Post-Ukraine Climate Realism

The problem isn’t ‘existential’ and green energy subsidies won’t fix it

By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.. Excerpts:

"Subsidizing hot dogs might cause people to eat fewer hamburgers or pizzas—or maybe just get fatter. The same is true of subsidizing wind farms, solar panels and electric cars—it does not mean people use less fossil energy. Indeed, it creates an immediate incentive to use large amounts of fossil fuel to produce electric cars, wind farms, etc. What’s more, if I drive an electric vehicle, more fossil energy is available for me or somebody else to live in a larger house, keep it warmer, live farther from town, jet off on more vacations."

"The age of climate action has seen only a steepening upward slope. If correlation were causation, you might even think climate politics made things worse."

"turn to a widely admired simulation by two Princeton economists last year indicating that, even out hundreds of years, the net impact of green subsidies would be “only a minuscule reduction in CO2 emission and temperatures.” As if nobody already understood this, only a direct incentive not to consume fossil fuels—a carbon tax—produces a meaningful effect."

"But even without an artificial tax incentive, technology has steadily advanced in the form of fracking, smart meters, solar panels, eight-speed gearboxes in the family car, etc. The carbon-intensity of global GDP has steadily fallen, down 50% since 1990."