Who, How and How Far? Renewable Energy Transitions in Industrialized and Emerging Countries

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the current implementation status of renewable energy projects, analyzing not only the five country leaders during the last decade, in terms of their installed capacity, but also a set of emerging countries playing an important role at regional levels (the who of energy transitions), the sources of green energy that they have chosen (how the transitions are being done), and the trends in greenhouse gas reduction that they have achieved (how far the transitions have progressed). Calculations based on various statistical sources—mainly the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)—show that, while renewable energy installed capacity and implementation of renewable energy (RE) projects have grown in China, they have decreased to differing extents during the last ten years in the four other countries among the top five leaders in renewables (the US, Brazil, Germany and Canada). On the other hand, some non-industrialized countries have emerged in the regional renewable energy scene, and although they still do not stand out globally, they do play a significant role. In fact, in terms of transition toward a renewable energy matrix, the data shows that industrialized/high-GDP countries have made less progress at the national level than emerging ones. Regarding CO2 emissions, there are contrasting trends among the latter set of countries; however, the data analysis also shows that although economic growth negatively affects the decrease of CO2 emissions, individual energy consumption patterns might have an even greater positive impact in reducing emissions; current data from the US, China, Iran and the United Arab Emirates are good examples.