President Barack Obama and some of the candidates in the 2016 presidential race have in recent weeks rolled out climate change plans. As policymakers continue to weigh their environmental strategies, it is useful to take a stock of what has worked and what hasn’t in other countries, particularly in Germany. The success of Germany’s Energiewende, which aims to fully transition the country into renewable energy, provides seven important lessons for the United States on how to switch from fossil fuels to renewables.

First, the transition to renewable energy can happen quickly. Germany has moved faster than any other industrialized country in shifting its electricity consumption toward renewable energy. In the past 15 years, it has gone from having only about 5 percent renewables in its power mix (mostly small hydroelectric plants) to generating a third of its electricity from renewables, including on- and offshore wind, bioenergy, hydro, thermal and photovoltaic solar. On July 25, Germany set another new record: Renewables accounted for 78 percent of its electricity.

The shift is happening more quickly than anyone anticipated in 2000 when German lawmakers approved the Renewable Energy Resources Act. In addition to low prices for renewable energy generation, a surcharge on electricity that helped investors pay for the initial investment in renewables has been key to Energiewende’s success. Proponents, such as Greenpeace Germany, pushing for its acceleration say Germany could have two-thirds of its power from renewables by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050. The government expects to generate 80 percent from renewables by 2050.

Second, renewable energy expansion boosts jobs and economic growth. Germany made massive investments in renewables, and its economy was one of the first to crawl out of the recent global recession and has grown steadily from 2004 to 2015. Moreover, the transition has not slowed Germany’s global competitiveness. It exported more in 2014 than ever before and increased its already lopsided trade surplus to $234 billion that year, despite sanctions against Russia and sluggish global growth. In 2013 the renewable sector accounted for about 372,000 jobs in Germany, and other aspects of its environmental policy — such as energy efficiency, alternative mobility, educational and training programs, research and development, the decommissioning of nuclear reactors and grid expansion — have added at least 1.5 million jobs. The most obvious winners from Energiewende are farmers, small and medium-size businesses and citizen groups that invested heavily in renewable energy.

Third, solar and wind are the workhorses. In the near future, every country, region and municipality will have a mix of energy sources that reflects its natural resources, needs and weather patterns. Some countries such as Iceland can rely on geothermal power. Others such as Norway will have plentiful hydroelectric sources to draw on. But most of the renewable power production will come from solar and wind power. These two technologies are the backbone of Germany’s transition and are expected to become cheaper and even more effective.

“Solar energy has become cheaper much more quickly than most experts predicted and will continue to do so,” Patrick Graichen, the director of Berlin-based think tank Agora Energiewende, said in February. “Plans for future power supply systems should therefore be revised worldwide … In view of the extremely favorable costs, solar power will … play a prominent role, together with wind energy — also, and most important, as a cheap way of contributing to international climate protection.”