Its draft Energy Plan<\/a>, a bloated 2025 tome hundreds of pages long, offers no roadmap, just vague aspirations.<\/p>\nAchieving net zero? Forget it. The state\u2019s own\u00a0plan\u00a0confesses that even $42 billion extra\u00a0won\u2019t\u00a0suffice, as green-energy\u00a0sources\u00a0require vast overbuilds, batteries that\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0scale affordably and backups that undermine the \u201cgreen\u201d label.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Self-interested supporters\u00a0and deluded green-energy boosters have long\u00a0peddled fantasies of dirt-cheap renewables, but real-world data tells a different story:\u00a0Germany\u2019s\u00a0Energiewende has doubled electricity prices with minimal emissions cuts, leading to the country\u2019s own\u00a0chancellor to declare that Germany is attempting the world\u2019s most expensive\u00a0energy\u00a0transition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s blackouts, meanwhile,\u00a0expose\u00a0solar\u2019s\u00a0frailty.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Globally, the best economic analysis shows going net zero costs far more than its climate benefits.<\/p>\n
The pain hits now\u00a0whereas\u00a0the benefits are diffuse and far into the future.<\/p>\n
In this century, such poor policies deliver less than 17 cents in benefits for every dollar spent.<\/p>\n
Of course,\u00a0emission\u00a0reductions by New York,\u00a0which emits less than 0.4% of global greenhouse gasses, will\u00a0have no measurable impact\u00a0on the planet\u2019s temperature.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But this\u00a0is\u00a0true\u00a0even\u00a0for the\u00a0entire\u00a0rich world \u2014 if it\u00a0actually went\u00a0net zero by 2050,\u00a0it\u00a0would still\u00a0cause only\u00a0a\u00a0miniscule\u00a0temperature reduction of less than 0.2\u00b0F by 2100.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is because\u00a0the vast majority of\u00a0emissions in the rest of the century will come from\u00a0places like\u00a0China, India,\u00a0Indonesia,\u00a0Brazil\u00a0and Africa, where\u00a0poverty reduction is a much more urgent challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The real solution to climate change will only come from making green energy truly cheaper and more efficient, through innovation.<\/p>\n
New York could use a part of its $42 billion to fund meaningful research into innovations like advanced nuclear, carbon capture, much cheaper batteries or geoengineering.<\/p>\n
Most of it could be put back in the pockets of taxpayers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But\u00a0the real problem for New Yorkers\u00a0is\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0no graceful exit.<\/p>\n
The court dismissed the\u00a0state\u2019s\u00a0pleas, insisting\u00a0it\u00a0must issue rules and let politicians handle the fallout.<\/p>\n
New York faces an impossible choice: ram through ruinous regulations that would trigger\u00a0economic exodus\u00a0and risk\u00a0blackouts, or\u00a0beg the Legislature for delays amid howls from\u00a0climate-fixated activists.<\/p>\n
None of this is unique to lawmakers in Albany. It is the green-energy trap repeated the world over.<\/p>\n
Politicians have chased the utopian vision of net zero with religious zeal, but when the bill arrives, voters revolt.<\/p>\n
Just look at Europe\u2019s carbon taxes that sparked yellow-vest riots and\u00a0stunning U-turns.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s predicament should be a wake-up call to abandon these mandates and redirect resources to citizens and high-impact green R&D.<\/p>\n
In the end, climate policy must pass a simple test: Does it deliver more good than harm?<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s legislation flunks spectacularly, wasting a fortune on virtue-signaling gestures.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus, visiting fellow at Stanford University\u2019s Hoover Institution and author of \u201cFalse Alarm\u201d and \u201cBest Things First.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An outspoken global actor\u00a0in the grand theater of climate policy, New York has long\u00a0insisted the transition\u00a0to\u00a0green\u00a0energy would be\u00a0cheap\u00a0and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53884,7443,7442,4762,16769,19475,9,24,55,54,56,299,2157,985],"class_list":["post-123398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-climate-change","tag-electricity","tag-energy","tag-germany","tag-green-energy","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-ny","tag-opinion","tag-renewable-energy","tag-taxpayers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}