02-09-2023, 12:07 AM
Quote:All of this squabbling suggests that many world leaders now see the energy transition as not only inevitable but lucrative—a source of prosperity and jobs. This “race to the top” approach to tackling climate change is new, according to Jessie Jenkins, an energy-policy researcher at Princeton. “For decades, the climate challenge has been framed as a collective-action problem,” he told me, “a tragedy of the commons that demanded shared sacrifice.”
Now, instead of requiring sacrifice, fixing the climate is seen as having “significant economic, security, and geostrategic benefits.” Global investment in decarbonization surpassed $1 trillion in 2022—on par, for the first time, with investments in fossil fuels. For longtime observers of international climate policy, the shift feels seismic. Watching countries jockey for position in industries that were once considered niche sideshows is “thrilling,” Alice Hill, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me. Europe Has Green-Energy FOMO