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Energy Transition Stalls 10 Years After Paris Agreement
Ten years after the landmark Paris Agreement to pursue net-zero emissions by 2050, the world faces a slowing transition to clean energy despite record-breaking renewable capacity installations.
Much has changed in the energy systems in the decade since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015. These systems faced a global pandemic, the first war in Europe since WWII, an energy crisis, a U.S. government that questioned climate change, and backlash against net-zero policies in banking and equity investment.
Some things have remained constant. One is China’s undisputed leadership in clean energy investment and installations, and cheaper domestically-manufactured equipment, allowing the rollout of solar and wind power capacity at much lower costs compared to Europe and the U.S.
The other constant is the EU’s unwavering insistence on decarbonizing to achieve net-zero emissions across its economies by 2050, despite soaring costs and growing political resistance to intermediate targets and warnings from trade partners that the burdensome EU climate directives on emissions and carbon prices could undermine its energy supply. Last week, the United States and Qatar joined forces for a fresh warning to Brussels that its corporate sustainability directive risks LNG imports from two of the world’s biggest exporters at a time when the EU is seeking to ban all Russian gas imports.
All these developments are taking place amid growing uncertainty – both financial and regulatory – for clean energy developers.
U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement – twice, on Day One of each of his terms in office. Coinciding with President Trump’s inauguration in 2025, banks started quitting net-zero alliances and stopped the previously very vocal pledges to cut off financing for fossil fuels, with a U.S. Administration, which is now openly hostile toward clean energy solutions, especially offshore wind, and which drastically scaled back U.S. renewable energy and EV incentives.
Amid geopolitical, financing, cost, and regulatory challenges to clean energy, Brazil is hosting the annual global climate summit COP30 in Belem from November 10 to 21.
Ten years after Paris, COP30 will take place as renewable energy installations soar to record highs, but investment and capacity additions are not yet on track for net zero or for any other intermediate or renewable energy goal.
“Some countries are quietly wavering on their climate commitments on the eve of the meeting while the US very loudly questions the entire concept of global warming,” Ethan Zindler, Countries and Policy Research at BloombergNEF, says.
Despite the record-high investments into clean energy technologies and soaring solar power installations, “the transition to a lower-carbon economy is not moving nearly fast enough to deliver on the ambition for net-zero emissions agreed in Paris a decade ago,” BloombergNEF noted.
In the first half of 2025, China remained the world’s top market for renewable energy investment, accounting for 44% of the global total, BNEF has estimated. The U.S. U-turn in policy, on the other hand, may prompt developers and investors to reallocate capital from the United States to Europe, according to the research provider.
Ahead of COP30, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the COP30 Brazilian Presidency, and the Global Renewables Alliance (GRA) said in an October report that the world is falling behind on its renewable energy and efficiency goals despite record progress last year.
The global progress report flagged bottlenecks in investment, grids, and supply chains, and urged governments for bolder renewable targets before COP30.
The climate summit in Brazil is not without controversies, as were the previous two editions held in major oil and gas producing countries, the UAE and Azerbaijan.
The host country, Brazil, South America’s top oil producer and exporter, is expected to push for the Belém Commitment for Sustainable Fuels—known as Belém 4x—an initiative aimed at building high-level political support for the global goal of quadrupling the production and use of sustainable fuels by 2035.
But “Brazil faces a fundamental contradiction as it prepares to host COP30: leading the world in sustainable fuels while simultaneously planning an expansion of its upstream sector,” David Brown, Director, Energy Transition Research at Wood Mackenzie, said this week.
“This tension reflects the complex realities facing large energy markets and companies.”
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