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Just to nitpick, this mainly applies to countries which still utilize coal and oil for such purposes to a large degree. And as far as I know, all of them are outside the West anyway and are investing more and more into nuclear energy, with the sad and pathetic exception of Germany.
Australia still uses tons of coal and oil (I seem to recall we have the highest greenhouse emissions per capita), and despite having lolhuge uranium reserves NIMBY and hippies have entirely stopped nuclear power so far.
Our federal opposition leader is actually running on a platform of "let's actually do nuclear", although it's questionable whether he can actually get plants built due to state bans.
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Burning natural gas produces a great deal of CO2-equivalent. If you believe the climate change people and take leaks into account, more than coal.
But dams kill fish, wind kills birds (and offshore wind kills marine mammals though that's more a Republican thing), large-scale solar ruins the pristine desert environment, nuclear glows, and nobody likes transmission lines (and also cute endangered species can't cross the corridors), so what the environmentalists are pushing for is shivering in the dark. They'll agree with various alternative energy proposals until someone figures out a way of making them practical, at which point they'll be against.
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