Bjorn Lomborg claims there’s a real revolt against Net Zero across the democracies. “Across the world, politicians are facing up to the high costs and tiny climate returns of raising energy prices. Voter backlash against soaring energy bills is forcing a rethink of aggressive net-zero mandates across the UK, Europe, the US, and beyond.” (The non-democracies, we add sourly, were only ever pretending, partly to shill for money and partly in the case of China for more sinister purposes.) But of course with politicians the language is so slippery it’s hard to tell. Thus apparently the government of Quebec, Canada’s most reliably progressive province, is winning the war on climate change. But only by retreating strategically or, as one might say in French, “reculer pour mieux sauter”. They’re delaying their targets to protect their voter base but “in a balanced and responsible manner” depending which way the mental wind is blowing their tongues around.
Politicians have a nasty habit of claiming to be on the cutting edge, leading trends, forging a new future and blah blah blah. But actually they’re typically tagging along after the parade trying to elbow their way to the front or marching pompously down the road while everyone else has turned in another direction. Thus private firms have been recoiling from the disastrous green energy transition longer and more decisively because they live in a world of real opportunity costs where rhetorical dodges cost you rather than benefiting you. Like, say, US car firms writing down massive losses on EVs.
The US is special, some might say, as a compliment or an insult. But now the Daily Mail reports that once-mighty BP:
“has taken a hit of more than £3billion following its disastrous push into renewables. The oil giant said it will wipe £3billion to £3.7billion off the value of its green energy business as it acknowledges it is worth far less than previously thought. The humiliating move came after the FTSE 100 group last year admitted that its foray into clean energy had been ‘misplaced’. It is now redirecting spending from lower-carbon businesses to its oil and gas segments to boost profitability under new chairman Albert Manifold, who has called for cost-cutting to revitalise the firm.”
And yet in the face of this policy train wreck, hammering Britain’s economy and its strategic position and his own party, UK prime minister Keir Starmer is wandering behind the floats mumbling. As Lomborg writes:
“Reform UK, now leading the national polls, has demanded an end to net-zero targets, condemning their design and cost. The Conservatives, staring at electoral oblivion, have followed suit, pledging to repeal the Climate Change Act. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly preparing to delay or dilute key green commitments to curb the voter revolt.”
Reportedly. Delay or dilute. Temporize. Compromise. Fumble. Pontificate.
One should not exaggerate the perspicacity of businesspersons, of course, especially managers with one eye on PR and the other on government relations. As the Manhattan Contrarian recently expostulated about his and three colleagues’ long and lonely struggle against New York state’s berserk Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) of July 2019, specifically to trigger a mechanism whereby the state Public Service Commission can suspend or modify its obligations (yes, sometimes you have to get deep into the weeds:
“As this process has gone on, there has been an aspect that is completely surreal. Here we are, four very knowledgeable guys, watching a complete train wreck unfold before our eyes, something of huge consequence to every New Yorker, and particularly to every business operating here. And yet the entire effort to avert the train wreck has been carried out by four individuals on their own time and with their own money, with no interest of any kind shown by the thousands of businesses who are in the cross-hairs of the state climate zealots. I have long thought that that would eventually have to end. Three days ago, it finally did. On January 6, a large group of trade associations and businesses in New York State, calling themselves the Coalition for Safe and Reliable Energy (Coalition), filed a Petition in proceeding 22-M-0149, calling on the PSC to hold a hearing on whether to suspend or modify the mandates of the CLCPA. The Coalition makes clear its own position that the mandates must be suspended.”
And even so they’ve still got to get through to the public sector somehow. But on the plus side, even many blue state governors are realizing something’s not going well in the energy field, and if it doesn’t get fixed something will not go well in the political field. And frankly, if they’re getting it in Quebec, they’re probably getting it nearly everywhere.
As the Montreal Gazette reports of that province:
“The Quebec government announced on Thursday it has delayed its greenhouse gas reduction target deadline to 2035 – an extension of five years. In a communiqué [Franglish for “press release”], provincial Environment Minister Bernard Drainville wrote that the delay was being implemented to safeguard the economy and jobs. ‘To act for the climate is essential, but it must be done in a balanced and responsible manner,’ he said.”
Riiight. Balanced and responsible. Say, is there an election coming up? But as we’ve said before, the tendency of politicians to seek electoral gain by slithering to the front of a popular parade is actually a justification for self-government not an indictment of it.
