World Ignores Green Recovery–Prefers To Avoid Devastating Recession Instead

By Paul Homewood

 

h/t Robin Guenier

 

The Guardian is spitting its dummy out because the rest of the world does not want to waste money on green crap!

 

The prospect of a global green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic is hanging in the balance, as countries pour money into the fossil fuel economy to stave off a devastating recession, an analysis for the Guardian reveals.

Meanwhile, promises of a low-carbon boost are failing to materialise. Only a handful of major countries are pumping rescue funds into low-carbon efforts such as renewable power, electric vehicles and energy efficiency.

A new Guardian ranking finds the EU is a frontrunner, devoting 30% of its €750bn (£677bn) Next Generation Recovery Fund to green ends. France and Germany have earmarked about €30bn and €50bn respectively of their own additional stimulus for environmental spending.

On the other end of the scale, China is faring the worst of the major economies, with only 0.3% of its package – about £1.1bn – slated for green projects. In the US, before the election, only about $26bn (£19.8bn), or just over 1%, of the announced spending was green.

n at least 18 of the world’s biggest economies, more than six months on from the first wave of lockdowns in the early spring, pandemic rescue packages are dominated by spending that has a harmful environmental impact, such as bailouts for oil or new high-carbon infrastructure, outweighing the positive climate benefits of any green spending, according to the analysis.

Only four countries – France, Spain, the UK and Germany – and the EU have packages that will produce a net environmental benefit.

“The natural environment and climate change have not been a core part of the thinking in the bulk of recovery plans,” said Jason Eis, chief executive of Vivid Economics, which compiled the index for the Guardian. “In the majority of countries we are not seeing a green recovery coming through at all.”

Even countries that have boasted of green recovery plans are frequently spending much more on activities that will maintain or increase greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea set out plans for a green new deal in July, worth about $135bn. But its continued spending on fossil fuels and carbon-intensive industries means it ranks only eighth in the world for the greenness of its stimulus.

While countries fail to muster a green recovery, they are also falling behind on their obligations under the Paris climate agreement. The International Energy Agency has calculated, exclusively for the Guardian, that countries are planning emissions cuts that amount to only 15% of the reductions needed to fulfil the Paris agreement. The IEA has also found that China’s emissions, which dipped sharply in the initial phases of the pandemic, have already rebounded to 2019 levels and are likely to exceed them.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the IEA, said: “China has not yet started on a green recovery. But they have not yet missed the opportunity for a Chinese reset, if China changes its next five-year plan [due to be settled next March]. Whatever China builds now should be green.”

Without China, a global green recovery looks impossible. “If China does not come up with green recovery packages, putting a new five-year plan in line with the target of net zero, then the world’s chances of reaching its climate targets will be close to zero,” Birol warned.

Climate Action Tracker, an independent scientific analysis, found that governments in many countries, far from prioritising low-carbon growth, were bolstering carbon-intensive industries and loosening environmental regulations. Niklas Höhne, of the NewClimate Institute, one of the partner organisations behind CAT, warned: “What we’re seeing more of is governments using the pandemic recovery to roll back climate legislation and bail out the fossil fuel industry, especially in the US, but also in Brazil, Mexico, Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other countries.”

However, Lord Nicholas Stern, the climate economist, said countries still had time to move into a new phase of recovery, where green spending could be prioritised. Most of the initial $12tn in rescue packages around the world has gone to increase liquidity, prop up wages and stop companies going bust, which offers little opportunity for greening.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/09/revealed-covid-recovery-plans-threaten-global-climate-hopes

 

The idea that governments all around the world are fiving billions to bail out oil companies is absurd, and of course no evidence whatsoever is provided to back this up.

What is clear is that the money has gone, as Nick Stern notes, to increase liquidity, prop up wages and stop companies going bust. Would the Guardian rather have millions of unemployed, just so that we could have more windmills instead?

There is a very simple reason why governments outside of Europe are not going for a green recovery. It is no more than a sham, which will see trillions of dollars tipped down the drain, accompanied by the collapse of traditional economies.

Most governments see this clearly. It is only Sleepy Joe and the political class in Europe that have lost all touch with reality. A “green recovery” is no recovery at all.