By Andy May

The GWPF has just released a new report, written by John Constable describing the economic impact of their green policies, and it isn’t pretty. Some highlights:

  • EU electricity prices to households are 80% above the rest of the G20, and EU industrial prices are 30% above the G20, natural gas prices to households are double the G20.
  • The high prices are likely responsible for a reduction in electricity consumption. This is not good since the quality of life is closely correlated to energy consumption. Energy consumption is also the main determinant of health and environmental quality.
  • Carbon dioxide abatement costs are many times higher than even the high-end estimates of the social cost of carbon, suggesting that the economic harm of the EU’s carbon mitigation policies is higher than the possible (or projected, if you prefer) cost of global warming.
  • Employment in European wind and solar industries has fallen since 2008, subsidies failed to add jobs in Europe, as the equipment is now purchased from China. The only area of renewable job growth is in biofuels, basically cutting down trees and making ethanol from food. Biofuels are also responsible for a lot of Europe’s toxic air pollution.

Has the EU learned anything from their failure and the suffering that they have imposed on their people? Nope, instead they appear to be doubling down on their bad policies.

In John Constable’s words:

“An onlooker, from the United States perhaps, might note that governmental enthusiasm for the green policies continues, and if anything has grown over the thirty years since 1990. They might assume, quite reasonably, that the EU would only forge ahead in this way if the policies were working. But this assumption would be mistaken. Governments persist in their folly not only because they are too close to their own failures to bring them into focus, but sometimes because persistence is the most effective means by which failure can be concealed. There are none so blind as those that will not see.”

John Constable, 2022

Constable reports that the EU policies have produced the longest sustained fall in energy consumption in modern times. He ominously suggests that this could cause social instability. The report is well worth reading.