It seems Europe isn’t so green after all
EU should get its own house in order before bashing Canada
Europeans have never been shy about calling out Canada for everything from the harvesting of baby seals to its treatment of aboriginal peoples to, of course, the great abomination of the moment, which is how Europeans regard what they call Alberta’s “tarsands.”
Given Europe’s willingness to tell Canada and the rest of the world how to behave in their own backyards, it’s ironic the European Union announced last week it wanted to scrap plans for what were already modest mandatory targets on energy produced from renewable resources such as wind power and solar power.
The intent remains to raise the percentage of power that EU countries get from renewable resources to 27 per cent by 2030 from a still binding goal of 20 per cent by 2020. But there no longer would be a legally binding mechanism to force countries to meet these goals by 2030.
This fudging of “green rules,” designed to curb pollution and tackle global warming, has been an indirect acknowledgment by the Old World that it no longer can afford to put its money where its mouth is. With most of the continent reeling from grave economic problems that look as if they will persist at least through this decade, if not far longer, higher green energy costs were not sustainable, however noble the reasons for them.
Every major western European country, and some smaller ones such as Greece and Romania, have slashed renewable energy subsidies because in the current economic stagnation they cannot afford them and because in many cases the demand for subsidies has been far greater than predicted. This has not gone over well with emerging state-supported industries that have feasted on these handouts. As European economies have teetered, planned wind farm and solar power projects have been cancelled, postponed or scaled back.
Another important consideration is that European businesses must compete against American firms that are seeing their energy costs reduced dramatically by the flood of shale gas and, to a lesser extent, oil now entering the market. In response, European industry has been seeking, and often getting, subsidies for its own energy requirements.
Europe’s continuing reliance on Russia for nonrenewable energy also has proven to be a double-edged sword. The Russian industry is among the most polluting and least efficient in the world and President Vladimir Putin has been using energy as a political weapon in Europe, as was demonstrated recently in Ukraine.
In a classic example of how not to do things, the Europeans’ huge investments in some new technologies such as wind-generated power have actually increased the need to construct gas-powered, greenhouse-gas-emitting plants so as to provide electricity when the winds are not blowing. On the business side, instead of becoming the world leader in manufacturing solar-power systems as they had hoped, Germans have seen their subsidies go toward helping Chinese firms dominate the global market.
Another point is that European businesses often pay less than consumers for energy, in recognition of the importance of energy pricing to their competitiveness. But now, faced with austerity, Europeans are demanding subsidies for consumers, too, at least for the elderly and poor.
Most Europeans refuse to acknowledge these shortcomings because to do so would be to admit to being wrong about a lot of things. Moreover, it would call into question a lot more than just their environmental policies. It would be a criticism of their approach to government, the appropriate nature of modern economies, you name it.
The joke on Europe is that under Stephen Harper, Canada has been more honest about the price of renewable energy being higher than touted. The prime minister noted that without the participation of the U.S., which has never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and major developing economies such as India and China, Kyoto was never going to bring about real reductions in carbon dioxide emissions — in fact it was a house of cards.
But the Europeans who have attacked Harper’s government on its environmental policies do not acknowledge that the Canadian prime minister has been right about any of this.
Having condemned fracking in North America, the EU is now backsliding on its proposals to impose tough environmental regulations on the extraction of shale gas. At the same time it remains heavily dependent on environmentally unfriendly coal-fired plants and will be for a very long time.
Despite the obvious failures and policy reversals, the orthodoxy still prevails in Europe that its green agenda, including subsidies for the renewable resources industry, has been right. Talk is of delays, not of a fundamental re-think of policies.
Good for them. But the high-minded Europeans should get their own shop in order and stop the hypocrisy of lecturing Canada about its supposed shortcomings.