The Economist: Welcome to the Green Blob

By Richard Black, ECIU Director

The Economistcan be a confusing publication.

Calls itself a newspaper, but comes out only weekly and consists largely of analyses compiled from facts already in the public domain? What’s that about? And what's with those blank bylines?

But sometimes, it puts out a set of articles that reminds you why it matters – why it is that even in the internet-wired, Project Syndicate age, sober readers on both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the left-right divide still turn to it for a definitive, thoroughly researched, state-of-the-art digest of a given field.

Last week’s look at energy is one such example. If you haven’t read it, make it your first job this week; if you don’t subscribe, beg or borrow a copy from a friend.

Summarising the ingredients of such a comprehensive offering is a tall order, but it goes something like this:

• The low oil price gives governments an opportunity to do something they badly need to do, namely to reform energy policies and subsidies; and they should seize the day
• The first to go should be the $550bn that governments spend per year on subsidising fossil fuels
• Energy economics are changing fast, with prices of renewables, especially solar, tumbling and already cost-competitive in some applications
• Compatible technologies such as electricity storage are progressing quickly
• Governments should make more use of energy efficiency (the 'invisible fuel'), smart management of demand (‘negawatts’) and electricity interconnectors, which offer cheap, secure, low-carbon options
• For many countries, local generation is going to make the traditional power utility model redundant, and is the best option for poor tropical nations
• Utilities and fossil-fuel companies that fail to adjust are turkeys.

Now, here’s the interesting bit. Virtually every conclusion that The Economist reaches has previously been made copiously inside what Owen Paterson MP (or was it Matt Ridley?) christened the ‘Green Blob’.

Reforming fossil fuel subsidies is a refrain of countless reports from NGOs such as Oil Change International, (as well, it must be said, by governments in such fora as the Rio+20 summit). Even the World Bank recently argued that oil subsidies should be cut.

The potential of energy efficiency, interconnectors and demand response to solve the energy ‘trilemma’ of security, low emissions and low price, and their compatibility with solar and wind power, is marked by Green Alliance, Sustainability First, Greenpeace, WWF… a veritable who's-who of the Green Blob.

Ungreen shoots

There are a few exceptions to unabashed greenery in The Economist's digest.

It argues for abolition of all subsidies, including for renewables – and its failure to acknowledge the part that consistent support for solar has played in the currently plummeting price is one of the edition’s few logical flaws.

Its discussion of Germany’s nuclear phaseout ignores (with wearying familiarity) the fact that this is what Germans want, as though strictly economic concerns must always trump democracy.

But overall, this is a remarkable piece of coverage. To see The Economist reaching broadly the same conclusions as green groups, green-tinged academics and progressive think-tanks is an extraordinary validation of their work on energy and climate over decades.

Raising the stakes

And, as the best journalism always should, it raises the stakes for everyone else.