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| These Tiffs Over Electric Vehicles Are Not What They Seem | These Tiffs Over Electric Vehicles Are Not What They Seem |
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| There is something ironic, almost poignant, about Europe’s furious response to the Biden administration’s flagship climate law. For the past six or seven years, European officials have spoken regularly about how a climate-friendly economy was the future. “I am convinced that the old growth model that is based on fossil fuels and pollution is out of date,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, declared in 2019. It was time to embrace a “new growth strategy,” she said, one as much about “cutting emissions” as “about creating jobs and boosting innovation.” | There is something ironic, almost poignant, about Europe’s furious response to the Biden administration’s flagship climate law. For the past six or seven years, European officials have spoken regularly about how a climate-friendly economy was the future. “I am convinced that the old growth model that is based on fossil fuels and pollution is out of date,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, declared in 2019. It was time to embrace a “new growth strategy,” she said, one as much about “cutting emissions” as “about creating jobs and boosting innovation.” |
| That’s exactly what the Inflation Reduction Act is designed to do. But since President Biden signed it into law last August, European leaders have called it a “super aggressive” protectionist affront to global cooperation on climate change. The law invests at least $370 billion to conjure new American industries in hydrogen, solar panels and zero-carbon aviation fuels. And one of its most important subsidies — a tax credit of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles — can be applied only to E.V.s assembled on this continent with mostly American-made batteries using minerals from the United States or one of its free-trade partners. | That’s exactly what the Inflation Reduction Act is designed to do. But since President Biden signed it into law last August, European leaders have called it a “super aggressive” protectionist affront to global cooperation on climate change. The law invests at least $370 billion to conjure new American industries in hydrogen, solar panels and zero-carbon aviation fuels. And one of its most important subsidies — a tax credit of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles — can be applied only to E.V.s assembled on this continent with mostly American-made batteries using minerals from the United States or one of its free-trade partners. |
| That kind of protectionism is the opposite of how experts have historically imagined the battle against climate change. Even calling it a battle reflects our hope that climate change will require a final showdown in which all of humanity clasps hands and annihilates fossil fuel use forever. But there’s now reason to think that certain kinds of competition — not cooperation — might be inherent to solving the climate problem itself: that all else being equal, fighting climate change might lead to more protectionism, more economic tension, more trade wars. | That kind of protectionism is the opposite of how experts have historically imagined the battle against climate change. Even calling it a battle reflects our hope that climate change will require a final showdown in which all of humanity clasps hands and annihilates fossil fuel use forever. But there’s now reason to think that certain kinds of competition — not cooperation — might be inherent to solving the climate problem itself: that all else being equal, fighting climate change might lead to more protectionism, more economic tension, more trade wars. |
| For nearly half a century, scholars have grasped that a stable, habitable climate is a public commons — perhaps the biggest, gnarliest, most important commons that humanity has ever had to manage. At the same time, however, economists saw that fossil fuel consumption — and thus carbon emissions — have strongly correlated with economic growth. So countries in climate negotiations had to make a terrible choice: They could “cooperate,” and work with their neighbors to lower emissions; or they could free-ride on their neighbors’ emissions cuts to opportunistically grow their economies. | For nearly half a century, scholars have grasped that a stable, habitable climate is a public commons — perhaps the biggest, gnarliest, most important commons that humanity has ever had to manage. At the same time, however, economists saw that fossil fuel consumption — and thus carbon emissions — have strongly correlated with economic growth. So countries in climate negotiations had to make a terrible choice: They could “cooperate,” and work with their neighbors to lower emissions; or they could free-ride on their neighbors’ emissions cuts to opportunistically grow their economies. |