It is disingenuous for EU climate chief Frans Timmermans to accuse Green Deal critics of dragging the subject into “culture wars” to distract from the pro-renewable ‘facts,’ an energy innovation forecaster has explained. James Woudhuysen told The European Conservative that climate policy has “always” rested in this territory, with Brussels intent on “confirm[ing] who’s boss.”
Mr. Timmermans said this week, as reported here, that shifting the climate discussion in the direction of “culture wars” helps those sceptical of the benefits drawn from renewable-reliant systems because “once you get into a tribal opposition, then facts don’t matter anymore.”
This would appear to suggest that criticism of the Green Deal, the first of the Commission’s ‘legislative priorities’ for 2023 and 2024, is not and could not be based on evidence. For instance, that it cannot be said the EU’s Nature Restoration Law, a key part of the Green Deal, might actually harm European farmers and the bloc’s food security; or that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is wrong to dismiss nuclear power as “strategic,” thus stripping it of “access to the full advantages and benefits.”
The reality, as Mr. Woudhuysen sees it, is that Brussels is itself attempting to keep climate discussion in “culture wars” territory in order to stifle debate. He said:
Nobody is drawing that climate policy into the culture wars. It has always been part of the culture wars. In the hands of Brussels and governments, Left and Right, sustainability is a plan to create panic, immiserate the masses and confirm who’s boss.
Mr. Timmermans has been part of the thoroughly tribal EU bureaucracy for years. And in EU energy policy, facts have never mattered.
His complaint is a threat about reprisals to come.
Campaign group Net Zero Watch also responded that “climate fanatics will do anything to paint legitimate opposition and criticisms as part of the ‘culture wars.’”
At an event hosted by MCC Brussels in May, Mr. Woudhuysen outlined what he sees as the European Union’s single-minded yet contradictory approach to energy supply. One which, as an example, turns its nose up at nuclear and yet does not spend enough on researching renewable alternatives.
The bloc, he said, spends “very very little” on research and development because officials are “not very interested in long-term development.” The forecaster drew a comparison with China, which has spent more in recent years on “cleaning up its energy system” than America and the EU combined.
Mr. Woudhuysen concluded that “what we need is more strategy—more for the long-term—to win the war on energy” rather than a “single-minded focus on net zero.”
