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"Green Inflation": Niall Ferguson pushes back against Davos' renewable energy narrative

"The world continues to need hydrocarbons and reducing their supply is just a recipe for prices to rise. That is not politically sustainable in democracies."

Niall Ferguson

Fronteiras do Pensamento/ Flickr

Published by
Verónica Silveri Pazos

Historian Niall Ferguson claimed that the World Economic Forum's renewable energy transition plans have only led to "green inflation" and have failed, as have most of the centrally planned initiatives of elites in the U.S. or Europe:

It's a little bit like economic planning through the ages if the US governments or of that matter the European Union mandates a transition to so-called renewables without thinking through the unintended consequences of that kind of central planning you get what we've seen in the last two years you could call it green inflation.

In an interview for True North, Ferguson criticized the narrative imposed by global elites and pointed out that in democracies "it is not politically sustainable" to eliminate or raise the price of hydrocarbons, as they are still necessary for the world to continue functioning:

In practice, putting a price on carbon is not something that consumers were ready for so even before (...) the world continues to need hydrocarbons and cutting down the supply of hydrocarbons is just a recipe for higher energy prices that's not politically sustainable in democracies.

"The problem is still China"

The writer said that one of the solutions the global warming problem is technological innovation. He claimed that fears of a climate catastrophe are being created by people in Davos who are trying to make people believe that the world is ending:

Well I think the solutions to the problem of climate change of global warming which I certainly don't deny will come from technological innovation that's made solar so more efficient in the last decade.
The idea that central governments offer that matter a world government of some people at Davos (...) I think is at odds with historical experience. So my sense is that fears of a climate catastrophe today (...) are the kind of nightmares of the end of the world that technocrats educated elites are often drawn towards.

Finally, Ferguson stated that until China fulfills "its commitments" to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, there will be no improvement in the climate change situation:

The big problem is still china if you look at all the increase in carbon dioxide emissions since Greta Thunberg was borne about two-thirds is china and about 85 percent of the increase in coal consumption and nobody here ever has and answer to the question of how do you constrain china how do you make china honor its pledges until there's a good answer to that's question that's clearly not going to be a reduction in global warming.
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