US President Donald Trump’s video address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, in January drew some moans and smiles, reported the Associated Press. Executive orders signed upon starting his second term in office a few days earlier included withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords, reversing President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, and stressing his administration’s preference to expand US oil drilling and what he called ‘good clean coal’.

‘The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we’re going to use it,’ beamed Trump. What’s more, he warned European leaders and top business executives that NATO allies should not expect to be immune from US tariffs. In his typical manner, Trump said: ‘I’m trying to be constructive because I love the countries of Europe… But the processes are very cumbersome, and they do treat the United States of America very unfairly… with the bad taxes they impose.’

So, where does Europe stand when it comes to the energy transition?

In a special address, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told of a ‘sea-change in global affairs over the past 25 years’. Insisting that the world is in a ‘race against time’ to tackle global challenges such as climate change… and should also grasp at the opportunities of AI (artificial intelligence).

She described the global economy as moving from good to bad and back again. ‘One the one hand, since the year 2000, the volume of global trade has doubled… However, on the other hand, last year alone global trade barriers tripled in value.’ At the same time, technological innovation was leaping forward. ‘Innovation continues to flourish, with advances in AI, quantum computing and clean energy poised to change our way of life and work,’ she said.

Then again, on the downside: ‘Our supply chains are being weaponised, as shown by Russia’s energy blackmail, or being exposed as brittle when global shocks, such as the pandemic, emerge without warning.’

Von der Leyen asserted that: ‘Energy is one of the key foundations that will underpin European growth going forward the next 25 years’. She highlighted that global spending on clean energy hit a record $2tn last year. She also noted that: ‘For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, $2 were invested in renewable energy and the power sector. Furthermore, clean energy investments outnumber fossil fuel by 10 to 1.’

Nevertheless, she mentioned that the transition requires significantly more investment, of at least $4tn annually by 2030 (according to the UN Emissions Gap Report), including $2.4tn in emerging markets and developing economies, where investment flows are lowest and the potential for leapfrogging traditional technologies is greatest.

Von der Leyen welcomed ‘bold targets’ like the COP28 goal of tripling renewable energy and doubling of energy efficiency by 2030. But she expressed concern that countries like Africa with ‘huge potential’ – holding 60% of the world’s best solar resources – currently get less than 2% of global clean energy investments. Indeed, 600 million people on this continent still lack access to electricity, according to International Energy Agency (IEA) figures.

How does geopolitics affect the energy transition? 
Geopolitics has rarely seemed so volatile. Von der Leyen noted that before the start of Putin’s war, Europe got 45% of its gas supplies and 50% of its coal imports from Russia. ‘This energy appeared cheap, but exposed us to blackmail,’ she said. Today, gas imports from Russia have been cut by roughly 75% ‘and now we import only 3% of our oil from Russia, and no coal anymore’. But she recognised that ‘freedom came at a price, as households and businesses saw sky-high energy costs and bills [that] for many are yet to come down’.

Von der Leyen sees clean energy as the ‘mid-term answer’, because ‘it is cheap, creates good jobs in the EU and strengthens our energy independence’. She also emphasised the need to diversify energy supplies based on clean sources, including nuclear in some countries, and favours investment in next-generation clean energy technologies like nuclear fusion, enhanced geothermal and solid-state batteries.

On the financial front, she said: ‘We must mobilise more private capital to modernise our electricity grids and storage infrastructure… While removing the remaining barriers to our Energy Union, and better connecting our clean and low-carbon energy systems.’

Von der Leyen also announced the launch of the Global Energy Transition Forum, see Box.

She remarked that Europe needs to raise its renewable target for 2030 from 23% today to over 42%. ‘There’s a lot of hard work ahead of us... and there is a principle: “Only what gets measured gets done.” So, we rely on the trusted partnership of the International Energy Agency to measure the progress of our goals. And secondly, we have to turn these targets into very concrete projects.’

Finally, she asserted that: ‘Climate change is still on top of the global agenda.’ And as a riposte to President Trump was adamant that: ‘The Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope of all humanity.’

Does European business support the energy transition? 
Despite Trump’s outpourings, the majority of government and business leaders thronging Davos considered that the energy transition should continue apace. Jaspin Brodin, CEO of Ingka Group (owner of IKEA) was of the opinion that: ‘The roadmap to transformation has started. Its massive. It’s unstoppable.’

Echoing this sentiment, Damilola Ogunbiyi, CEO and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All, was bursting with enthusiasm, and said: ‘We are already collaborating at a scale where no one can stop; not one country, not one leader making a decision, because it’s just the right thing to do globally.’

Generally, there was clear recognition at Davos that we are beginning to see the full effects of climate change, with wildfires, flooding, and expecting worse in coming years. There was a call to speed up mitigation and adaptation, in the short term, given the growing costs of inaction; as well as an urgent need to include ‘indigenous knowledge’ as we seek to restore the Earth. There was also a call by the WEF for ‘business to go beyond conventional target-setting goals to implement bold, climate-related action, cross-cutting all sectors and aspects of life'.

Upholding Europe’s Green Deal, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo called for more transparency and said: ‘We have to become more open on the way to achieve climate-related action.’ France’s Minister for Industry and Energy Marc Ferracci recognised that climate action is ‘the biggest challenge in centuries’. And many participants called for less red tape when it comes to developing renewable projects. Martin Lundstedt, President and CEO of Volvo, argued that ‘the regulatory landscape is starting to be a curse’.

‘Climate change is still on top of the global agenda. And the Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope of all humanity.’ – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

A pragmatic and dogmatic approach 
IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol called for leaders to be ‘pragmatic and dogmatic’ to deal with today’s security challenges for oil and gas, but also urgently address tomorrow’s challenges. ‘Concentrating critical mass in one country is a big challenge. But finding ways of diversifying and processing new [renewable] facilities around the world is not so difficult,’ he said.

When asked ‘What is more important: energy security or energy transition? Which one should we prioritise? he answered: It’s an annoying question, because we can do both of them. With well-designed energy transition policies, we can have the best energy security… we can bring the prices down, we can bring prosperity to the people and we can create jobs.’

He also noted the COP28 target to triple renewables by 2030. ‘Where are we now?’ he asked. The IEA estimates that taking into account projects which have financial investment decisions (FIDs), ‘we could see a 2.7-times increase of renewables, which is not bad. We can accelerate this and come to that level in terms of energy efficiency. But this means doubling global energy efficiency that was about 2% per year growth historically, and only 1% in 2024. So, this is a problematic area,’ he remarked.

Moreover, Birol noted the global imbalance when it comes to renewables investment. ‘Only 15% of clean energy investment takes place where you have 60% of global population, which is Africa, Latin America and Asia. This is the fault line for me; the data breaks my heart. The biggest problem is within those regions, though Africa accounts for only 2.5% of global emissions… Global solar is the cheapest electricity generation in the world. Africa has about 60% of good quality solar energy, yet the amount of solar energy generated in the entire sub-Saharan Africa is less than the electricity produced from solar in the Netherlands.’

The global carbon market 
While COP29 marked a significant milestone with the operationalisation of a global credit market under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, Davos participants recognised that taking this forward is a big challenge, particularly when faced with questions around ‘integrity’ that have dogged some carbon credit schemes.

Chile’s Environment Minister, Maisa Rojas Corradi, suggested that in light of the scale of transformation needed, ‘we should use all the tools available to us, including carbon credits’.

Furthermore, there was debate about how the UN declaration to triple global nuclear capacity by 2050 can be turned into action for rapid scale up.

AI opportunities and challenges 
AI was also seen as a strategic priority for organisations transforming in the transition, but was also considered to be a primary driver of change and disruption. ‘The technology is moving at an incredible rate,’ said Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services. ‘I don’t know that we’ve seen technology progress as fast as it has. And I think one of the challenges of that is it’s hard for everyone to keep up.’

Although AI is viewed as a new, powerful general-purpose technology, uniquely positioned to accelerate this transformation and driving profound systemic change, studies quantifying AI’s potential for macroeconomic growth and emissions reduction remain limited, said a WEF report. Given the urgency and potential, WEF suggests there is a clear need for further exploration.

Note: this report is only a taste of the avalanche of comment, data and related reports published at for world leaders and business tycoons at WEF2025. Well worth delving into.

• Further reading: ‘Accelerating industrial decarbonisation: The Climate Club’s journey from COP28 to today’. The Climate Club, initiated in 2022 by the G7, focuses on decarbonising industry in emerging and developing economies where much of the industrial growth will happen in the following years. It does so by fostering cooperation and collective action.
• What do the numbers mean in the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance, unveiled at COP29 in 2024? Where do they come from, and who will have the power to make the money choices?