EU countries already hitting some of their sustainable energy targets for 2030

Hydropower dams were credited with helping countries such as Sweden, Finland and Latvia beat the target of getting 40% of their energy consumption from renewables. Photograph: Alexey Fedoren/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Several European countries hit some of their sustainable energy targets for 2030 a decade early, a study has found, but big gaps remain across the board.

All EU member states made progress in the 2010s toward reaching the UN’s seventh sustainable development goal, which calls for access to “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all” by 2030. For some indicators, several countries had already reached the targets by 2021, the study by Polish economists published on Wednesday found.