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Spearheaded by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Green New Deal is a plan to fully decarbonise the US economy by means of a “10-year national mobilization”. There’s a whole lot of other stuff in there too – massive commitments to healthcare, housing, employment and other social goals – but let’s focus on the green bit, since it’s more than enough to be getting on with.
Given the ten-year time frame, it’s absurdly and obviously over-ambitious. Or is that just conventional wisdom speaking? Looking back, there’s a continuous record of official forecasters underestimating the progress that can be made on green technologies like wind and solar power.
There’s also a history of political resistance to any shift from fossil fuels – on the supposition that the alternative technologies aren’t ready yet. That’s a spurious argument, because new technology tends to get better and cheaper in the process of deploying it. As with so much in life, learning comes through doing. The fact that we’ve seen such dramatic cost improvements across a number of fronts – from offshore wind to LED lighting – shows that governments were right to kickstart markets through subsidies and other interventions.
Nevertheless, compared to what’s been achieved so far, the GND represents a whole new level of difficulty, requiring a much faster rate of progress across a much wider spectrum of technologies.
But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the GND makes all the breakthroughs it requires as it goes along. With the right technology in hand, how much would it cost?
To get an idea, let’s turn to Michael Liebreich of BloombergNEF, who knows a thing or two about infrastructure investments that actually happen.
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SubscribeWell that’s it in a nutshell. You’re back to ‘tractor production is up again comrade!’ The only transformations of this scale performed effectively, have been provoked by mortal threat; guided by those untroubled by the sacrifice of lives. Faced by Barbarians at the gates (e.g. WWII); in cohort with a population whose self-belief and loyalty/patriotism to the cause brooked no debate. Climate change is not that yet for those with enough money, if it ever will be. Even if the whole populace specifically voted for GND on day 1, by day 100 the politics will have taken over, the commitment flags, AOC is chewed up and spat out (‘this isn’t MY GND’).
Targets are reset to sound great, but lack clarity and look remarkably like the status quo; corruption; more reset targets/reclarifications of objectives. Declare success, move on. Trebles all round. The news cycle is so fast, shallow and lacking in substance these days the 10 year plan could end up delivering a million bicycles to China and be declared a success. If anyone remembered or cared in 10 years…