Tilak Doshi Contributor
I analyze energy economics and related public policy issues.
Recent political events on both the EU and the US signal “peak green”. Unlike “peak oil” whose time never seems to come despite many earlier confident predictions, peak green seems to be happening now, in real time. What precisely is peak green? The beginning of the end of a period of ever-expanding and costly climate change regulations on businesses and households is as good a definition as any. There has been a succession of setbacks to the green cause on both sides of the Atlantic.
To policy makers in the developing countries of the East, representing some 7 of the world’s 8 billion people, these policy challenges faced by Western governments committed to the radical climate agenda present a unique opportunity. Developing countries now have a chance to help establish a new world order more amenable to their legitimate ambitions for rapid economic development and better living standards for their citizens.
Is the Green Movement Peaking in Europe?
A short list of key political events that suggest “peak green”, in no order of importance, would include the following. In early March, to the great consternation of the EV lobby, the EU decided to allow the sale of internal combustion engine cars using hydrogen-derived “e-fuels” technology (itself unproven at scale and highly expensive) beyond 2035 despite earlier plans for a complete eurozone ban. This followed strong objections by the German and Italian governments who were responding to their powerful automotive industry interests.
In mid-March, Dutch voters went to polls and put the populist Farmer-Citizen Movement (BBB) into the lead, ahead of the governing party, in the Senate, redefining the country’s political landscape. It put on hold, for the present at least, the government’s plans to decimate the Dutch agricultural industry, the world’s 2nd largest exporter, in pursuit of yet another environmental hobgoblin. This time, it is the nitrogen fertilizers which emit nitrous oxide (N2O), a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.
But nothing could be more clearly indicative of a “peak green” mood among moderate European politicians than Macron’s call last month for a “pause” on more climate regulations. In a speech to those assembled at an aluminium factory in Dunkirk, he said:
“I prefer factories that respect our European standards, which are the best, rather than those who still want to add standards and always more – but without having any more factories…we have already passed a lot of regulations at the European level, more than our neighbours…Now we have to execute not make new rule changes, because otherwise we will lose all the players.”
Unsurprisingly, Macron’s speech triggered outrage among European Greens and leftist politicians. One French MEP remarked: “Macron now takes up the same speech, word for word, as the European Right and far-Right, who want to kill the implementation of the rest of the European climate package.” Even Ursula von der Leyen — president of the European Commission and champion of Europe’s Green Deal objectives of “climate neutrality” by 2050 — conceded in response to Macron’s call that lawmakers needed to consider the “absorptive capacity” of states across the EU faced with reams of new climate regulations issued by Brussels.
Where It All Started
In December 1985, Joschka Fischer, without a tie and wearing sneakers, was sworn in as minister of energy and environment in Germany’s state of Hesse. A radical from the left-wing student generation of ’68, Fischer served as the foreign minister and as the vice-chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fischer was a leading figure in the German Greens party since the 1970s and the party grew from strength to strength. The party attained its zenith as part of the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ruling coalition. Economy Minister and Green party leader Robert Habeck seemed unstoppable, leading in popularity polls through the spring and summer of 2022. Habeck had made no secret of his ambition to lead his Green party to victory in the 2025 general election and become Germany’s next leader.
But much has changed in recent weeks. The latest release from the DeutschlandTrend monthly survey, conducted on June 2nd, measured voter support for Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland, AfD) at 18%, putting it on a par with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats. Norbert Roettgen, a senior lawmaker for the main opposition Christian Democrats, described the poll as “a disaster” and “an alarm signal for all parties in the centre”. Under Germany’s coalition politics and system of proportional representation, the AfD’s popularity casts doubt on the ruling alliance’s mandate.
A YouGov poll published one week later (June 9th) found that 20% of German voters would give their vote to the AfD, making it the second-strongest party behind the centre-right CDU (28%) and ahead of Scholz’s SPD (19%). The resurgence of AfD, a party inevitably dubbed “far right” by the mainstream media, has been primarily at the expense of the Greens which have been sent into free fall with political scandals and increasingly burdensome climate change policies. While the latter have been a fixture in Germany’s policy landscape over the past two decades, the furore over recently announced plans by the Greens to ban new gas heating devices beginning next year in favour of expensive heat pumps has proven to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
On May 25th, Lord Frost gave the annual GWPF lecture on Europe “getting dark”, referring to the EU sinking into “miserabilism, degrowth, and economic decline” at the altar of the proclaimed “climate emergency.” On the same day, it was reported that the German economy had entered into recession (defined as two quarters of negative growth). On June 8th, Eurostat reported that the EU as a whole was also in recession. With Europe reaping the boomeranging effects of sanctions on imports of Russian energy, leading to surging energy and electricity prices, inflation and recession, the Green movement in Europe is now in eclipse. Parties opposed to the unconstrained green climate agenda are now in governing coalitions in Finland, Sweden and Italy.
And in the USA
Across the Atlantic, there are few signs that the “whole of government” push by the Biden administration for net zero emission targets by 2050 is being seriously challenged. In August, it passed the euphemistically named Inflation Reduction Act, allocating a tsunami of subsidies and tax credits for pet green projects including EVs, renewable energy and battery technologies. Hailed by some as the “most important climate action in US history”, the Congressional Budget Office forecasts the costs of the IRA at some $390 billion over the decade 2022-31. The US Congress’ Ways and Means Committee however suggests that the real costs is likely to be triple the CBO forecast, at $1.2 trillion, given the uncapped tax credits and loose credit conditions in the legislation.
At the local level, there is an ongoing backlash in rural America against the encroachment of large wind and solar projects. Robert Bryce has been reporting on rural opposition to renewable projects in rural USA for over a decade and has maintained the Renewable Rejection Database since 2015. These rejections by local communities are at odds against the hope that the $127 billion appropriated for renewable power under the IRA will lead to a massive surge of new solar and wind projects. Land-use conflicts have hindered the growth of land-intensive renewable energy projects — both in the U.S. and Europe — for years. And as more projects get proposed, more rural communities are objecting.
But the more frontal challenge to the juggernaut of the climate industrial complex in the US has been the move by the attorneys-general in Republican states against the adoption of environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) investment strategies by the corporate sector. In January, twenty-one state attorneys-general released a letter to the two largest proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Company, which dominate the US proxy advisory market in the US. They hold great leverage over how institutional shareholders vote on company resolutions across the country. In the letter, the attorneys-general warned of possible violations of both fiduciary duty and anti-trust laws. Proxy advisors could have violated their legal and contractual duties to their clients by discriminating against fossil fuels and by colluding with each other in this sector-wise discrimination.
In the face of potential litigation on fiduciary duty and anti-trust grounds, powerful ESG-pushers forcing behavioural change in the corporate sector such as BlackRock’sBLK -1.2% CEO Larry Fink have now mellowed out. As the self-styled prophet of the business world, he had implicitly warned in his letter to CEOs in 2020 of his vote against corporate directors and management executives who didn’t diligently report on “plans to achieve net zero by 2050”. Running the world’s largest investment fund with $8.5 trillion assets under management, he now modestly admits that “it is for governments to make policy and enact legislation, and not for companies including asset managers to be the environmental police”.
After the ESG backlash in the U.S., at least seven members (including five of the eight founding signatories) of the Net-Zero Insurance Alliance setup by U.N. climate envoy Mark Carney have now left the group. Europe’s largest insurers such as AXA, Allianz, Swiss Re, Munich Re, Zurich Insurance and Hannover left the group under threat of anti-trust litigation. In September, major Wall Street banks threatened to leave the net zero financial alliance, also founded by Mr. Carney, over legal risks. Morgan StanleyMS -1.1%, JPMorgan and Bank of AmericaBAC -0.6% are among the leading banks “weighing an exit as they fear being sued over the alliance’s stringent decarbonisation commitments”. The green movement in the US shows signs of peaking at least with respect to the momentum achieved by its ESG Trojan horse.
Developing Countries: Where Do They Stand?
From the earliest UN negotiations starting in 1992 at the Rio de Janeiro “Earth Summit” under the Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), leading developing countries such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa adopted the ‘Third World’ position. Developing countries carried “common but differentiated responsibilities“. This meant that the developed countries (primarily the West, but also its allies including industrialized Japan and South Korea) adopted binding commitments to reduce carbon emissions by specified amounts over a specified period (allegedly dictated by “the science”). The developing countries not only did not have any binding policy commitments but were expected to receive considerable support in “climate finance” to assist mitigating and adapting to climate change.
Read the rest of the article here.
It’s entirely possible that we are approaching “Peak Green”, but it’s not all good news. The Liberal Loonie Whackadoodles will transition into the next issue, like some of them already are immersed in the WOKE nonsense. Looks like the cost to society is the only marker for what is worst, but the LLW’s will be with us.
One lunatic cause at a time. It’s a very slow game of whack-a-mole but it does try to prevent the same mole popping up twice!
The hard left seems entirely comfy with the “all of the above” brand of crazy.
ESG is the quickest way to the bottom .
At last some politicians are waking up instead of walking their countries as if blind folded to the problems that will flow from Economic Social and Governance .
World leaders are hell bent on pushing the world into a recession as that will be the only way that “emissions ” will drop world wide .
When we are all poor they will have achieved their objective .
Hopefully populations around the world and might wake up and vote the ruling clowns out .
Since government spending already exceeds revenue, a recession would only accelerate the onset of hyperinflation and precipitate the collapse of western economies.
Snag there, if (as usual) the “opposition” to ruling clowns consist only of even more clownish cretins screaming “sooner, harder, more vicious and much longer!”.
I have little doubt that it will all end very badly indeed and that the most guilty will never be held to account.
Respectfully, ESG is Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance and is an epic green/eco loon deliberately gaslighting operation, beloved of WEF apparatchiks like Carney, masquerading as a virtuous set of policies intended for implementation by Investment and other Financial Services operations and now other business sectors. Just like the so called killer mRNA drugs, it is NOTHING to do with that as “SARS CIV2 “vaccines” were nothing to do with “Health” – ESG is a gigantic Trojan horse, so very obvious as to its true intent it is a wonder why the current kickback did not start sooner. How it is applied is the devilish detail that is gossamer thin in veracity. Cannot comment about other sectors but I know, without fear of contradiction, that ESG is a cloak to con the gullible that their investments and pension funds are somehow “responsible” – utter garbage. Not got the space to go into it in detail but I can show if required how certain investment managers trumpet their ESG credentials but when you examine, eg, their index ETFs you will find certain businesses that lead the world in corporate malfeasance measured by the many many billions they have paid if fines and court adjudged punitive damages appear in these funds.
“Explain that, XYZ Investment business ESG Committee”.
Just as Gutierrez was once head of a European oil & gas company and was know as the 5% guy for his cut in every oil& gas deal – all hypocrites looking for ways to make money off of this giant scam
Good summary. Let’s hope this is only the beginning of the return to sanity.
Who would have thought that the developing countries are the only ones returning common sense
Sadly we are still along ways from wrestling these green corrupt woke socialist to the floor and dragging them out to the junk heap of history where they belong. In the mean time we have aloud a foe( China) to rise ( fed by us!). A foe way more powerful and smarter than any thing we faced in the past. China is very close to hemming us in on all sides as well as sabotaging us from within. We cannot afford to indulge a bunch of narcissistic spoiled maladjusted brats any longer.
China, China, China is the new Russia, Russia, Russia.
The west (USA/UK/NATO) is conducting the same power play as they have with innumerable countries, mostly in the middle east, and now in Ukraine. They foment political division, induce activists to revolt, fund a Coup d’état, then profit from the military industrial complex’s intervention to fund and provision warring factions; then use international regeneration funds to rebuild the countries they have bombed back into the middle ages (Haliburton and now Blackrock refers).
This is a very profitable business model.
The same thing is now being attempted with Taiwan. By every reasonable account the next ruling party in the country will be a China friendly party with reunification in mind.
The job the west see’s it has is to interfere in Taiwan just as described above whilst risking direct confrontation with China just as it has done with Russia.
Whilst this ‘business’ model has been tried in the middle east in wars against men in sandals it has gone very badly and wasted $Trillions. Now the west is squaring up to two nuclear powers with materials and manufacturing abilities that far outstrips the west.
Meanwhile, the dollar is under attack as the global reserve currency by 130+ nations prepared to back their ascent to global financial dominance with a gold backed currency.
The west is deliberately crippling itself with insane green policies that are hollowing out our manufacturing and financial wellbeing. The objective of which was to induce globalisation and install the western controlled United Nations to move in as a one world government.
The problem is their final act before confronting China directly, the financial ruin and break up of Russia, is being violently resisted and in the final analysis, irrespective of the outcome of the war, it will be seen that Ukraine is the sacrificial pawn in this endeavour.
Xi of China stated last year that the world will change more over the coming short term than it has over the last 100 years.
Quite how that will manifest itself remains to be seen but there can be little doubt he’s correct.
Well, over the last 100 years socialism has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people. Its interesting that Xi thinks he can top that.
In 1947 newspaper columnist Leonard Lyons wrote in “The Washington Post” that Stalin stated in a Communist Party meeting: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”
China may be a big loser in “Peak Green”. They’ve put themselves in control of the alternate energy supply chain and if the pace of change slows markedly, they may have substantial excess capacity. I’m sure cheap Russian natural gas that used to get shipped to Europe will ease the pain.
Yes, but they have a lot more staying power than the west does. We are extremely lacking in industrial capacity. Heck we ca not even maintain our current military hardware . Plus china is a dictatorship with a well controlled population. And despite that lack of freedom the Chinese people still know it is in their best interest for China to “ win “ . This is not ww2 or the old cold war. China has studied history well and does not intend to get caught in the mistakes of Previous axis of evil. They arn’ t going to fight the previous wars.
What makes you say “we ca not even maintain our current military hardware”?
(And “we”? USA is implied, a non-specific attribution that could offend many)
Australia has a pretty good navy for such a small population. Agreed . In a modern war a lot of ships both sides would be sunk or disabled in the opening round or two
USS Ford is still not working properly, the littoral combat ships are being sold off as a failed experiment. You’d probably have to go back to the 20th century to find the last time the US Navy launched a successful class of surface ships. Too much ambition and not enough focus on getting the basics right.
Any country chasing NetZero has already locked in its economic demise. Coal is the basic of industrial and economic development. Any nation that demonises coal is already on the road to ruin. This is the single policy that guarantees their irrelevance to future global development.
European manufacturers are already shifting their bases into China. China makes certain that developments in China come with the strings of handing over intellectual property. No other nation can compete with China for all the goodies that low carbon economies demand. Low carbon economies cannot make stuff like solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and all the other stuff that makes them low carbon economies. In fact the only reason they can be low carbon is if the carbon gets burnt somewhere else.
USA is losing ground to China as the world banker. In March this year, CNY cross-border settlements in China were higher than USD settlements for the first time. And China has more than double the trade of the USA so the CNY settlements is already significant and growing. The time is approaching when other countries will no longer accept US debt in return for traded goods.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/yuan-overtakes-dollar-become-most-used-currency-chinas-cross-border-transactions-2023-04-26/
Here in Australia, the voters are being shown more and more aerticles that are critical of the green record. The Minister for Climate Change and Energy, a portfolio that emerged only a few years ago, is Chris Bowen. A study of his progess makes interesting reading. There is also some discussion of ESG, when a woman alleged rape but without a legal judgement, with the accused firmly declaring innocence and with the woman getting a political grant of some million dollars from the Fed govt, the public lacks amusement.
Thank you author, Peter Smith.
Geoff S
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2023/06/toothless-jackals-of-the-selectively-curious-press/
It always amazes me, although not surprisingly, that according to the left, anyone who is not left of centre is far right.
That is precisely the rules of political engagement adopted by the left side. Their clear policy is you either support us or you are branded far right!
Today an article in the Spectator .a centre right magazine/on line product here in the UK has a piece describing the AFD in Germany as ‘Far right’ even though the Alternative for Germany Party are centre right/centre in their policies they are clearly not Marxist supporting, unlike most in German Green focused politicians are.
That independence of political view is sufficient to label the AFD ‘Far Right’. That is how ridiculous European and Western Politics in general now is. It won’t be long before the very new and very successful and popular Dutch political movement in support of continuing food production in Holland, the BBB, are declared ‘Far Right’
The Alternative für Deutschland does not include non-Whites, Muslims or Jews.
There has always been a following of this ideology in Germany. But it is not a good thing.
A very limiting policy on the membership criteria of the AfD blocking potential members. While I do not see any point in such filters being used by a political party, it does not make them ‘Far Right’
Far Right is a title used by the Left and Far Left or Greens as they like to call themselves, to denigrate anyone not wedded to their Marxist/Woke ideology.
It is modern left wing word code for, Fascist.
We must call the left out whenever they attempt to block others freedom of association by labelling/denigrating groups that oppose them. It is too easy to throw anti social and worse comments. Too easy to use insults to block the views of others it’s very simplistic and on a par with the mindless shouting now used by the left/Greens to block any non Woke speaker from being heard at public gathering.
The UK MSM, especially the TNI constituent BBC, trots (NPI!) out this denigrating rubbish without any sanction from any “official” quarter, particularly OFCOM. If, say, any other non MSM entity – GBN/TTV – did likewise and denominated the left habitually as Woke/Marxist Leninist totalitarians (as enshrined in the UK’s unwritten constitution underwriting “Free Speech” for the last many centuries) maybe it might trigger a reaction that illuminates their true colours a bit more…..even if it does excite OFCOM to action ( in itself well worth it to prove, again, how biased and corrupt “they ” are ) ?
Be very interested how and where it states that AfD blocks their membership as you suggest?
It probably echoes the Democrat Party effort in the USA to label the GOP as racist. This is despite the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in in America be founded, funded, and provided logistical and legal support from the time of the Civil War to 1965. The KKK was devoted to persecuting Blacks, and to a lesser extent Jews as well as other minority groups in the US. Even into the 21st century the members of the Democrat Party have denigrated Blacks, including Biden and Senator Reid (deceased). Currently many members of the Democrat Minority in the House throw barbs at the Jewish community (led by AOC).
Yet they call the GOP racist.
Well…
It is just more of the left’s labeling of anyone or anything they don’t like or agree with, or, something they want to minimize or exaggerate. For instance, here in Baltimore some of the local news networks have taken to calling any crime in which more than 3 people get shot as a “mass shooting”. The term “mass shooting” used to be reserved for crimes where someone (often a mentally ill person) shot and killed multiple people either to cause mass casualties and/or had an ax to grind (aka – going “postal”). It was never applied to drug dealers and gang-bangers having shoot outs in the streets….
This is IMO a big part of the problem, that the left have been allowed to commandeer language and re-make definitions as they choose.
I have never known anyone on the Left who does not consider themselves to be firmly middle of the road.
Don’t think there is any sign of a peak in the UK. The present Conservative government isn’t backtracking. Still plans to ban replacement oil boilers from 2025. Still planning on banning sale of ICE cars from 2030. Still imposing ICE production limits on manufacturers in the runup to the total ban.
In 18 months there will almost certainly be a Labour government. They had initially proposed raising 28 billion sterling a year to spend on green projects including ever more wind and solar, starting as soon as they came into office. They have now backed off this a little by postponing the start, but the commitment is still there. Miliband and Starmer are shortly going to announce some initiative which will lower council taxes (real estate taxes) for localities where lots of wind and solar is installed.
The entire political class of all parties in the UK is set on moving electricity generation to intermittent wind and solar, and at the same time moving heating and transport to electricity, heat pumps and EVs. They feel no obligation to explain or even think about how this is going to work. Its something they are bent on doing ‘because climate’ without having any clear idea how its going to affect climate.
But there again this is a country now in the throes of something called ‘Pride Month’, and as the Spectator recently reports:
No, its not peak climate yet, and its certainly not peak woke either.
“Don’t think there is any sign of a peak in the UK.”
Nor here in Woke-achusetts- as far as I can tell, NOBODY speaks publicly against nut zero.
Starmer and Miliband are sticking with their policy of 100% unreliable electricity production by 2030. Any sane person knows this is not possible. Now the promise to reduce council tax in return for accepting wind turbines is another policy that will not fly.
First, National Grid is already saying that unreliable projects already in the pipeline will have to wait 10 -15 years to be connected to the Grid. Second they will have to adequately compensate Local Authorities for the reduced council tax otherwise no Local Authority will accept it. This will add futher costs to the £28 billion they have been talking about but are already rowing back from.
When you are in opposition you can promise anything. In the cold light of day when you are in Government priorities change
Look at the data. Peak oil took place in Nov. 2018 (crude + condensate). That is 4.5 years ago. And it means 360 million more people for less oil.
Across the Atlantic, there are few signs that the “whole of government” push by the Biden administration for net zero emission targets by 2050 is being seriously challenged. In August, it passed the euphemistically named Inflation Reduction Act, allocating a tsunami of subsidies and tax credits for pet green projects including EVs, renewable energy and battery technologies.
There’s naturally no serious challenge to largesse and handouts with so called ‘noble causes’. Just like in Australia with rooftop solar/battery and EV subsidies and way back with ‘free’ CF globes water saving shower heads pink batts and even draught door stoppers. That’s easy virtue signalling slushfunding although it all adds up to debt and those high interest rates now.
Picking the low hanging fruit of the net zero fantasy is in the past and the helicopter money of Covid has to be paid back with inflation (either that or the political suicide of broad increased taxes). Now it’s the hard yards of rising power prices mandates and bans against a tide of NIMBYISM to the mining transmissioning etc required and that’s when the political resolve goes weak at the knees. That’s why peak Green has been reached everywhere and the political compromises are forthcoming at an increasing rate. As pollies know full well only the impotent are pure and at some stage they run out of the people’s money.
Great image at the top- at the rate we’re going, that’ll be a typical North American and EU community by the end of this century, or sooner.
And once it happens- wealthy Chinese tourists will stop by and photograph the starving, cold “natives”.
Peak green might be a bit optimistic. I think the green movement has reached a plateau stage, having done sterling work in setting western democracies on a path to economic self-destruction. Time to switch tactics to the anti-farming battlefront, making sure that hunger will hasten the hoped-for economic collapse and consequent population reduction.
Meanwhile, the campaign to demolish the west is ramping up on the cultural and political fronts, with the objective of making us more and more uncertain of who we are, what we are, and how our societies are supposed to function. This will make us susceptible to what will probably be an authoritarian takeover, by:
Despair seems like a reasonable response to the above, and no doubt new tactics will appear in the campaign to end democracy, that will make us weep even more.
Sorry, Fukayama, the end of history is still ahead of us, and it won’t be cause for self-congratulation as you thought in 1992. It could be very messy.
Peak green might be a bit optimistic.
We’ll see about that and their typical woke victimhood pandering-
Restaurant’s ‘brutal’ note to ‘entitled and privileged diners’ (msn.com)
They come as a package deal so it’s not just about their obvious lies with the cost of nut zero.
Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove all wind and solar from the grid.
Peak Green looks dark.
story tip
Grid asks factories to use less energy next winter under blackout prevention plan (yahoo.com)
Its only that “Demand Side Management” that every utility integrated resource plan now relies upon to lie that they plan to meet future customer needs. It costs a-hell-of-a-lot-more to cut off customers than it does to build a reliable gas- or coal-fired powerplant.