Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,
Climate-neutral Europe by 2050? Forget it…
EU Promises and Goals vs Reality
Unlike the US where Trump wants nothing to do with green deals, the EU has made a number of pie in the sky promises.
Eurointelligence, mocks the promises in Reasons to be Wary of the Green Deal.
In theory, green technology could be to Europe what digital has been to the US and what artificial intelligence promises to be for China. We have our doubts, though. The EU is clearly overselling the green deal. The green share in EU projects is vastly exaggerated through dubious rounding-up practices, a creative accounting method that would land you in prison if you tried it on your tax returns. The EU has still not kicked the habits of the Juncker investment plan: a castle in the air combining hype and leveraged aspirations.
The hard bit is not setting ambitious targets, like the recently proposed 55% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030 relative to 1990. We noted an article in FAZ this morning by Hendrik Kafsack, who points out that this target requires, at a minimum, the following sectors to be completely CO2-emissions-free: energy production, traffic, buildings, and almost the entire manufacturing economy. He writes that the EU has picked all the low-hanging fruit, but has yet to take the tough decisions. De-carbonisation will be very expensive. And these decisions will only be made if the rest of the world adopts the same targets. Otherwise, production will simply relocate.
We agree with Kafsack that a CO2 border tax is absolutely required to prevent this relocation. We also agree with him that emissions trading is probably the best instrument to achieve the target. Sectoral micromanagement, of the car industry for example, has become necessary because the system is not working as expected.
Eurointelligence supports much of this nonsense, but at least they are realistic about things.
Unless and until China is willing to act, nothing is going to happen.
It’s easy to make goals and promises, but the costs are enormous and it’s impossible to make targets for others.
Meanwhile, technology advances are doing quite nicely on their own accord. In contrast to what Green New Deal advocates say, the world will not end in 10 years even if we do nothing at all.
For discussion of the costs, please see AOC’s Green New Deal Pricetag of $51 to $93 Trillion vs. Cost of Doing Nothing .
Also see AOC “New Green Deal” Stunningly Absurd: Far More Ridiculous Than Expected