An Inflationary Quagmire of US and EU Climate Change Hypocrisy – Mish Talk

The Wall Street Journal squarely hits the nail with its assessment: The U.S. and its allies undermine their own interests with little environmental payoff.

Please consider The Quagmire of Climate-Change Diplomacy

That’s a copy-free link with a few snips below.

The president took office vowing to make Saudi Arabia a pariah nation and to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. After a brief fist-bumping détente last summer, he is back on the attack because the Saudis don’t want to produce as much oil as he wants. Meanwhile, even as it prays for a global energy transition, the administration is scouring the world for new sources of carbon-spewing fossil fuels, relaxing sanctions enforcement against the murdering mullahs in Tehran and looking to steer new revenue into the coffers of the crime lords of Caracas.

Mr. Biden isn’t the only one sending mixed climate messages. Across the European Union, frantic ministers are reopening coal plants, subsidizing the price of fossil fuels to consumers and otherwise doing everything to heave as much carbon into the atmosphere this winter as they possibly can. Leaders across Europe have adapted St. Augustine’s famous prayer for chastity: Please, Lord, make me green, but not yet.

 Integrating climate policy into international diplomacy is hard. Take Mr. Biden’s frustration with Saudi Arabia. The old U.S.-Saudi partnership was not based only on security. When it came to oil prices, the Saudis were traditionally among the less hawkish members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. With more than a century of reserves in the ground, the Saudis cared about the long-term health of the oil market. They feared that aggressive pricing would encourage customers to find substitutes for oil and undermine producers in the long run.

The Biden administration’s embrace of a rapid shift from fossil fuels changes calculations in Riyadh. If the oil market is going to dry up by 2050, the Saudis turn into price hawks, wanting the highest possible price for the limited amount of oil they will be able to sell. And if the American president is leading the charge to kill the world oil market, there is not much reason for the Saudis to help him out of a political jam.

Even when idealism appears to succeed, as when America’s Frank B. Kellogg and France’s Aristide Briand negotiated their 1928 treaty outlawing war forever, the stubborn realities of international politics intrude. The Kellogg-Briand Pact is still technically in force but wars rage on.