https://www.wsj.com/opinion/more-u-n-climate-nonsense-8100cfa2
More U.N. Climate Nonsense
By James Freeman
Excerpt:
Backers of inefficient and unreliable energy production used to say that wind and solar breakthroughs were just around the corner. But one can use this argument to secure government subsidies for only so many decades before taxpayers start asking why they have to support an infant industry that’s older than they are. These days it’s become more common for environmentalists to assert that the future has arrived and alternative energy is now dirt cheap. This ought to make it even harder to explain why government support should continue, but it also may create the misimpression that the massively expensive wind and solar experiment is finally working.
Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres went even further in a Tuesday speech, claiming that fossil fuels are much more heavily subsidized than his beloved alternative energy projects and suggesting that wind and solar are the clear marketplace winners:
The sun is rising on a clean energy age.
Just follow the money.
$2 trillion went into clean energy last year – that’s $800 billion more than fossil fuels, and up almost 70% in ten years.
And new data released today from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that solar – not so long ago four times the cost of fossil fuels – is now 41% cheaper.
Offshore wind – 53%.
And over 90% of new renewables worldwide produced electricity for less than the cheapest new fossil fuel alternative.
One might wonder why politicos like Mr. Guterres need to make speeches at all if wind and solar really have such obvious cost advantages. To hear the U.N. chief tell it, the alleged superiority makes their market dominance inevitable. According to the U.N. text of his remarks:
The clean energy future is no longer a promise. It’s a fact.
No government. No industry. No special interest can stop it.
Of course, the fossil fuel lobby of some fossil fuel companies will try – and we know the lengths to which they will go.
But I have never been more confident that they will fail – because we have passed the point of no return.
One also might wonder how committed he is to letting the market—rather than government bureaucrats, green activists and corporate lobbyists—decide which energy sources prevail. His official biography states:
For many years Mr. Guterres was active in the Socialist International, a worldwide organization of social democratic political parties.
Sadly Mr. Guterres couldn’t even get all the way through Tuesday’s speech without emphasizing his desire for central planning. He called for “new national climate plans to go all-out on the energy transition” and said, “Governments must aim to meet all new electricity demand with renewables.”
But if renewables are clearly better—and in fact unstoppable—why does government need to plan or aim for anything—won’t producers and consumers choose such energy sources on their own?
