by Jerome a Paris
Fri Jan 18th, 2008 at 11:28:20 AM EST
IN EUROPE, policy packages are like patent remedies: if they promise to cure one or two ills, they might be worth a try; if a dozen, suspect quackery. On January 23rd the European Commission is to unveil a comprehensive energy policy that promises to curb climate change, increase energy security, shield economies from volatile fuel prices and foster new industries in which Europe will lead the world.
Follows a long explanation of how the various measures proposed (clean coal, renewables, biofuels) are criticized by various European politicians or silly or both - with particular scorn, for some reason, for renewable energy support mechanisms. And the "logical" conclusion: "If Europe wants to show the world it is serious about climate change, its leaders need to agree which objectives really matter."
As usual, the goal of that particular column of the Economist ("Charlemagne") is, above others, to mock and demean Europe, so the conclusion, however unsupported, is unsurprising, but the article is depressing in that it shows the fundamental unseriousness of our elites when it comes to energy policy. 
The goals, as stated above, are absolutely fine - they are, indeed, the right ones, and they are compatible with one another, because there are two easy ways to meet them all at the same time: reduce demand, and build up renewable energy sources. The long catalogue of proposals that is mocked by the Economist is just the result of successful lobbying by existing industries to claim that they fit in these goals, however absurd that may be - with the exception of renewables, which seem to be mocked just because they are not "serious" and are "greenery", thus wacko (ignoring, as is often the case in such ideological editorials, facts published elsewhere by the Economist).
What depresses me to no end is that while there is an increasing awareness of energy (and climate) as a big issue, and of the need to "do something", the debate on this seems to be moving increasingly in the wrong direction, with "competitivity" and "seriousness" driving things rather than what we know actually works (demande reduction and renewable energy). The dominant neolib ideology knows that these solutions are the anti-thesis of what it wants, and thus is happy to play the various lobbies off against one another to ensure that nothing happens and we don't change direction.
