How a renewable energy vision 10 years ago is becoming a reality

The death toll and destruction of civilian infrastructure from the US-Israel war on Iran has been devastating and, additionally, the conflict has sparked political turmoil, a global energy supply shock and soaring cost-of-living pressures that are leading to looming economic headwinds.

Two Greenpeace activists unfurl a banner reading "Energy [R]evolution" on the roof of the 37-year-old Swanbank B coal-fired plant. Four other Greenpeace activists scaled a 140-metre-high smokestack of the Swanbank coal-fired power station to call for Australia to be powered by renewable energy.

Inadvertently, now 100 days after the start of the conflict, we can see that it is also supercharging the world's shift to renewable energy in a global disruption that is now presenting a seismic opportunity to free ourselves of fossil fuel dependency.

But this systemic shift to clean, secure and reliable renewable energy must be planned with a long-term perspective as part of a fair, fast and funded just transition as governments work to meet their Paris Agreement obligations to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Where we were 10 years ago

The 2015 Paris Agreement was a landmark moment and on its 10th anniversary in 2025, the Agreement was lauded for helping to accelerate the clean energy transition, lower projected global greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the projected temperature increase.

As the Paris climate conference enters the closing stretch, Greenpeace activists create a solar symbol around the world-famous Paris landmark, the Arc de Triomphe, by painting the roads yellow with a non-polluting water-based paint to reveal the image of a huge shining sun.

Despite this, our climate has continued to warm and the years 2015-2025 have been the hottest 11 years on record, placing the 1.5°C threshold under threat. That's the bad news.

The good news, however, is the rapid pace of change in the renewables sector. Back in 2015, Greenpeace's visionary Energy [R]evolution scenario was a transformative, nuclear-free blueprint for a 100 % renewable future. It was far more ambitious than the International Energy Agency's projections and today, we can see that the E[R] scenarios were not far off the mark.

In fact, in the past 10 years, the energy landscape has changed tremendously and the most visible success of the last decade lies in the sheer velocity of the renewable rollout. For the first time, wind and solar are growing faster than global electricity consumption, actively eating the market share of fossil fuels, mainly due to the significant cost reduction of renewables.

Now, amid the current energy supply crisis, the scale of change witnessed in the past 10 years offers great hope for a renewable future.

Electrification, expanding solar and wind power and lower costs

Greenpeace Colombia unfurls a banner on the beach of Santa Marta, Colombia reading "Renewables Power Peace! End Fossil Fuels" during the First Conference on Transitioning away from fossil fuels, organized by the governments of Colombia and the Netherlands.

Between 2015 and 2025, global solar power capacity increased from 226 Gigawatt (GW) in 2015 to 2,392 GW in 2025. Electricity generation through solar power actually exceeded the ambitious projections made in the E[R] scenario and by far exceeded the modest projections made by the IEA's World Energy Outlook (WEO).

In the same timeframe, wind power capacity increased from 416 GW in 2015 to 1,291 GW in 2025. Actual wind power generation in 2025 proved to be slightly below the E[R] projections, but was substantially higher than the WEO scenario. Further developments with regard to offshore wind in particular offer hope that in the coming years reality will surpass the E[R] projection.

The reason for such successful renewable electricity growth is the significant cost reduction. The E[R] scenario underestimated the cost reduction potential between 2015 and 2025 for solar and wind. Solar reduced costs per kilowatt by around 70 % while the E[R] projected 42%. Both onshore wind and offshore wind were able to halve costs while the E[R] projected 6% and 27% respectively.

Political change, the energy transformation and a global supply shock

In the past decade, the failure of governments to reduce global total energy demand has meant, however, that the growth in solar and wind only covered increased energy demand rather than replacing fossil fuel use.

Aerial image of windfarm in Yeongyang-gun, Gyeongsangbuk-do. It is the 3rd largest wind farm in South Korea and is forecasted to produce 134GWh electricity per year.

Now, the war on Iran has sharpened both the urgency and inevitability of a transition to renewables, exposing how an engineered dependence on fossil fuels is a massive geopolitical liability that demands systemic and broad sectoral changes.

After the UN climate talks COP30 spectacularly failed to agree last year on the need to develop a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels despite wide support, 57 countries met in Santa Marta, Colombia, in April 2026 to explicitly discuss how to transition away from fossil fuels.

What we can say is that the geopolitical faultlines are becoming very clear: on one side there are countries like the US that are rusted on to a 'drill, baby, drill' approach and on the other, there are countries ready to plan for and implement a post-fossil-fuel future.

But what governments must do now is ensure the policy frameworks are in place to enable a fair, fast and funded transition, because beyond economics, the shift is about resilience.

Decentralised, democratically owned renewable energy systems controlled and owned by the people are harder to sabotage and immune to shipping disruptions, ensuring that even in times of crisis, our homes, schools, and hospitals remain powered and continue to deliver social, economic and environmental benefits for all.

What comes next

What the ambitious vision of the Energy [R]evolution and the staggering acceleration of renewables in the past 10 years show is that the future of our energy transition is bright.

Critically, however, the nations currently leading this transformation and securing the rewards of a clean energy future demonstrate that rapid change is a deliberate result of active political choices and strong policy frameworks.

Aaron Gray-Block is a Climate Political Communications Manager at Greenpeace International.

Read our reports:

The Energy [R]evolution+10

A Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels