The US also has plentiful natural resources vs. population size. It seems that Europe would be the least naturally blessed considering high per capita energy use and less solar resources. China has a high population to support, but also owns all that renewables manuring capacity. Other countries do not have such large and energy intense populations.
I feel Europe situation is by far better than here in Japan. Here, land is small, 75% of land is mountains (so hard to bring wind parts), suitable sea (shallower) for cheaper offshore wind is rare than it looks, much area heavily snows, grid is smaller and divided for 50/60Hz, and almost zero natural resources exists. Even if HVDC connection to foreign grid is possible solution, closer bigger lands (China and Russia) are obviously no one want to rely on.
Hydro is a thing thanks to mountains but building new is unpopular to protect naturals. Geothermal is a thing and should be encouraged more, but it seems that it's not enough. Perhaps South Korea is in similar situation but they are still fine to operate nuclear plants.
Floating solar (inland) and floating wind (at sea) are the answer. But Japan actually has a unique advantage in aiming for net-zero in that they have a culture of renewing buildings on short timescales and cenralised property ownership. They can reduce electricity demand and GHG emissions faster in the next decade by building better homes and offices than in rolling out renewables, though they can do both at the same time, and sticking building integrated PV on the new buildings is probably worth doing as well.
PV is one of the easiest renewable to install here so it's now heavily being installed now, but it's one of the most unstable energy source so can't be relied so much for a primary option. I'd like to see floating wind development but it seems that its development is now in progress. There's also typhoon and tsunami. I agree that buildings improvement is also important that is not much advanced.
