AMNA NAWAZ: The European Union's climate commissioner has told the 27-country bloc that the only way out of energy crises fueled by the wars in Iran and Ukraine is homegrown energy and that the E.U.

must accelerate its transition away from fossil fuels.

As special correspondent Malcolm Brabant tells us, one country leading the charge towards Korean energy is Denmark.

It's part of our ongoing series Tipping Point.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Wind turbines are a pet presidential peeve.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: They kill the birds, they ruin your landscapes.

Other than that, I think they're fabulous, by the way.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: Stupid people buy them.

MALCOLM BRABANT: At the Davos Economic Forum in January, the president doubled down.

DONALD TRUMP: There are windmills all over Europe.

There are windmills all over the place and they are losers.

One thing I have noticed is that the more windmills a country has, the more money that country loses and the worst that country is doing.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Ready to be exported, these enormous wind turbine blades are a tangible fact-check of President Trump's claims.

Denmark is consistently ranked in the world's top 10 economies, thanks in part to its expertise in exploiting green energy.

The industry employs 107,000 people and earns about $17 billion a year.

So what is Denmark's response to the president's "stupid" jibe?

KRISTIAN JENSEN, CEO, Green Power Denmark: Well, then there must be a lot of stupid people in the U.S., because there are a lot of states, companies and utilities in the U.S.

that is actually buying wind turbines right now, because the price has come down.

The price of power coming out of a wind turbine is cheaper than that of natural gas.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Providing a human scale for these giant blades is Kristian Jensen, who was formerly Denmark's foreign minister.

Now he runs a lobbying organization working to accelerate the fossil-free revolution.

KRISTIAN JENSEN: So this is not a question of saving the polar bears.

Don't look at the ideology.

Look at the facts on the table.

Solar is cheaper.

Wind is cheaper.

Electricity is more efficient than fossil energy.

And if you look at that, it's a no-brainer to go into electrification of your businesses and your homes.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The picturesque island of Aero in the Baltic Sea is a microcosm of what Denmark projects as its sustainable future.

An hour's ferry ride from the mainland, Aero hosts 6,000 permanent residents and a quarter-of-a-million tourists in the summer.

Denmark is at the cutting edge of green technology because it's been pushing the boundaries for more than half-a-century.

After two major oil crises in the 1970s, the Danes decided that self-sufficiency and energy security were top priorities.

Now that foresight is paying dividends, especially in Aero, which, thanks to its wind farm and other green projects, is reasonably insulated against shortages and price rises caused by the conflict in the Persian Gulf.

Rune Schmidt leads Aero's initiatives on sustainability and environmental conservation.

So how much do you think that the - - this conflict in the Middle East has actually highlighted the need for self-sufficiency?

RUNE SCHMIDT, Manager, Aero Energy and Environmental Office: I think the conflict has made it more important than ever.

On an annual basis, we are a net exporter of electricity.

We produce much more than we can consume.

DONALD TRUMP: Perhaps the greatest hoax in history, the green new scam, windmills all over the place destroy your land, destroy your land.

Every time that goes around, you lose $1,000.

You're supposed to make money with energy, not lose money.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Another pioneering Danish island, Samso, fact-checked the president during this past particularly windy winter.

Samso exported excess electricity, to the value of $39,000 a day, or a quarter-of-a-million dollars a week.

Back on Aero, Social Democrat Mayor Peter Hansted acknowledges that windmills aren't always productive, but he insists they're still turning a profit for their island owners.

PETER HANSTED, Mayor of Aero, Denmark (through translator): It is clear that on days when there is not so much wind, there's not as much money, and if the turbines are completely still, they do not give any money either.

But the surplus is definitely there on an annual basis.

It is paid out four times a year.

Then you get a little check through the door.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Now that spring has sprung, Aero's local grid turns to solar farms to harvest the bounty of the sun.

Solar energy provides islanders with power to either heat or cool their houses, as well as a never-ending supply of hot water.

Peter Graversen runs the district heating plant in Aero's main town.

PETER GRAVERSEN, Engineer, Aero, Denmark: The solar panels is only producing heat, of course, when the sun is shining, but they overproduce.

They produce more when the sun is shining than the consumption.

And the overproduction, we keep in a storage tank, which actually works like a battery.

When the sun goes down, we simply use the stored hot water from the storage tank.

MALCOLM BRABANT: The diesel-powered ship linking Aero with the mainland is temporarily spoiling the island's carbon footprint, while Ellen, its regular all-electric ferry, is in dock having new batteries fitted.

Henrik Hagbarth Mikkelsen designed the power system and hopes that other ferries will follow in Ellen's wake.

HENRIK HAGBARTH MIKKELSEN, Marstal Naval Academy: We do not have any emergency generators here.

We only have the batteries, and we have now been sailing for almost seven years without any blackouts or any incidents.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Meanwhile, car owners are among the worst affected by spiraling fuel prices caused by the Iran conflict.

Danish drivers' displeasure surfaced in last month's sales figures.

Electric vehicles accounted for 96.3 percent of all new car purchases.

Jonathan Nielsen is deputy director of Mobility, Denmark's automotive trade association.

JONATHAN NIELSEN, Deputy Director, Mobility: It's not a short-term thing.

This is a permanent shift in Denmark.

This issue with Iran is one of the factors driving it, but also the whole fact that infrastructure is being built for this, making it the easy choice.

MALCOLM BRABANT: While Europe is steadily reducing its fossil fuel dependency, the Trump administration is reversing previous American commitments about becoming carbon-neutral.

Most recently, it offered two electricity companies a billion dollars each in return for scrapping wind farm projects.

One administration argument is that wind turbines are a security risk because they can interfere with radar and allow hostile aircraft or missiles to penetrate national defenses.

But Martin Couet, a vice president with a major Danish defense company, insists that wind farms and radar can successfully coexist.

MARTIN COUET, Vice President, Terma: Radar today is a lot about software, so wind farms are creating a lot of clutter, a lot of echoes when you send the signals.

And what we have been working on is to see through these echoes, through this clutter, to be able to identify what we call targets, whatever, it's an aircraft, a ship, a drone, and make the difference between those and a bird and see through the wind farm.

MALCOLM BRABANT: Given the instability in the Persian Gulf, former Foreign Minister Kristian Jensen believes that it's foolish to reject green energy, as President Trump has done.

KRISTIAN JENSEN: With my experience as minister of foreign affairs, we see that this is a conflict that will go on for quite some time.

I believe that whether there is a truce or not, the situation around the Strait of Hormuz and the oil and gas production in the Arab country will be totally different for years and years to come.

MALCOLM BRABANT: With nearly 90 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources, Denmark is better positioned than most nations to ride out the storm taking place nearly 3,000 miles away.

For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Malcolm Brabant in Aero, Denmark.