The Green Paradox – Ifo President presents new book; Climate problem cannot be solved by states with Green policies going it alone

With his new book, Das grüne Paradoxon – Plädoyer für eine illusionsfreie Klimapolitik (the Green paradox – an argument for climate policies free of illusions), Ifo President Hans-Werner Sinn reveals the paradoxes of German environmental policies. In his opinion the climate problem cannot be solved by states with Green policies going it alone.

Hans-Werner Sinn is President of Ifo Institute for Economic Research and Professor of Economics and Public Finance, University of Munich since 1984.

“These policies are doomed to fail if global economic connections are neglected”, Sinn explains. For this reason a re-thinking is called for. The various Green laws in Germany – the eco tax, the obligatory ratios for bio-fuel and the promotion of renewable energy – must give way to a comprehensive, worldwide trading system for emission certificates. Countries acting on their own can achieve nothing. “If we wish to leave a live-able earth to coming generations we cannot avoid tackling the problem on an international scale”, Sinn says.

Germany has the most wind turbines, the most solar cells and the most bio-diesel in the world, but this will not save the climate.

Even if Germany’s power requirements could be covered by wind energy and solar cells, this would not mean one ton less of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The European CO₂ output is fixed by the international emissions trade. What one country saves in CO₂, another country consumes. In addition, the use of bio-fuel is having fatal repercussions on a global scale: When energy plants land in our tanks instead of on our plates this may sooth our green conscience, but food will become so scarce and expensive that worldwide famine will break out.

“German environmental policies are based on an illusion", Sinn remarks. This illusion consists in our thinking that we can lower the worldwide supply of oil and natural gas by reducing emissions and decreasing demand. But what if those who own the resources don’t play along, Sinn asks.