Europe's green retreat
President Trump isn’t the only one on a firing spree these days. Across the pond, Britain’s left-wing prime minister, Keir Starmer, is reportedly considering sacking Ed Miliband, the energy security and Net Zero secretary.
According to the Daily Mail’s inside source, Net Zero has lost its allure and will be replaced with a “dash for growth.” Old Blighty must have figured out that tangible economic prosperity is more valuable than futile attempts to adjust the global thermostat through governmental decree.
“Net Zero” is the brand name for the crusade against carbon dioxide, which not coincidentally also advances the liberal agenda. This bludgeon has halted the development of affordable energy sources and cheap housing. It is even an excuse for harassing motorists with speed bumps and speed cameras.
As the Paris Agreement details, Net Zero should “achieve a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century, on the basis of equity.”
This vague twaddle empowered Mr. Miliband to terminate North Sea oil exploration, rejecting a pair of in-development projects that would have injected 300 million barrels into the British economy. Rather than drilling for black gold, Whitehall preferred to tear up thousands of acres of farmland and replace lush fields with bleak solar panels and windmill arrays.
Now, the government is changing its tune, recently giving the green light to expansion at London’s terminally overcrowded airports. Adding capacity at Gatwick and Heathrow will inject desperately needed life into British commerce.
London-based bankers at HSBC see the same need. Executives are urging policymakers to look more favorably on investments in fossil fuels. Many on both sides of the English Channel have realized that opposition to such projects is fake and often orchestrated with the public’s money.
In the European Union, members of the European People’s Party revealed that government funds bankrolled nongovernmental organizations that staged protests to lobby parliamentarians and filed lawsuits to shut down affordable energy projects.
“Every NGO has the right to have its own political view and to express this view publicly,” EPP’s Monika Hohlmeier said. “But to use taxpayers’ money to organize and implement untransparent and hidden lobby structures is inappropriate.”
The public is fed up with the high electricity prices caused by green antics. In last week’s election in Germany, voters elevated the two most conservative parties. Friedrich Merz, who is expected to become chancellor, says he would end the “eco-dictatorship” of the green “nutcases,” in his words. “The left is over. There is no left-wing majority and no more left-wing politics in Germany,” he added in a recent speech.
Germany unplugged its last nuclear plant three years ago to bet the country’s future on windmills and solar panels. These fickle power sources proved useless on dreary winter days when neither breeze nor sunlight generated energy, and consumers and industry suffered.
China reaped the windfall of the suicidal virtue-signaling of Westerners who sabotaged their economies. While occasionally parroting the trendy ecological talking points in public, Beijing never stopped constructing coal-fired power plants to expand its industrial base.
The global situation changed when Mr. Trump revealed he was serious about restoring American dominance in energy and productivity. The global green fantasy is no longer sustainable.
That’s why Europe’s left, as represented by Mr. Starmer, and the right, as represented by Mr. Merz, are dropping the facade.
— The Washington Times