At the Norges Bank Climate Conference in Oslo on 21 October 2025, ECB President Christine Lagarde emphasized the urgent need for Europe to accelerate its transition to renewable energy. She noted that since her first visit to the central bank in 2016, Europe’s energy landscape has dramatically shifted. The Paris Agreement was then widely supported, and Europe was reliant on Russian gas pipelines such as Nord Stream-2. Today, geopolitical tensions and the war in Ukraine have exposed the continent’s energy vulnerabilities, driving up prices and threatening competitiveness.
Lagarde stressed the need for energy that is secure, sustainable, and affordable, highlighting Norway as a leading example of a high-renewables system with relatively low household energy costs. She argued that only a robust shift to clean energy can achieve all three objectives, but this requires massive investment in generation, grids, and storage, alongside deeper market integration and technology improvements.
She acknowledged the challenges of renewables, including intermittency, system costs, and resource constraints, but argued these can be mitigated with strategic infrastructure investment, cross-border electricity sharing, and recycling of materials for clean technologies. ECB research shows that energy shocks have already hindered European firms’ investment and competitiveness, making the transition not just an environmental imperative, but an economic one.
Lagarde called for policymakers to enable investment through deeper capital markets, stable carbon pricing, faster permitting, and predictable regulatory frameworks. By doing so, Europe could reduce system costs, lower electricity prices, and secure a greener energy future.
She concluded that the choice is clear: Europe must either continue with costly, unsustainable energy reliance or invest decisively in renewables to ensure secure, affordable, and sustainable energy, echoing Jane Goodall’s words: “What you do makes a difference. And you have to decide what difference you want to make.”
Europe, Lagarde emphasized, has both the resources and public support to succeed, with nearly 90% of Europeans backing the expansion of renewable energy.
