The energy crises of recent years have reinforced an important lesson: energy security is not simply about finding alternative suppliers of fossil fuels. A new analysis from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), entitled Spending Public Money Smarter for Energy Security, argues that public financial support for renewable energy and clean electrification can provide a more durable form of energy security by reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels, exposure to volatile prices and the need for costly emergency subsidies. Drawing on experience in Germany, Türkiye, China and India—four major oil and gas importers—the analysis shows how public support for clean energy can lower import bills while improving affordability and resilience.
The numbers are striking. IISD estimates that Germany’s renewable support schemes produced net gas-import savings of USD 21 billion between 2020 and 2026, while Türkiye’s YEKDEM renewable support programme generated USD 23 billion in net gas-import savings between 2021 and 2025. In India, support for electric vehicles is already reducing oil consumption, with IISD estimating that every dollar of support for vehicles already sold could ultimately generate more than six dollars in avoided fuel costs for consumers by 2035. China’s long-term support for wind and solar, meanwhile, is expected to produce very large savings compared with continued reliance on coal.
The central message is that governments do not necessarily need to spend more—they need to spend public money smarter. IISD recommends directing support towards the bottlenecks holding back clean energy, including grids, storage, financing and permitting; using predictable and increasingly market-based support mechanisms; and shifting public resources away from blanket fossil-fuel subsidies towards targeted social protection, clean energy and electrification. Importantly, the analysis also includes energy efficiency among the measures that should be embedded in national energy-security and investment strategies. In this framing, the energy transition is not only a climate strategy: reducing energy demand and replacing imported fossil fuels with efficient, domestically produced clean energy are fundamental components of energy security.
Read the full analysis here.
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