Guest essay by Eric Worrall
As Germany and Europe reels from the economic impact of Covid-19, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has just added to the reasons for not investing in Europe, by demanding manufacturing and transport be hammered with new carbon pricing measures.
Merkel says world needs to do more to combat climate change
BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday that global efforts to combat climate change were insufficient, and that she would accelerate the fight to combat it in coming years.
At a news conference, she said the European Union needed to adjust the climate goals it has set for 2030, and that she wanted a carbon pricing mechanism for the industry and transport sectors.
The European Commission will next month propose a new 2030 climate target for a 50% or 55% emissions reduction against 1990 levels, compared with an existing goal for a 40%.
…
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-merkel-climate-idUSKBN25O1CU
The German economy shrank 10% this year thanks to Covid-19 and the lockdowns. Germany is a leading exporter of manufactured goods, so much of this economic contraction is due to difficulties faced by the German manufacturing sector.
“Merkel says world needs to do more to combat climate change”
Correct.
The WORLD needs to do more in a coordinated GLOBAL climate action plan to cut GLOBAL emissions and thereby to control GLOBAL warming.
AGW is a global issue that has only a global solution. It is not a national issue and it has no national solution. No amount of Climate “Ambition” or heroism by germany or any other nation can serve as climate action.
Pls see
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/05/22/climate-catch22/
This analysis applies to climate action in the form of reductions in fossil fuel emissions. It does not apply to geoengineering. That’s a whole another story …
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/28/geo-engineering-climate-change/
Heroism? I think you mean ‘hairshirtism’. Still, sheltered behind an undervalued currency and using brown coal power, Germany will eventually hit the buffers when the cost of this hits.
CANZUKUS industry, fill your boots.
JF
Love the caption to the Merkel picture
And the question she was asked just prior to the snap?
Frau Merkel, wie groß sind Ihre Hämorrhoiden?
Google translate of
Ms Merkel, exactly how big are your hemorrhoids
Is she still here? I thought she had “resigned”.
She has been in power far too long already. She is starting lose here grip just like Thatcher did in her later years.
Having previously admitted that the 1 million refugees was a mistake, she is now doubling down saying she would do the same thing again.
Europe is irrelevant to CO2 on the global scale. Large scale industry is over. Most of EU production has been outsourced to China.
Yeah this is just the last horrah, she knows its dead in the water and she is being shown the door next year.
Dear Mr. Chaamjamal,
Do you think that mankind could stop climate change? What about climate change before the appearance of mankind? It seems that climate change does work as a Law of Nature independently from the mankind, fossile fuels, etc. Pls, could you quantify the fraction of the global warming caused by the mankind?
Many THX in advance.
“Hari Seldon August 28, 2020 at 11:00 pm
Dear Mr. Chaamjamal,
Do you think that mankind could stop climate change? What about climate change before the appearance of mankind?”
These are good questions, sir. I am not sure if there are rational and unbiased answers to these questions. There are things we don’t know. Thank you for raising these issues.
Perhaps we should not be so quick to try to change the world’s economy – not in a favorable way – based on “things we don’t know”.
Another question I would like to see asked to those advocate “fighting climate change ” is, What do you envision the climate to be once the fight against climate change has been won?
David/Michael/Hari
I know it looks like chaamjamal is advocating for “climate action”, but if you had viewed his prior posts, you’d realize that he writes posts that are always subtle. An alarmist going to his link doesn’t immediately stop reading because he doesn’t immediately reject all of their cherished dogmas. But by the end, he makes an important point that they would have disagreed with initially and now must at least need to think about. In this case, his point is that Germany or any other single country or small subset of the world cannot impact CO2 emissions but can only destroy their own economy.
It’s not necessary to refute the alarmist justifications for wanting to reduce CO2 emissions in order to get his point across. He doesn’t need to say something off-putting like “The great Donald Trump knows that CO2 doesn’t cause any problems…blah blah”
Provisionally accepting their premises for the sake of argument, there is some finite possibility that they will listen and have their opinion changed.
I suggest you peruse his website before coming to a hasty conclusion.
Mankind has to get off this incessant CO2 hatred that seem all consuming of the political mind.
There is absolutely ZERO real evidence that increased atmospheric CO2 is in any way detrimental to the planet.
There is LOTS of evidence that increased atmospheric CO2 is TOTALLY BENEFICIAL to basically all life on the plaet !
Absolutely not the case.
From another article on Watts:
“This (more CO2) might seem like good news, but the reality is more complex. Increased CO2 absorption will not come close to compensating for what humans are pouring into the air. Not all plants can take advantage, and among those who do, the results can vary depending on temperature and availability of water or nutrients. And, there is evidence that when some major crops photosynthesize more rapidly, they absorb relatively less calcium, iron, zinc and other minerals vital for human nutrition. Because much of today’s plant life evolved in a temperate, low-CO2 world, some natural and agricultural ecosystems could be upended by higher CO2 levels, along with the rising temperatures and shifts in precipitation they bring. “How it plays out is anyone’s guess,” said Reichgelt. “It’s another layer of stress for plants. It might be great for some, and horrible for others.” “
Yes , very much the case griffool.
Basically all crop plants respond to extra CO2 with extra growth.
Of course you need to apply other minerals to keep the balance.
Food from CO2 enhanced greenhouses is full of nutrients.
The real stress is NOT ENOUGH CO2
Everything else can be overcome.
The study you mention was run by INCOMPETENT people not having a clue about decent farming practices.
You swallow it with your usual brain-washed gullibility.
Thousands of other studies, run properly, disagree.
http://www.co2science.org/data/plant_growth/plantgrowth.php
You seem to be DENYING real science as well as DENYING CLIMATE CHANGE, griffool !
Griif,
next time include the link to the ridiculous rent seeking statements from EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/20/fossil-leaves-show-high-atmospheric-carbon-spurred-ancient-global-greening/
Hi, griff. If anything you’re sounding even more stupid than normal. One would have thought that reading posts here would have made you reflect and maybe even learn something.
Some very important Hockey Sticks regarding crop yields vs increasing CO2.
https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields
Measurements in Tonnes per Hectare planted
Granted, other factors have had an affect like acreage planted but the Blades are undeniable
https://aei.ag/2018/04/30/global-acreage-is-the-expansion-over/
But again the measurements were in Tonnes harvested per Hectare planted
Have been reading WUWT for a while,am not a scientist,but I’m starting to feel sorry for griff.Is that wrong?
“Correct. ”
NOT correct !
The world needs to let nature have MORE atmospheric CO2.
Putting taxes on the gas that give life to all life on Earth is nnot going to make one iota of difference to the naturally occurring climate change.
“AGW is a global issue ”
AGW is a Global NON-issue.
The idiotic response to some slight but highly beneficial warming out of the coldest period in 10,000 years… that is the real issue
The world needs to do much more to fight the Climate Change AGENDA.
fred250
August 28, 2020 at 11:24 pm
“…highly beneficial warming out of the coldest period in 10,000 years…”
Probably more like the last 8000 years I suspect but that’s still a very good way to look at it and promote common sense in a strange world.
I can accept that.. big dip some 8k years ago after the start of the Holocene
Why are they SO SCARED of a little bit of natural warming, which will happen at higher, COLDER latitudes anyway..
I would have though Siberia, Alaska, most of Canada would actually prefer a bit of warming.
Long way to go to meet the climate of Florida similar. !
fred250
August 29, 2020 at 12:58 am
Though now living in New Zealand I did spend 16 years in Montreal…not many of my friends (actually none) chose to go to the Arctic for a holiday in mid-winter rather than Florida. I wonder why?
And it is still much colder than the previous 200 Ma before 3 Ma ago the ice age started.
“fred250 August 28, 2020 at 11:24 pm
“AGW is a global issue ”
AGW is a Global NON-issue.”
I meant, the agw theory as proposed by climate science and the climate action that it implies … is global or nothing. There is no opportunity for national heroism here.
Ok, I can accept that if AGW existed, (ie warming by human released CO2), which it doesn’t, …
… then destroying western industry, and channeling production and manufacturing to China,India, Asia etc as they build more and more coal fired power stations , is not going to be a very good solution to the non-problem. 😉
You are speaking about 1/2 of the world’s population there too.
No we dont. Global warming is good for the planet. We might just have avoided a new ice age, temperatures have been falling for 5000 years you know, and we have created a much greener planet.
There should be a concerted global effort to get CO2 up to 1000 ppm to make sure.
Chaamjamal: “The WORLD needs …” err assuming there really was a problem with the climate changing and the global ’emissions’ you attest to would it not be sensible to press for action from the biggest and fastest growing source of these emissions that frighten you so much first?
That would of course be Communist China.
The reduction in human-caused carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the EU by the Western economy-destroying measures proposed by Comrade Merkle pale into insignificance. I also strongly suspect that from these measures we’d see no reduction in the strip-mining of brown coal near Cologne in Germany that I used to watch out the window while attending business meetings there.
Good to see there are those that want to live in Miami in igloos and hunt the odd polar bear that wanders by. Cold kills. Cool wet destroys the food supply. Warm wins. Even provides Vitamin D to fight the virus.
Simple proof without climate science or convoluted, arcane, theory and dodgy programmers… more people alive today, even with CV-19 than the at start of the Industrial Revolution. All while the Earth has been heating up to the point where aluminum cans are melting in your hand.
Global climate science doesn’t even pass the Biden sniff test.
No, AGW is not a global issue that involves us more than planning to adapt. As CO2 and water vapor cannot and do not warm the climate, all of this enormous attack on our energy and manufacturing is meaningless, unless, of course, the goal is to bring down Western industry and societies.
The junk science of greenhouse gases is based on a failed conjecture by Arrhenius in the late 1800s. It was dredged up in the 1960s by the Club of Rome and claimed to be real by those who sought to demonize CO2 because they KNOW that we cannot stop using fossil fuels, nor should we.
Now that we know that gas and oil are abiotic and essentially renewable, they are panicking that the world might see through their scam. They KNOW that wind and solar energies are patently ridiculous, cumbersome, negative in many ways, and unreliable. So, why are they pushing them, to destroy industry which requires reliable, cheap energy.
This is all about lowering the standard of living to look more like North Korea and making life on Earth a subsistence living for humans, except, of course, for those in power who will be living high while the rest of us slave for them. Welcome to Agenda 21. They HAVE to get rid of cheap and reliable energy, thus carbon taxes and wind and solar energy.
Our climate changes all the time and we are actually entering a Solar Minimum, with anywhere from 20 to 120 years of cooling until we get back to where we are today, and they want to pretend that, if we do not effectively shutdown our lives, we will warm out of control. Just junk science on steroids.
The peak temperature in 1988 did not reach the 1938 peak and only reached the temperature of 1953 when we were well into cooling down to the low in 1978. Then we warmed until 1988 and have been waffling until about 2006, when things started to cool. The claimed 1998 temperature peak was only due to a strongwomen El Nino that year which basically goes up and back down, having no real effect on climate once it is over. however, it can be used to statistically make it appear warmer.
The early 1900s was a cool phase, then in the 1920s we started warming until 1938 and then went level for about 10 years and then started to cool. We see the same pattern around the 1988 peak.
As we are near the end of an Interglacial, it would behoove us to plan for much more serious cooling, honing our nuclear power plant skills and sciences. Instead, these people want us to decrease the plant food in the air, as CO2 is the limiting growth factor for many plants, and destroy our progress and security. Evil people.
No, getting nations together to move into the geoengineering phase has me very worried–as long as they just waste time talking about it, I’m fine with that!… No skin off anybody’s nose!
But once they start projects that will adversely impact the climate, I have a real problem with that! Their minds are made up: cold weather is good!
Talk about stupidity!
yeah well….the “world” ain’t doing squat
what do you expect when you make the vast majority of countries “developing”….and then hold a vote that they get paid
The world needs to do nothing, except reduce the population to about 1 billion, by means of generous incentives to young women all over the world to have a minor operation for free.
Each year, at least 10 million of such operations need to be performed to reduce child births per year, eventually.
One man could produce thousands of babies, if there were women to bear them.
That would be only way to save enough SPACE and natural habitat for the OTHER fauna and flora.
Going to 10 billion, etc., and celebrating/rationalizing it, is a fools game, to be avoided like the plague.
No one gets killed.
No holocaust.
You are part of the problem. There is a much simpler solution. Get people out of poverty with more cheap energy.. The ‘greens’ are doing the exact opposite.
Seems bit cruel.
And totally 1970 Carnaby St stuff.Bit wacky.
One would think she’d be more interested in working on Germany’s immigrant problem, rather than ruining her economy.
Dear Mr. Zorn,
The planned German carbon-tax has a very strong correlation with Germany’s (and EU’s) immigration problem. Climate alarmism is simply a camouflage (an excellent justification) to introduce carbon-tax.
She doesn’t need to work on the migrant problem. That has already killed european culture and economies. Next is to repay everything they have spent fighting CoVID but that has to be shared across the EU and then lastly fiscal unity and the EUSSR. One pan european tax aids that progression
It is hard to imagine how a government official wants to attack the citizens of her country. Imaginary goblins being fought with tax payers monies. Wonderful to be in charge. Such a shame to squander that responsibility.
“Such a shame to squander that responsibility.”
It is responsibility with no accountability. No matter how much the pollies stuff up their economies, there is no retribution on them for getting it wrong and causing pain to the populace. Rather, they continue to receive benefits after their time in governance in the form of pensions and other numerous perks.
Germ-many rises again to initiate its Third World War – the war against sane governance…..Will the USA bail them out again when the Russkie Bear, RexPutin, starts to eat up Europe – Eu-rope – new rope – the Russian pipeline with which to gas Germany.
By coincidence I had a post up on Independence Daily about this very subject.
JF
Dear Mr. Worrall,
Sorry, aber your reference concerning A. Merkel is from 2017. However the COVID-19 pandemie has started first in 2020. With due respect this article can not be qualified as a “fair article”, and it is felt that WUWT should not copy the fake-news climate alarmist mainstream methods. I am also completely again carbon tax, aber WUWT should be fair. Why is A. Merkel for carbon-tax? It is very simple: The costs of the all-inclusive (lifetime!) illegal immigrants (see the opening the borders in 2015) are extremely high. According to realistic estimates it is about 30-35 billion euros per year, about 8-10% of the yearly federal German budget (about 360 billion euros). To finance this enoemous sum a new tax is necessary. Climate alarmism could be used as an excellent justification of a new tax: “We should save the Earth”. Carbon-tax in Germany has eventually nothing to do with climate.
Did you consider actually looking at the ARTICLE, not the PHOTO CAPTION?
The photo is indeed from 2017. The article is from Reuters, dated August 28, 2020.
I would say that you are copying the fake-news “fact checker” mainstream methods.
Dear Writing Observer,
Many THX for your comment. You are completely right: I haven’t opened the link in “lower case”und this has led to misunderstanding. My proposal: To change slightly the text of the article introducing for example a sentence stating that A. Merkel has made an announcement on 28. August (and please, not as a small case last line). Another proposal: To change the first sentence instead of “BERLIN (Reuters)” as “BERLIN ()”. I would also delete the text under the photo, because it could be misleading. There will be elections in Germany in 2021, and A. Merkel will not be the top candidate of the CDU. Eventually this sentence has misled me. Sorry for that.
So excuse me for writing “not a fair article”. I would say: The article could be misinterpreted.
Hari
Why would Merkel not be the top candidate? She has dominated german and european politics for so long that her position must be unassailable.
Also how does it make sense to introduce a carbon tax with one hand and , with the other hand , authorise the destruction of an ancient forest and all the ecology within it in order to extract the brown , highly polluting, coal beneath it .
She isn’t the top candidate because she has stated a while ago she won’t be running anymore. The fight for a new party leader is going.
Dear Mikewaite,
I don’t know the CDU-internal situation, but I have the strong feeling, that there is a certain kind of mutiny within the CDU against Merkel’s policy of repositioning the CDU as a left oriented party. Additionally, the 33% result under Merkel’s leadership in 2017 was a historical low (even a bankruptcy) for the CDU. Seemingly she has lost the touch with the ordinary people and the reality. She copies almost 1:1 the US-dems, although the CDU was always much more closer to the reps. It is always interesting, that the carbon tax will be launched first AFTER the elections in 2021. You can guess three times why…
I’d say that Merkel lost touch with reality years ago. Like too many politicians who reach high office she’s stayed around too long, to the detriment of Germany and the EU. She’s become a disaster.
I don’t know about Germany (or EU) – but, when you make “fair use” of someone else’s copyrighted work in the US, you are looking for trouble if you don’t identify the source, and include their captioning for a photo.
Even when you pay for it, the license agreement almost always requires those two things to be included.
Yes, it can be confusing – but that’s the nature of internet reporting that doesn’t have a billion dollar corporation behind it. (Anthony is STILL waiting for his Exxon check.)
If she is s concerned about the need to “combat climate change”, why is she closing all the nuclear power stations and replacing them with coal-fired power stations (using lignite)?
The nuclear power stations are closing due to fear and upholding western civilization.
In Berlin there steady growing protests against face masks and coal use.
There has also been many protests against the North Stream NG pipeline, but the German government has decided to continue the project anyway, to ensure much needed cheap NG.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is desperately trying to acquire the supporters before election. Tax collection disguised as Green beauty is always good for politicians.
“Phillip Bratby August 28, 2020 at 11:08 pm
If she is s concerned about the need to “combat climate change”, why is she closing all the nuclear power stations”
This was Germany’s immediate response to Fukushima.
And a very stupid response at that which was followed by a rush to build lignite powered generation. The woman is what she has always been ………. a communist storm trouper
Dear Mr. Richards,
With due respect I don’t think that A. Merkel would be “a communist storm trouper”: The communists were very strongly in favour of nuclear energy.
Dear Mr. Chaamjamal,
And please, where could happen in Germany a 20+ m high tsunami? From this point of view, what do you think: Was this response from Germany a right response?
No one should be surprised by the virtue-signalling, logic-free actions of this failed politician. Merkel is touted in the media as a smart cookie and the EU’s most powerful leader. In fact, she is completely inept.
This is the leader who, in a showpiece gesture of benevolence, invited millions of economic migrants from the Middle East to come and make their home in Germany. And so they came, hordes of mainly fit, young men swarming through Europe en route to Germany causing chaos in the countries they passed through, bringing their significantly different culture with them.
On New Year’s Eve a few years ago, some of these migrants raped and sexually assaulted young German women at Cologne railway station. Merkel’s police chief in the city first of all tried to hide the fact that the assaults were carried out by migrants and then, when hundreds of testimonies from shocked and tearful victims made it impossible to continue the fiction that the crimes were committed by locals, the police officially advised that German women should not venture out into their cities after nightfall. There you go -that would solve the problem wouldn’t it?
Some time later, one of these migrants – an Isis-supporting jihadi – drove a lorry into a Christmas market packed with families out shopping for the holidays, killing and injuring many. Because of Schengen, the EU-wide policy which allows passport-free movement between borders (a policy strongly supported by Merkel), the perpetrator was able to escape simply by showing his ID card and hopping on a bus which crossed the border into the Haut-Savoie in France. From there, using thr same method, he caught a train into northern Italy where luckily he was shot dead by a brave Italian police officer.
Merkel, the media darling of Europe, then compounded her error by revoking the invitation – leaving the hordes already in transit to try and flee into Hungary or the Czech Republic or wherever they happened to be at the time, much to the horror of the locals (and politicians) in those countries. Meanwhile, upwards of a million migrants have melted into the German countryside and Merkel has no idea where they are.
So let no one be surprised at the German chancellor’s ignorant and predictable utterances on so-called human-caused global warming. She is politically cunning, yes – but apart from that, she is as clueless as most of the EU ‘leaders’.
We have to suspect Angela is actually a Soviet-style sleeper agent. She has presided over the destruction of the nuclear power industry in Germany and the ridiculous push for wind and solar in a country ill-suited for it. Meanwhile, she burns enormous quantities of Low grade lignite coal in power stations while insisting others follow her outrageously costly initiatives for a “carbon-free” future! The sooner she’s gone from politics, the better!
Germany can do what it likes. China says No.
Dear Mr. Tesdorf,
It is strongly felt, that China will not be the only country to say “no”… It is even strongly felt, that the countries saying “no” will represent the majority of the population of the Earth.
When is Germany going to get rid of this nutjob? She and Pelosi have done enough damage. What is it in people’s mind that causes them to keep these screwballs in power? Are we going to be stuck with AOC for decades?
At what point will it be “discovered” Merkel is a Russian agent, an investment from the Stasi past of East Germany?
Totalquatsch.
Before Communism Mark 2 can be accepted by the majoritry one must first destroy the economy. Mercal S is a sleeper STASKI agent.
I cannot see her suceding but she will leave a big mess.
VK5ELL MJE
My world. Insider secret, Germany is massively out of money and printing fresh new Euro bills works only that long.
Poverty is up even if most shy to openly admit the ensuing easily perceivable metamorphosis of our society.
As I often joke, the difference between fuel estimation and management and a family’s budget is that up-there, we can declare emergency and obtain priority to land on the nearest suitable runway.
Business headquarters, factories, production facilities, are massively expatriating. Covid frenzy made things even worse.
Instead of attracting investments by lowering production and social costs, Germany, alike a poorly trained and/or suicidal pilot, keeps pulling the tax stick as far as it can go. Loosing further economical momentum and all hope for stall recovery in the process.
Mayday, mayday mayday …
Germany_2020, we are low on fuel, all engines starvation flameout, no generators, with 84 millions souls on board loosing altitude en route towards the 21st century.
Germany_2020…….
(VHF static in reply….)
Sadly, this is not only a simulator drill…
Germany is still world’s 5th largest economy and exports more to China than the US does.
Until China can do it, then Germany’s factories close. China has been very good at this.
Keyword: Still. It doesn’t get more strawman boilerplate than this.
How much we export to China is irrelevant when we must import from China and elsewhere whatever we could once affordably produce.
Nice try though 😉
Did you know that in 2019, Germany had to import 71% of its energy needs !
Around 94% of their gas is imported. Nearly all their hard coal needs are imported.
Both these are the basis of manufacturing, (wind and solar are too erratic to be considered.)
Their failed attempt at wind and solar has them in a precarious position.
Germany (and Western Europe) has very little oil, natural gas, thermal coal or metallurgical coal left. One of the reasons Merkel so readily accepts the climate change shoddy science.
But they are enthusiastically reduces their dependence on first coal then natural gas.
How long since the US imported lots of oil? Not long.
They export electricity, they are around 50% renewable electricity.
They have the world’s most stable grid. Much better than that of the USA. Even a thriving aluminium industry.
griff sez:
Germany is still world’s 5th largest economy and exports more to China than the US does.
China loves Mauser Model 98 rifles.
China loves top range engineering products.
The American-made AR-15 is much better.
5th largest? You were bragging about it being 4th largest exactly one week ago.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/22/the-green-new-deal-means-monumental-disruption/#comment-3066616
I looked up the 2020 figures which show it as 5th.
Some discrepancy in the source material there!
https://twitter.com/SeibtNaomi
Liberty protest in Berlin today. . .
– JPP
Her announced video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikthSZ8EfEE&feature=youtu.be
already removed by YT:
“This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Terms of Service.”
I will check later to see if RT has some footage from Berlin.
I bet dollars to donuts that a higher carbon price
on industry will benefit China. Stupid Europeans.
I think I see the beginning of a trimmed upper-lip mustache there.
This “carbon tax” is simply a blatant excuse to burden the German people and economy with another tax to make up for the tax revenues lost by Germany’s ill-advised response to the Covid-19 stampede.
The lost tax revenues could be (or could have been) a temporary dip, later to be made up, if the German government simply ends the lock-down and the other measures that has been implemented that have the effect of throttling the economy. But, a carbon tax (and associated regulations) is one that will likely go on forever (as a tax on activity), which will permanently diminish all tax revenues vs. what they could have been.
Not very sophisticated but I wish she’d just STFU…..
No surprise.
The Progressive Movement is a global parasite rotting the brains of millions.
It’s not just AGW.
Pick any topic and limitless foolishness, mendacity & tyrannical aggression is on the march.
The trajectory is clearly worsening.
IMO only America is can martial the force to stop them.
The rioting, looting and violence that progressives engage in, encourage and defend is not going away peacefully.
When the sleeping giant of the American silent majority decides enough is enough the Woke is doomed.
It may very well be that November 3rd is the beginning of the end of the Woke war.
What she is really saying is that Germany needs a pricing structure that helps them to compete with the rest of Europe. Abandoning nuclear after Fukushima and trying to compensate with renewables instead of fossil fuels has dug them a hole that is getting ever deeper.
It has not ‘dug them into a hole’. They are at 50% renewable electricity and rising… They export one heck of a lot of electricity too.
They compete pretty well with the rest of the world anyway. They sell more to China than the US does.
Europe needs carbon pricing like I need a hole in my head.