{"id":457946,"date":"2026-07-26T09:27:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T16:27:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=457946"},"modified":"2026-07-26T09:27:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T16:27:54","slug":"eus-pretense-of-transition-leadership-is-an-economic-loser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=457946","title":{"rendered":"EU\u2019s Pretense of \u2018Transition\u2019 Leadership Is an Economic Loser"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From CO2 Coalition<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Samuel Furfari<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Energy Institute<\/a> report reveals a Europe clinging to the pretense of leading an \u201cenergy transition\u201d as the continent declines under the weight of climate policies whose quixotically utopian objectives are negated elsewhere by fossil fuel-supported economic growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data from the 75th<\/sup> edition of the annual \u201cStatistical Review of World Energy\u201d<\/a> will surprise only those ignoring the facts: The world continues to depend massively on fossil fuels. Solar and wind technologies, while expanding, still lag ever-rising energy demand, which last year reached a record 600 exajoules. (That\u2019s 600 quintillion joules, where a joule is equal to the work necessary to create one watt of power for one second.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of total primary energy consumption, 86% came from fossil fuels \u2013 oil at 33.5%; coal, 27.6%; natural gas, 25.1%. Accounting for just 3% were solar and wind, which are heavily promoted by the European Commission over the much-demonized hydrocarbons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 2015-2025, the first decade of the Paris Agreement on climate change, global energy consumption rose more than 14%, with sharply contrasting dynamics. European Union use declined about 1% annually while consumption in the Asia-Pacific region grew 2.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Europe\u2019s decreasing energy use is no triumph of ecological heroics but rather an outcome of the assault of the EU Green Deal on competitiveness and its predictable deindustrialization and economic decline. For example, in 2025, growth in gross domestic product<\/a> for some European countries was close to zero, while the U.S. was 2% under the hydrocarbon friendly Trump administration. Some coal-burning Asians experienced multiples of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noting this EU tragedy, the European Central Bank\u2019s 2024  report on competitiveness<\/a> blamed not climate policies directly but instead high energy prices the policies had wrought \u2013 a sleight of hand accommodating EU politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the growth of fossil fuels outside the EU continued to outstrip significantly that of solar and wind. Contrary the Brussels narrative that the gap between so-called renewable technologies and fossil fuels is narrowing, the reality, in absolute terms, is a widening chasm. The EU has indeed integrated renewables into its grid, doing so at the cost of affordability and reliability. However, this leadership remains purely symbolic, because the rest of the world is accelerating its use of fossil fuels far faster than that of renewables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In places like Asia, the expansion of hydrocarbon use concurrently with impressive economic growth was more than coincidental. It was necessary, and China and India led the way<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early this century, the impetus for Chinese growth was the lesson of the Soviet Union\u2019s collapse, a result of deplorable living standards and a dim outlook for the future. The Chinese Communist Party recognized growth was needed to maintain its legitimacy and that abundant, cheap energy \u2013 mainly coal \u2013 would be the critical ingredient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This prosperity is good news to everybody but those obsessed with carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) emissions, the bogeyman of the climate industrial complex. In its drive to cut emissions by 90% by 2040, the EU has reduced emissions by 554 million metric tons under the Paris Agreement as the rest of the world increased its own by 3 billion metric tons \u2013 fivefold in the opposite direction. The European effort is incinerated almost instantly by the combustion of fossil fuels elsewhere to support increased economic activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most damning for 30 years of climate diplomacy is that global industrial emissions have risen by 67% since the adoption of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, according to the 2026 \u201cStatistical Review of World Energy.\u201d While the EU cut its emissions in that time by about 30%, the effort, achieved at enormous cost and deindustrialization, has been erased by other\u2019s pursuit of human flourishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compared with previous editions, the language of the latest Energy Institute analysis is markedly more favorable to renewables. One explanation may the publisher\u2019s collaboration with Ember<\/a>, a self-identified \u201cenergy think tank that aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy.\u201d The Energy Institute itself seeks \u201cto accelerate a just, secure, and low carbon energy transition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, our skepticism about the EU\u2019s green agenda is based on the data presented in the report not from the publishers\u2019 interpretation of it. We sought to contrast the pathetic product of EU energy policy with the promising economic rise of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the omnipresent rhetoric of the energy transition, the evidence must be faced: The dominance of fossil fuels in the world energy system persists even as wind and solar, expensive and intermittent, expand. The world is undergoing an energy addition, not a transition, as new technologies supplement the growing capacity of legacy sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The great majority of mankind aspires to more prosperity, which requires abundant and cheap energy \u2013 what the EU employed before adopting ecological dogma. The clash between climate ambitions and economic aspirations will only intensify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Originally published at The Center Square<\/a>, July 23rd, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Samuel Furfari<\/em><\/a> is a professor of energy geopolitics in Brussels and London, a former senior official with the <\/em>European Commission\u2019s Directorate-General for Energy and a member of the <\/em>CO2<\/sub> Coalition<\/em><\/a>. He is author of the paper, \u201c<\/em>Energy Addition, Not Transition<\/em><\/a>,\u201d and 18 books, including \u201cThe Truth About the COPs: 30 years of illusions.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Energy Institute report reveals a Europe clinging to the pretense of leading an \u201cenergy transition\u201d as the continent declines under the weight of climate policies whose quixotically utopian objectives are negated elsewhere by fossil fuel-supported economic growth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":457948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"An Energy Institute report reveals a Europe clinging to the pretense of leading an \"energy transition\" as the continent declines under the weight of climate policies whose quixotically utopian objectives are negated elsewhere by fossil fuel-supported economic growth.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691829997,691819331,691818618,691844259,691818583,691827234,691818228,691818154,691819094,691818728],"class_list":["post-457946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-carbon-dioxide-co","tag-deindustrialization","tag-energy-transition","tag-eus-green-agenda","tag-europe","tag-european-union-eu","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-net-zero","tag-renewable-green-energy","tag-wind-and-solar","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/0-ChatGPT-EUs-Pretense-of-%E2%80%98Transition-Leadership-Is-an-Economic-Loser.png?fit=1536%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1V8e","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":398411,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=398411","url_meta":{"origin":457946,"position":0},"title":"‘Green’ Europe’s Industrial Masochism","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"08\/28\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"If a self-described leader finds that nobody is following, is leadership present? 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