Barely a year later, however, there are fears that the global commitment may be losing momentum, as the growth of clean energy transition is slowing down while burning of fossil fuels continues to rise.

And now there is US President Donald Trump’s “national energy emergency”, embracing fossil fuels and ditching clean energy policies – that has also begun to influence some countries and energy companies already.

In response to Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” slogan aimed at ramping up fossil fuel extraction, and the US notifying the UN of its withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, Indonesia, for instance, has hinted that it may follow suit.

“If the United States does not want to comply with the international agreement, why should a country like Indonesia comply with it?” asked Hashim Djojohadikusumo, special envoy for climate change and energy of Indonesia, as reported by the country’s government-run news agency Antara.

Indonesia has remained in the list of top 10 carbon-emitting countries for years now.

“Indonesia produces three tons of carbon [per person a year] while the US produces 13 tons,” he asked at the ESG Sustainable Forum 2025 in Jakarta on 31 January.

“Yet we are the ones being told to close our power plants… So, where is the sense of justice here?”

Nithi Nesadurai, director with Climate Action Network Southeast Asia, said the signals from her region were concerning.

She said the “richest country and the largest oil producer in the world” increasing its production gives other states “an easy excuse to increase their own – which they are already doing”.

In South Africa, Africa’s biggest economy and a major carbon emitter, a $8.5bn foreign-aided transition project from the coal sector was already moving at a snail’s pace, and now there are fears that it may get derailed further.

Wikus Kruger, director of Power Futures Lab at the University of Cape Town, said there was a “possibility” that decommissioning of old coal-fired power stations would be “further delayed”.

However he said that while there was some “walk back” from transition to renewables, there was still growth in the clean energy sector that was expected to continue.

Argentina withdrew its negotiators from the COP29 climate meeting in Baku last November, days after Trump won the US presidency. It has since followed Trump’s lead in signalling it will withdraw from the Paris Agreement of 2015 – which underpins global efforts to combat climate change.

“We now expect our oil and gas production to go up,” Enrique Viale, president of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers, told the BBC.

“President Milei has hinted that he intends to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and has said environmentalism is part of the woke agenda.”

Meanwhile, energy giant Equinor has just announced it is halving investment in renewable energy over the next two years while increasing oil and gas production, and another oil major, BP, is expected to make a similar announcement soon.

Trump has not just said “drill, baby, drill” but also: “We will export American energy all over the world.”

Potential foreign buyers are already lining up.

India and the US have agreed to significantly increase the supply of American oil and gas to the Indian market.

At the end of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit on 14 February, the two countries issued a joint statement that “reaffirmed” the US would be “a leading supplier of crude oil and petroleum products and liquified natural gas to India”.

A few days after Trump’s inauguration, South Korea, the world’s third largest liquified natural gas importer, has hinted its intention to buy more American oil and gas aimed at reducing a trade surplus with the US and improving energy security, international media have reported from Seoul.

Officials with Japan’s largest power generator, JERA, have told Reuters they too want to increase purchases of liquified natural gas from the US to diversify supply, as it currently imports half of it from the Asia-Pacific region.

“There is certainly a threat that if the US seeks to either flood markets with cheap fossil fuels, or bully countries into buying more of its fossil fuels, or both, the global energy transition might be slowed,” said Lorne Stockman, research director with Oil Change International, a research and advocacy organisation for transition to clean energy.

Scientists have said there can be no new fossil fuel extraction and there needs to be a rapid reduction of carbon emissions (around 45% by 2030 from the 2019 level) if the world is to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius compared to the pre-industrial period.

“The economics of energy supply are a key driver of decarbonisation,” said David Brown, director of energy transition practice at Wood Mackenzie, a global energy think-tank.

“The resource base of US energy supports the role of natural gas and liquids production. By contrast, import-dependent economies such as China, India, and those in Southeast Asia have a dramatic economic incentive to decarbonise sources of energy.”

Global energy transition investment surpassed $2tn for the first time last year but studies have also shown that the growth of clean energy transition has markedly slowed in recent years, while many major banks continue to finance fossil fuels.

Ukraine pumps Russian natural gas through its territory to several European countries, including Slovakia, Moldova and Hungary.

But it is expected to halt the flow when an existing transit deal, which was signed before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, expires at the end of the year.

Fico, who visited Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this week, said on Friday that Slovakia would consider reciprocal measures against Ukraine – such as halting back-up electricity supplies – if Kyiv cuts off the transfers as of January 1.

“It appears that Putin gave Fico the order to open the second energy front against Ukraine at the expense of the Slovak people’s interests,” Zelenskyy wrote in a social media post on Saturday.

“Fico threats to cut off Ukraine’s emergency power supply this winter while Russia attacks our power plants and energy grid can only be explained by this,” he said, adding that Fico was “dragging Slovakia into Russia’s attempts to cause more suffering for Ukrainians”.

Slovakia wants to maintain Russian gas supplies via Ukraine, saying alternative routes would hike costs and harm its transit operations while causing the country to lose 500 million euros ($521m) in fees.

Kyiv has said it will not sign any new deal for gas transit with Moscow as the war between the two countries drags on.

The Ukrainian government has been forced to import electricity from several of its neighbours since Russia began hitting its power grid in late 2022, damaging or destroying much of the country’s non-nuclear generation capacity.

Russian gas accounted for less than 10 percent of the European Union’s gas imports in 2023. In 2021, a year before the Ukraine invasion began, it made up more than 40 percent.

However, EU members in Eastern Europe still depend largely on Russian gas for geographical and political reasons.

Zelenskyy said Slovakia currently accounted for 19 percent of Ukraine’s power imports, and that Kyiv was working with its EU neighbours to bolster the supply.

“Slovakia is part of the single European energy market and Fico must respect common European rules,” the Ukrainian president said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Slovakia’s prime minister said on Friday his country could serve as a meeting place for possible talks on ending the war in Ukraine.

Fico is one of only a handful of European leaders who have remained close to the Kremlin, and his meeting with Putin in Moscow on December 22 provoked an angry reaction from Ukraine.

“If anyone turns to us and is interested in organising peace talks in Slovakia about the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, they can count on our hospitality,” Fico said in a video message published on Facebook.

Fico said he had discussed the proposal with Putin during his surprise visit to the Russian capital and was pleased with the positive reaction.