Innovation in green energy has been neglected for three decades
For three decades, climate campaigners have fought to make fossil fuels so expensive people would be forced to abandon them. Their dream is becoming reality: energy prices are spiralling out of control and will soon get even worse. Yet we are no closer to solving climate change.
Energy costs increased 26 per cent across industrialized economies last year and will rise globally by another 50 per cent this year. While western governments are blaming Russia’s war on Ukraine, prices were already rising because of climate policies designed to choke fossil fuel investment.
Since the 2015 Paris climate agreement was signed, the world’s 1,200 biggest energy corporations have slashed capital investment in oil and gas by more than two thirds. Huge price rises are the inevitable result of forcing more energy out of an increasingly starved system.
There are two reasons why the climate-policy approach of trying to push consumers and businesses away from fossil fuels with price spikes is causing substantial pain with little climate pay-off.
For the rest of this column: https://financialpost.com/opinion/bjorn-lomborg-research-priority-1-cheaper-green-fuels