A Realist Pathway Through the Green Transition
With temperatures worldwide breaking records, there is an escalating sense of urgency that countries must make bigger, bolder and more enforceable commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
But it would be a terrible mistake to double down on the current “kitchen sink” approach of trying to do everything, everywhere, all at once because we can’t force a green transition with regulatory mandates, subsidies, and generalized moral pressure. That impulse isn’t wrong; it just won’t work.
As Robin Gaster and Rob Atkinson write for Inside Sources, the harsh reality is that until clean energy is as cheap and performs as well as dirty energy, the world will not adopt it at anything like the needed scale. So, governments must focus on developing clean energy sources at price and performance parity with dirty fuels — “P3.” Only then will governments, organizations and individuals rapidly switch to a new energy system.
