www.thefp.com How Reality Destroyed Europe’s Green Energy Dreams Bjorn Lomborg 9 - 11 minutes

How Reality Destroyed Europe’s Green Energy Dreams

Just a few years ago, European economies were united in pushing for green energy at any cost—what changed?

Climate change is just one concern among many pressing issues facing the continent. (Illustration by The Free Press; images via Getty)

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The winds of change are howling across Europe, and they’re not powered by turbines. In recent months, the once-unshakable European consensus in favor of aggressive net-zero climate policies has fractured under the weight of skyrocketing energy costs and economic reality. With the war in Iran driving up oil and natural gas prices, the pressure on Europe is now even higher.

Rewind to 2017, when French president Emmanuel Macron proudly declared, “If in the years ahead, we don’t have a significant price of carbon per ton to allow for a profound change in our economies, then it would be worthless.”

The “years ahead” have arrived, and President Macron has faltered in the face of pragmatic concerns about affordability and competitiveness. At a pivotal EU leaders’ summit in Belgium last month, he stunned observers by suggesting the bloc’s carbon price should be halved, blaming speculation for inflating costs beyond reason.

Make no mistake: When even the French president waves the white flag on ambitious climate action, it marks a real and unignorable turning point. This is a clear admission that Europe’s obsession with high-cost green policies has become unsustainable.

Macron’s call came amid a chorus of complaints from heavy industries battered by the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS), the 20-year-old cap-and-trade mechanism that’s central to Europe’s climate policies. Along with policies that punish industry, the system has helped drive carbon prices to the world’s highest levels. German chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged the ETS needs to be revised (although subsequently softened his view). Italy has pushed to suspend the market until it can be overhauled. And leaders from multiple European bloc countries have expressed myriad concerns, with Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš saying that ETS allowances are “destroying” his country’s industry.

The implosion of support for green mandates is a stark reminder that well-meaning net-zero policies pursued without ruthless cost-benefit scrutiny invite backlash and failure.

The Dutch politician who chaired the EU leaders’ summit explained the souring on the ETS by saying, “We see our heavy industry struggling. We don’t want them to simply relocate to produce elsewhere.” This meltdown is the culmination of a growing, broader revolt against climate and environmental policies. The EU has already rolled back key Green Deal elements, including sustainability requirements for businesses via a February 2025 omnibus law. Even the staunchest climate leaders are changing tack: Denmark is considering extending oil and gas drilling in the North Sea. Across the bloc, farmer protests and deregulation fever have forced retreats on some green regulations.

Even the EU’s 2040 climate target was watered down in a last-minute deal at the COP30 climate conference last November, with countries like Poland and Hungary balking at industrial hits.

The political fallout is unmistakable. Across Europe, radical, right-wing parties are surging, typically framing “elitist” green burdens as economic suicide. There are visible losers from green policies—in agriculture, industry, and energy-intensive sectors—who have already fueled a backlash against climate action. Across the EU, a 2026 study showed that voters who prioritize economic growth over climate policy are significantly more likely to vote for Euroskeptic parties. The European Greens suffered major losses in recent elections, and even EU president Ursula von der Leyen’s European People’s Party has criticized green regulatory burdens.

This is not surprising, as Europeans are increasingly recognizing that climate change is just one concern among many pressing issues facing the continent. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now well into its fourth year, has triggered the largest land war on the continent since World War II. European nations are scrambling to bolster defenses, with calls to dramatically increase military spending—potentially requiring many additional hundreds of billions annually to reach credible deterrence levels. At the same time, Europe’s own climate policies impose substantial economic burdens, with annual direct costs that in one Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis approach €400 billion, excluding broader drags on growth and global competitiveness. These expenses highlight the trade-offs that, previously, many European governments pretended did not exist.

Stagnant or sluggish economic growth persists as a chronic problem, exacerbated by high energy costs, regulatory burdens, and demographic pressures, limiting prosperity and the ability to fund public services or innovation. Pensions and aging populations pose a looming fiscal crisis, with pay-as-you-go systems strained by longer life spans, lower birth rates, and insufficient reforms, threatening unsustainable debt burdens on future generations. Lack of constraints on immigration and integration failures have fueled social tensions, security concerns, and political polarization, ranking high in recent surveys alongside irregular migration flows as a top worry for many citizens.

These overlapping crises and concerns explain why the EU’s once near-obsessive focus on climate has receded so precipitously—Europeans now demand balanced attention to a full spectrum of threats that directly impact security, prosperity, and their daily life—the world is becoming scarier, while more costs are coming into focus.

American states pushing aggressive mandates. . . should heed Europe’s lesson: Voters won’t tolerate economic pain for negligible climate gain.

These are all obvious reasons why the EU focus on climate has declined precipitously. In 2019, just before Covid hit, climate change had become the leading concern for EU citizens. In spring of that year, according to a twice-yearly survey conducted since 2010, a stunning 35 percent of the population put climate change as one of the two top issues for the EU, higher than any other topic, even immigration. Then reality set in, and from being a primary concern for about one-fourth of the electorate, climate change was down in 2025 to being top of mind for less than one in 10 (see graphic).

The European bloc’s retreat echoes global trends: Australia’s Liberals ditched their 2050 net-zero pledge and instead are prioritizing lower energy prices; Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, prioritizes nuclear revival for security over aggressive renewables.

Nowhere is this unraveling more evident than in the United Kingdom, where the net-zero pipe dream has turned into a nightmare of unaffordable energy bills. Since climate policies ramped up in 2003, UK electricity prices have soared 140 percent in real terms, now nearly triple those in the U.S. The Labour government’s renewables push is only exacerbating the pain: Energy executives testified that even if wholesale prices were to plummet to zero, consumer bills would remain just as high as today due to escalating policy-driven expenses.

Public outrage has shattered the cross-party consensus, with the Conservatives pledging to scrap the 2050 net-zero target amid abysmal polling. Even the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change—hardly a hotbed of climate skepticism—has declared the UK’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan unfit for purpose in a bombshell February 2026 report. Citing exploding demand from AI data centers and electrification, and acknowledging dismal clean-power economics, the institute calls for a radical reset. The new mantra? Cheaper Power 2030. Its recommendations include suspending carbon taxes on gas to slash energy prices.

The implosion of support for green mandates is a stark reminder that well-meaning net-zero policies pursued without ruthless cost-benefit scrutiny invite backlash and failure. They challenge the argument that your country can be both prosperous and have low emissions.

The hard truth is that rich-world emissions cuts, even to zero by mid-century, would avert just 0.2°F of warming by 2100 per United Nations models. Meanwhile, emerging economies like China and India accounted for 87 percent of new global coal power additions in the first half of 2025—a major driver of future emissions.

President Donald Trump’s second term, with its dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act and focus on fossil-fuel independence, isn’t a global outlier. Countries outside the West have no problems pursuing energy abundance—while China is pushing its green credentials with solar panels and wind turbines, around 80 percent of its energy (not just electricity) still comes from fossil fuels.

American states pushing aggressive mandates, from California’s vehicle emissions rules to New York’s fracking bans, should heed Europe’s lesson: Voters won’t tolerate economic pain for negligible climate gain.

The silver lining is that this consensus collapse opens the door to smarter climate action. Obsessing over expensive, low-impact policies diverts resources from real solutions like R&D into breakthrough technologies, adaptation and greater energy access for vulnerable nations, and boosting resilience and welfare in the poorest countries. Europe’s green unraveling is a reminder that climate policy should meet the needs of people, not the other way around.