Climate action and renewables has always been very popular with voters. Since political action has consistently lagged popular support I'd suggest that you'd need to look outside elections to see what is holding the west back on this.

if you're going to list the strengths of china, one of the biggest ones is unironically having leadership that doesnt get interrupted in massive ways every 4 years. i'm not going to debate the negative parts of that, clearly it is also problematic, but despite the negative aspects it has factually largely contributed to their strength and prosperity

Solar and Wind are some of the most popular forms of energy generation

https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/06/05/americans-vie...

the central committee is actually trying to slow it down

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/07/07/china-moves-to-curb-s...

i dont think that the US, without elections, would suddenly go on a renewables building spree.

the same interests that prevent it today would still exist

Amazing what you can do when the ruling class hasn’t spent the last 40 years undermining education and gutting services.