Is Nuclear Power "Green"? The EU Shouldn't Be the One Deciding
Classifying energy should be left to capital markets, not government bureaucrats.
Could this be green?
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Green finance, green banking, green investing — in a time of climate change, the capital markets obviously want to assist in the necessary transformation of our economies. Unfortunately, the state is increasingly interfering in these markets in a way that will prove counterproductive because it falls into the same mental trap that once ensnared the Soviet Union’s central planners.
The problem has to do with definitions, and who does the defining. What exactly counts as “green” (as opposed to brown, presumably)? If this assessment is left to decentralized markets, they’ll have a good chance of allocating capital efficiently. If it’s left to bureaucrats, capital will be wasted, hindering rather than helping our efforts against global warming.