Developed countries offset global warming by abandoning high-carbon products in favour of low-carbon products and by introducing a transboundary carbon tax for those countries that are unable to make the transition immediately. One of the ways of the transition in developed countries is proposed generation of electricity from renewable energy sources (hereinafter referred to as RES). The purpose of the article is to assess the consequences of ­using RES as one of the ways to the transition to low-carbon products. RES are the object of the study, especially wind and solar power plants. Energy generation on them is considered an environmentally friendly production and does not require large operational costs. The subject of the study is economic relations that occur concerning construction and use of RES. The methodological basis of the study includes general scientific methods (generalization, systematisation) and economic-statistical methods (comparative analysis, tabular techniques for data visualisation). The main results of the study lie in justifying large investment costs in RES which are associated with provision of significant areas of land and sea and their withdrawal from agricultural turnover; with scarce and poorly developed deposits of non-energy commodities which are necessary for the creation of RES equipment; with unevenness in energy production and its low density in wind and solar power plants. That requires investments in storage and balancing systems. In pursuit of environmentally friendly production the West does not consider many components of economic efficiency: environmental protection and safety of working and living conditions of some countries in Asia, Africa and South America, and natural means of absorbing greenhouse gases. It should be ignored in the future when justifying economic efficiency of RES.