Here’s the most important fact about the Green New
Deal: it wouldn’t work.
Ultimately, fully implementing the Green New Deal
would have no meaningful impact on global temperatures.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed
Markey, D-Mass., released their much-anticipated blueprint for a Green New Deal
Thursday.
And make no mistake: if implemented, the Green New
Deal would bring huge changes to our country. According to an FAQ
put out by Ocasio-Cortez’s office, this New Deal is “a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society
at a scale not seen since World War 2 to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas
emissions.”
The plan additionally asks Americans
to “upgrade or replace every building in U.S. for state-of-the-art energy
efficiency” and to “build out highspeed rail at a scale where air travel stops
becoming necessary.”
That’s not even all. Far
from being just an energy and climate resolution, the Green New Deal resolution
is a wish list for big government spending, expansive government control and
massive amounts of wealth distribution. As Ocasio-Cortez
told NPR, “the heart of the Green New Deal is about social justice.”
Ultimately, this deal would fundamentally change how
people produce and consume energy, harvest crops, raise livestock, build homes,
drive cars, travel long distances and manufacture goods. And it wouldn’t even work.
Green
New Deal Wouldn’t Change Climate Significantly
But here’s the key thing: even if Americans were on
board with this radical change in behavior and lifestyle, it wouldn’t change
our climate.
In
fact, the U.S. could cut its carbon dioxide emissions 100
percent and it would not make a difference in abating global warming.
Using
the same climate sensitivity (the warming effect of a doubling of carbon
dioxide emissions) as the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumes
in its modeling, the world would only
be 0.137 degree C cooler by 2100. Even if we assumed
every other industrialized country would be equally on board, this would merely
avert warming by 0.278 degree C by the turn of the
century.
One
of the biggest sources of carbon dioxide emissions is developing countries.
But
while one of the priorities of the Green New Deal is to make the U.S. a lead
exporter in green technologies, assuming developing countries will forgo cheap
abundant carbon-dioxide-emitting energy for more expensive intermittent sources
is pure fantasy.
Yes,
developing countries will likely expand their use of renewable power sources
over time, but not to the extent it will have any meaningful impact on global
temperatures. While some countries are shuttering their coal-fired plants,
others in both developed and developing countries are building new plants and
new plants and expanding the life of existing generators.
After
all, affordable, reliable, and widely available energy is essential to lifting
people out of poverty and improving the life, health and comfort of people
trying to reach a better standard of living.
Americans
Could Face Hundreds of Dollars in New Energy Costs Monthly
But not only would the Green New Deal be ineffective,
it would also almost certainly impose steep costs on Americans, via increased
energy bills.
The resolution calls for deriving 100
percent of America’s electricity from “clean, renewable, and zero-emission”
energy sources—a steep increase from the 63 percent of electricity that came from carbon
dioxide-emitting conventional fuels in 2017. Nuclear power, was responsible for
another 20 percent. But, according to
the FAQ sheet, “The Green New Deal makes new fossil fuel
infrastructure or nuclear plants unnecessary. This is a massive mobilization of
all our resources into renewable energies.”
The proposal also calls for eliminating greenhouse gas
emissions from transportation and other infrastructure as much as
technologically feasible. Yet, as recently as 2017, petroleum accounted for 92
percent of America’s transportation fuel..
To achieve
these targets, the resolution proposes a massive government spending program in addition to carbon dioxide taxes,
subsidies, and regulation. How are
Americans going to pay for it?
Don’t worry,
the
FAQ answers that one: “We will finance the investments for the Green
New Deal the same way we paid for the original New Deal, World War II, the bank
bailouts, tax cuts for the rich, and decades of war – with public money
appropriated by Congress. Further, government can take an equity stake in Green
New Deal projects so the public gets a return on its investment.”
Credibly estimating the cost of the Green New Deal for
American taxpayers, households and businesses is exceedingly difficult. Even projecting the cost of switching to 100
percent renewable power for electricity relies on a set of largely unknowable
assumptions. How companies would make
largescale investments to meet the mandate and how intermittent power sources
would receive backup power is mostly a guessing game. Technological challenges
aside, the
upfront capital costs would reach trillions of dollars. Trillions of
dollars of energy existing assets (coal, nuclear, natural gas plants, etc.)
would be stranded and lost.
In effect, the result would be households potentially
paying hundreds
of dollars more per month in their electricity bill.
Green
New Deal Could Lead to Millions of Lost Jobs
Even more concerning, the direct impact from higher
energy costs is just a small part of the story. Energy is a necessary input
for nearly all of the goods and services consumers buy. Consequently, Americans
will pay more for food, healthcare, education, clothes and every other good or
service that requires energy to make and transport.
In
fact, Heritage Foundation economists used the Heritage Energy Model, a
derivative of the Energy Information Administration’s National Energy Modeling
System to model the economic impacts of a carbon tax, which Green New Deal
advocates admit would only be one tiny fraction of the entire plan. Each carbon
tax analysis found an average shortfall of hundreds of thousands of jobs with
peak year unemployment reaching over one million jobs lost
and half the job losses coming in energy-intensive manufacturing industries.
Over
a twenty-year period, the total income loss would be tens of thousands of
dollars and the aggregate gross domestic product loss would be over $2.5
trillion dollars. If policymakers spent,
taxed and regulated to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions for America’s
transportation, agricultural and industrial sectors, the costs would be several
orders of magnitude higher.
Importantly, Americans have little appetite to pay such costs. In fact, a recent Associated Press poll found that 68 percent of Americans oppose paying an additional $10 per month to fight climate change. The protests in France are quite indicative of how people feel about costly climate policies.
The Broad Scope of
the Green New Deal
Furthermore, the Green New Deal would affect a lot
more than energy. Guaranteeing
high quality health care, education and a job with a family-sustaining wage are
all part of this new deal. And don’t forget the egregious amount of spending that
would result in energy cronyism and corporate welfare on steroids—essentially,
taxpayer dollars from hardworking families going to line the pockets of companies
like Tesla and Solyndra.
Don’t worry, though.
These Green New Deal proponents do admit they can’t quite get everything
done in 10 years. According to the FAQ
sheet “We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10
years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting
cows and airplanes that fast, but we think we can ramp up renewable
manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build
the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees
and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero.”
Moderation itself.
In the end, this massive
government-planned, taxpayer-funded plan is a raw deal for Americans– and a
totally ineffective climate policy.
The post Green New Deal Would Barely Change Earth’s Temperature. Here Are the Facts. appeared first on The Daily Signal.
via The Daily Signal
Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.dailysignal.com/
