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Since Donald Trump took office, the U.S. government has been more aggressively boosting fossil fuels to exert geopolitical dominance. President Donald Trump stated unequivocally that the military assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife are aimed at gaining control of the country’s oil reserves. Meanwhile, oil company shares are soaring, a dividend on the investments of “Big Oil,” the major donor to Trump’s election campaign. It is also no coincidence that Nigeria (which the U.S. bombed over Christmas) and Iran and Greenland, which Trump repeatedly threatens, are oil-rich regions, too.

While the U.S. is focusing on fossil fuel extraction, a dramatic transformation is taking place worldwide. In China, CO2 emissions have been stagnating or declining for over a year and a half. The expansion of global renewable energy capacity reached an unprecedented 582 gigawatts (GW) last year. USD 2.4 trillion was invested in the energy transition, a third of which went into renewables. These are historic records, even if they are not enough to achieve the goal set at COP28 in Dubai: tripling the installed capacity of renewable energy worldwide by 2030.

Against this backdrop, climate and energy expert Hans-Josef Fell sees the world at a crossroads. Opting for fossil fuels not only leads to planetary catastrophe, but it is also economically misguided, he says.

Hans-Josef Fell was a member of the German Bundestag from 1998 to 2013. As a leading climate figure of the Green Party, Fell helped to advance the energy transition in Germany. He was a drafter of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), a law that came into force in Germany 25 years ago and has been copied by more than 60 countries. EEG promotes renewable energies (wind, solar, hydro, biomass) and guarantees their preferential feed-in to the power grid as well as fixed feed-in tariffs (which provide above-market prices) in order to drive forward expansion and shape the energy transition.

Today, Fell is president of the Energy Watch Group, an international network of scientists and parliamentarians researching fossil, nuclear and renewable energy resources, and, together with climate activists such as Bill McKibben, is an advocate for 100 percent renewable energy. In this interview, Fell discusses the widespread rollback of climate policies, how to transition to a zero-emission economy, and how investment in renewable energy is driving China’s economic boom.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

David Goeßmann: While greenhouse gases continue to rise to record levels globally, the U.S. is still the second-largest emitter in absolute terms, but with much higher per capita consumption and historical emissions than China. President Donald Trump has reversed the steps toward energy transition initiated under the Biden administration, attacked all environmental protection measures, and issued thousands of new oil and gas drilling permits while U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are going up again. In Europe, we see a boom of fossil gas and gas-fired power plants while overall climate policy is........

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