Many Climate Ambitions Will End With 2021

In the U.K., Germany and France, leaders walk back as their plans’ exorbitant price tag becomes clear

By Joseph C. Sternberg of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Mr. Johnson said in October he hopes that by 2035 the government will be able to phase out installation of new natural-gas heating units. That represents a step back from earlier plans to require carbon-efficient heat pumps in new homes as early as 2025, and the extended deadline still faces stiff opposition stemming from the high cost of heat pumps.

And “boiler-gate” is only the beginning of the reversals great and small. Among the great, count the delay to next year (at least) of a formal public-comment process for a beefed-up emissions-trading system. One reason for the holdup, the Telegraph reports, is that Mr. Johnson’s colleagues can’t agree on which corners of the economy should become newly subject to the rules—although apparently they now agree that car and home fuels should be excluded.

Among the smaller reversals, the Transport Department in November backtracked from a plan to require small businesses with parking lots on their premises to install electric-vehicle charging points. The proposed rules governing other structures such as new housing, residential conversions, and new mixed-use developments are so porous as to resemble a well-aerated Swiss cheese, with cost limitation emerging as the primary concern. This difficulty installing charging stations augurs the collapse, sooner or later, of Mr. Johnson’s announced plan to ban new internal-combustion cars by 2030."

"French President Emmanuel Macron faces a campaign for re-election in 2022, and he learned the hard way in 2018 how higher fuel prices can trigger debilitating popular protests. His solution is to double down on traditional French industrial policy, especially concerning support for nuclear power. At Mr. Macron’s behest, the European Commission in Brussels may be on the verge of including both nuclear and natural gas on a list of environmentally friendly energy sources eligible for “green investment” from governments and private investors. Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg is dismayed, but she also doesn’t need to persuade anyone to vote for her.

Even in Germany politicians are starting to change course. Households and businesses there pay some of the highest electricity prices in Europe in service of former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s aggressive shift toward renewable power. German voters believe in these goals more than most other electorates, and they elected the environmentalist Green Party into the new governing coalition in September.

But even in Germany there appears to be a limit. The deal cementing the coalition between the Greens, the larger Social Democrats and the smaller Free Democrats hedges its climate commitments. A coal phase-out will happen ideally by 2030—with the newly inserted word “ideally” blunting Green ambitions by marking the whole project as tentative. Carbon neutrality will wait for 2045, if it ever comes, and more-aggressive limits on aviation and automotive emissions are missing."