Tom Scott-Redford

The Economist this week carries an article on the Green New Deal (UN version, not ours) under the title “Green, easy and wrong”. Its argument is thus: the green new deal sounds wonderful in principle, a way of solving the two most pressing problems we now face, in an attractive, and easy to explain package; but in reality, the new deal is flawed in its reliance on decision-makers (politicians) to be able to make decisions. This isn’t a scepticism over whether the policy would be adopted by anyone, rather a scepticism over the judgement of politicians over what clean technologies to provide subsidies for the development of. The article goes on to cite the unfortunate mistake that was made over bio-ethanol in the US, and apparently photo-voltaic solar technology in Germany.

My problem with the article is twofold. First, it doesn’t offer any form of solution to the problem it raises. It is all very well to say that subsidies don’t work, but to then go on to say that “a demonstration of leadership would help burnish ‘Brand America’”. Where is that leadership to come from if there is a rejection of promoting clean technologies that are often initially unable to compete with established (and subsidised) ‘dirty technology’? Second, while I agree that we collectively made a huge mistake over biofuels (a mistake which hasn’t been realised by many of the public yet), that doesn’t mean that we should never entrust decisions over which technologies to support to decision-makers again. Instead of shutting down our promotion of environmentally sustainable tech., we should learn from our mistakes, and ensure that we make better decisions in future. The world is packed with scientists and policy experts who can help with this process.

So, sorry Economist, but your article seems to be contradictory and, from my view, wrong. I suppose that, at the very least, you accept that climate change is happening now, and something needs to be done.