Why Europe is Souring on Net Zero

Europe has made impressive progress on decarbonisation, reducing its emissions by 40% in 30 years. Despite this though, the enthusiasm for green energy is now waning.

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00:00 - Introduction
00:54 - Context
03:27 - Why Europe Takes the Green Transition More Seriously
04:52 - Why Europe is Less Keen on the Energy Transition Now
05:29 - Why the EU Has Soured on Green Energy
07:53 - Sponsored Content

[Jayjs]

How hard it is to NOT build a nuclear reactor near natural disaster zones? Like 99% of them never have any issues. We need more, not less.

[TheVesko]

Nuclear is not utopia - it is reality. It exists, it works and it's pretty amazing and safe. It is the future but it is expensive up front but worth it in the long run.

[rombaft]

Can I add that Europe has been strong in exporting it's CO2 emissions, not eliminating them. Manufacturing has been exported to other continents due to over regulating. People thinking we are emitting less CO2 per capita while we are eating more, traveling more and having ten times more stuff then in the 90's are delusional.

You can see this clearly in the China CO2 emissions btw, these are partly from manufacturing for the rest of the world/Europa

[Mhark]

Decarbonization by outsourcing production to other countries, 😂 very impressive indeed.

[dengist]

Outsourcing polluting industries to other parts of the world does not help with climate change.

[joncarter]

Net zero is impossible without either nuclear or fusion power. One is unobtainable with current tech and one has a very bad reputation because of accidents and waste. Europe wants it's cake and to eat it too and isn't willing to go nuclear, renewables aren't reliable enough so are falling back on fossil fuels.

[realmadridsi]

""While GDP is ticking up" forgot to mention 'at a significant lower rate than the US or China for over a decade, heavily falling behind.'

[anewman]

The Green Party got demolished from 12 seats to 1 in the election of last week here in Ireland, not so popular here now. They are a party that the voters felt added taxes to the populous.

[normanstewart]

5:56. You've got it the wrong way round. Economic growth in Europe is low BECAUSE of the energy transition, specifically because energy is so expensive here.

[briangasser]

So the EU/UK wont frack for natural gas due to emissions, but have no issue buying US LNG produced from fracking?

[PeterBondeVillain]

I don't think europeans are souring on green politics as much as it is now more concerned about geopolitical and inflation matters

[passenger]

Yeah… Green energy means being dependant on China and countries with resources needed to produce batteries…

[SkyTheHusky]

(7:05)
"For the coal mine, you have to constantly employ a whole load of minors."
- TLDR, 2024

[miguelsousa]

Good video summarizing it, but it does two grave mistakes:
1) Assuming Europe countries are being more anti-NetZero (they are not, they are just against the CURRENT NetZero plans)
2) mixing Nuclear power plant with Solar power plants, and calling them both expensive.

The anti-nuclear stance that certain countries in Europe hold (cough Germany, Austria, ...) made Europe not only more reliant on renewable energy sources, but also natural gas. Europe by itself is not a producer of natural gas, and yet countries supported it, to be point that, if some geopolitical problem occurs - Russia invading Ukraine, cutting natural gas exports - the continent gets into a huge energy crisis. Suddenly, your NetZero path cannot be complete, because you needed more cheap natural gas to go with renewables, while investing in batteries and hydrogen to replace gas. It's no easy task at all.
If said countries had embraced nuclear, Europe itself would have had better, cleaner and more affordable electricity. Because yes - while a nuclear power plant is an expensive project - it provides affordable electricity to everyone for decades. While renewable energy will always have electricity prices coupled with natural gas prices. And yet, so far, Europe was very very focused on just maximizing solar+wind at all costs. They even wanted France to pay €500 millions of a fine for "not installing enough renewables", despite France having one of the cleanest electricities in the continent via nuclear. It's non sense.

Europe still prioritizes NetZero and Energy Security - the countries are just not in agreement with the current Green deals pushing so many renewables, and completely ignoring nuclear and other environmental concerns. The continent needs more nuclear, and more and more countries are awakening for it.

[BernasLL]

Whoever is against nuclear, should be against humans living near volcanos, sysmic areas, or monsoon areas, or similar levels of risk / reward.

[yuvalne]

speaking of costs, you know what's more expensive than the green transition?
climate change. by a few orders of magnitude.

[sebas]

net zero using renewables is not possible without deindustrialisation. without industry, europe's GDP growth is stagnating, while reliance on other nations is increasing. Contrary to the US, Europe did not capitalize on the software boom, and now is losing out on the AI boom.
So if you don't have any competitive industry left, how do you expect to pay for the most expensive form of energy...

[andreasflicke]

The hope that the energy transition would pay out in the long run is WRONG. Germany has kind of the highest percentage of green energies in the world, but Germany has also the highest electricity prices around the world. Ideology doesn't pay out anytime.

[SubjectiveFunny]

They make BILLIONS on this transition.
They do not care how much it costs, they are not the people who will suffer.

[philipcarson]

The green economy is about as real as the emerald city.