The European Union is offering Democrat-led states a cautionary tale in how to hamstring an entire economy in the name of green dogma — while failing to solve climate change.
Blue states are sending delegates to Europe to learn how to implement climate policies, egged on by progressive think-tanks. But Europe, which has pursued “green” policies more fervently than even California, is a model of what not to do.
Obstinately placing virtue signaling over common sense, the EU is now promising to cut carbon emissions by 90% in just 15 years. This goes even further than its already foolhardy promise of a 55% cut by 2030.
While Europe knows it has to boost its anemic economic growth, it has consistently prioritized carbon cuts and ever more expensive energy, often through less reliable wind and solar power. This climate crusade is a masterclass in self-sabotage, chaining its economy to ruinous policies while preaching moral superiority.
The EU splurged $381 billion just in 2024 on solar panels, wind turbines, electric cars and the like — more than its entire spending on defense. This is delivering skyrocketing electricity bills — last year they were two times higher than in the US.
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Moreover, the stringent policies push energy-intensive industries to dirtier, cheaper shores, such as when many electric-car batteries are produced in China using coal. While the EU believes its unrealistic carbon border taxes will avoid this, any breakdown in trade will likely lead to even higher prices inside the union.
The rest of the world will instead sail past the EU, mainly powered by fossil fuels and growth.
While Europe once dominated emissions, it is no longer central to the climate story. Nor is the US. The vast amount of current and future emissions will come from China, India, Africa, Brazil, Indonesia and many other countries clambering out of poverty. One recent scenario shows that with current policies, the EU and the UK will contribute just over 4% of all emissions in this century, near the 4.9% contribution from the US.
Developing nations need affordable, dependable energy. China, India and Africa won’t kneel at the altar of Europe’s green dogma. They are building coal and gas plants like there is no tomorrow. Poorer nations don’t wish to emulate Germany’s sky-high electricity prices or Spain’s green blackouts.
Although many try to call China green, it not only gets more of its energy from solar and wind, but also from much more coal, oil and gas. Indeed, since 1971, China has gone from getting 40% of its energy from renewables to just 10% in 2023, according to the International Energy Agency. The rest of the developing world, like India and Africa, is eager to follow suit.
Moreover, the climate impact from the EU’s policies will be next-to-nothing. Run the promised 90% by 2040 and net-zero by 2050 in the United Nations’ own climate model and compare the temperature outcome with the current policy. Because the EU matters little in global emissions and because it has already cut emissions significantly, it will only reduce global emissions through the 21st century by a small 3%. The temperature difference in 2050 is a vanishing 0.02°F and even by 2100 the impact will be impossible to measure at 0.07°F.
All while models show that the cost for the EU by mid-century could be more than $3 trillion every year — more than all current public spending in the EU.
Such a high-cost, low-impact policy is clearly not something that will be emulated by the rest of the world, leaving the actual impact of even very strong climate policies with almost no real-world impact.
Even if they ignore the economics, US politicians should take caution from the politics of the European example. With ever-higher costs, this climate policy, and the politicians pushing it, are unlikely to be accepted by the EU voters in the long run. Thus not only is the current EU climate policy going to be unable to actually nudge the global thermometer, it is also likely to end in a huge backlash, while the developing world’s emissions will continue, driven by a legitimate quest for prosperity.
The EU’s obsession with net-zero blinds it to smarter paths. Pouring trillions into subsidies for unreliable renewables and electric cars is not what will fix the climate. A far smarter, more sensible approach — also for the US — would be to bankroll innovation: research and development of green energy approaches including advanced nuclear, carbon capture and next-gen renewables that are cheaper than current fossil fuels and don’t end when the wind stops or the sun sets.
That will help everyone eventually switch cheaply, instead of just engaging in impossibly expensive virtue signaling.
Europe’s 90% pledge isn’t progress. It is economic suicide dressed in eco-virtue. America’s blue states should avoid joining Europe in shouting into the wind.
Bjorn Lomborg is President of the Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of “False Alarm” and “Best Things First.”
This story originally appeared on NYPost
