The difficulty in solving climate change can be seen in two articles in Saturday’s FT Weekend. The first article, on the front page, was headlined “Germany fears climate change caused floods.”1 I don’t need to say much about that article. The point is clear from its headline.
The problem we are going to have in addressing climate change is in the second article, on page three: “EU climate policy runs into torrent of criticism.”2 Here are some excerpts from that article:
“Brussels’ attempt to tackle climate change faces a wall of opposition from governments in the bloc claiming that its plans would hit their households with higher energy prices. …
At the heart of the [EU’s] strategy is a push to expand the EU’s carbon pricing mechanism, known as the Emissions Trading System ….
Governments of some of the largest states have lined up to question the merits of the expansion of the system to cover emissions from road transport and the heating of buildings, arguing it will have a ‘regressive’ effect on those people who cannot afford greener alternatives. …
Pascal Canfin, a French MEP and head of the parliament’s environment committee, said the measure risked hampering the message behind Europe’s climate push in the eyes of citizens. ‘I am supportive of the package but on … [the ETS, the] narrative has become about imposing new taxes. It is real pity.’
… Emmanuel Macron’s government, which has supported the EU’s climate goals, has warned against making consumers face the kind of energy price rises that triggered the gilets jaunes protests against him.”
Which sums up the problem facing climate change advocates: convincing the rest of the people that climate change is important enough to pay money, whether through higher taxes or higher energy costs or whatever, to solve. As long as somebody else pays the costs, or there is no inconvenience, there isn’t a problem. Everybody is for it. But the climate change advocates haven’t been able to convince people, or at least enough people, that not only is climate change going to cost money to solve, but also people need to be willing to pay those costs themselves. In the United States, for example, supporters of the Green New Deal claim the rich and big corporations can pay for it all. But the reality is the rich don’t have enough money and corporations pass on their costs of doing business to their customers.
Ultimately, if we are really going to address climate change, its advocates have to convince the rest of us to pay the money it will cost to do so. So far, they haven’t done it.
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1 Guy Chazan, “Germany fears climate change caused floods,” FT Weekend, July 17, 2021.
2 Mehreen Khan, “EU climate policy runs into torrent of criticism,” FT Weekend, July 17, 2021.
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