Europe’s plan for a green new deal to rival U.S. President Joe Biden’s was set back last weekend when radical-right parties, which oppose climate policies, made big gains in the EU elections.
That may be a mistake. While a pause in the energy transition might bring short-term relief, any country doing it may soon regret the decision. That’s because outside the West, the energy transition is now picking up speed, with potentially profound implications for the world Developing countries now accelerating their energy transitions are doing it for the same, prosaic reason: to save money and secure supply. When Russian President, and renewable energy ends its dependence on anyone. Besides, unlike with carbon-based energy, the marginal utility of green energy is zero: once installed, you have no more fuel bills.
So if we leap off the decarbonization train, it will just continue on without us. Driving that is basic economics. Whereas further gains in the efficiency of carbon-based energy generation are incremental, the cost of producing renewable energy has plunged. The same is true ofthe intermittency problem in renewable energy may soon be solved: We’ll be able to store energy for long periods and drive all day on a single charge.