal pain from fossil dependency.

At the same time, the U.S. risks ceding leadership in the fastest-growing industries of the 21st century (i.e., clean energy manufacturing, software, smart grids, and electric mobility) by privileging yesterday’s fuels at the expense of tomorrow’s jobs and exports. As global energy markets shift, so too do the sources of economic resilience. The tens of thousands of jobs created by the U.S. renewable industry are now at risk, with the latest policies threatening both their growth and long-run stability.

Environmentally, the long-term risks are acute. The Trump administration’s attempt to sideline the EPA’s regulatory authority, repeal planetary climate commitments, and rewrite the geopolitical playbook — on everything from Paris Agreement withdrawal to opposition to clean energy at the International Energy Agency (IEA) — brings not just U.S., but global environmental credibility, into question. The White House’s actions could delay, but not arrest, the most rapid transformation in global energy markets since the Industrial Revolution.

Contested futures in the new energy order

The struggle to define the future energy order is no longer confined to market competition — it is a contest of political will, technological edge, and strategic alignment. Fossil fuels, renewables, and emerging technologies are converging into a volatile mix, reshaping not only trade flows but also security calculations. As great powers and rising economies stake their claims, alliances will shift, and supply chains will be redrawn.

In this fluid environment, energy security is as much about adaptability as resources. Those able to align policy, innovation, and geopolitics will shape the next chapter, while those that fail to adapt risk being sidelined in a world where energy is both the prize and the battleground.

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