Europe made big, bold promises to slash carbon emissions to slow global warming, but now the bill is coming due, and governments are starting to blink at the cost — political and economic — needed to power the great transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.

Once far-off goals are getting more real, as Europe wrestles with how to tell Germans which cars they can drive, Italians which stoves are acceptable, Polish miners why they must abandon coal, and Britons why they can’t keep exploiting their country’s massive oil and gas reserves.

Britain and the European Union have pledged to go “net zero” by 2050, with steep cuts by 2030. But across Europe — where this summer has brought brutal heat waves and raging fires in the Mediterranean region — a backlash is simmering against some of the world’s most ambitious green targets.

Last week, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak traveled to Scotland to announce with a big splash his decision to open the North Sea to more oil and gas drilling.