Wednesday, December 21, 2022

News Headlines - 20 December 2022

Deutsche Bank: “A Certain Degree of Eco-Dictatorship Will Be Necessary”

20 December 2022 3:45 PM

Izabella Kaminska, formerly the Editor of the FT’s Alphaville and now the Editor of the Blind Spot, has flagged up an alarming passage in a document published in January 2021 by Deutsche Bank Research entitled ‘What we must do to Rebuild’. Eric Heyman has written the section about the tough choices the EU must face it if’s to meet its goal of achieving ‘climate neutrality’ by 2050 – Net Zero, in other words – and says the following:

The impact of the current climate policy on people’s everyday lives is still quite abstract and acceptable for many households. Climate policy comes in the form of higher taxes and fees on energy, which make heating and mobility more expensive. Some countries have set minimum energy efficiency standards for buildings or similar rules in other areas. However, climate policy does not determine our lives. We take key consumption decisions, for example whether we travel at all, how much we travel and which means of transport we use, whether we live in a large house or a small apartment and how we heat our homes, how many electronic devices we have and how intensely we use them or how much meat and exotic fruit we eat. These decisions tend to be made on the basis of our income, not on climate considerations.

If we really want to achieve climate neutrality, we need to change our behaviour in all these areas of life.  ...  Continue reading >>>