With Oil This Cheap, Why Bother Going Green?
Plunging crude prices are bad news for the EU’s Green Deal. But the bloc could grab the chance to extend its emissions trading system to the oil industry.
Nothing Green in sight.
Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Three months ago, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, announced — to much fanfare — a “Green Deal” to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. Alas, a few things have happened since, including a pandemic and an oil shock. Together, these unforeseeable events cast doubt over the Green Deal just as it’s supposed to become legislation this year. The EU must ensure that the two new problems don’t exacerbate an even bigger one: climate change.
First the good news, such as it is. In the short term the coronavirus almost certainly reduces greenhouse gas emissions. The world’s biggest polluter, China, was the source of the outbreak and temporarily had to idle much of its industry. Many airlines are grounding their fleets, and people are also shunning other forms of travel as industry fairs and meetings are cancelled. Less kerosene and gasoline is being burned to carry people around, and less carbon dioxide is escaping into the air. But this reprieve is merely a one-off effect.