A sudden large increase in natural-gas prices fueled greater demand for coal, the dirtiest of fossil (化石) fuels, but in turn, it led consumers to use energy more efficiently, and more significantly, encouraged investment in green transition (过渡;转变) around the world. As a happy consequence, the transition may have accelerated by five to ten years. Yet the remarkable thing is that it could have proceeded faster, if globally governments hadn't begun to weaken motivating policies for people to invest. Sharpening them again will be vital, as with today's development, the world is unlikely to reach net zero carbon emissions (零碳排放) by 2050.
One problem is obtaining permits. Endless delays stop firms from investing, which has long been a hurdle to new green projects. what's worse, some places are going backwards. On February 6th, Denmark, a star in the industry, stopped processing all applications for such projects, after a sudden realization that it may violate EU law.
The bigger problem is that some providers are now rethinking their investments altogether, because energy projects are becoming less attractive, due to price ceilings and various taxes, together with rising costs. Globally, governments are keen to keep power prices low today—so low that providers will struggle to make money, which may lead them to sell energy illegally, making it riskier and less appealing to investors. Between January 2021 and April 2022 slow transportation and war-caused interruption together increased the prices of everything from shipping to industrial metals, thus raising the prices of solar modules (组件;模块). Higher interest rates are another headache for builders of green plants, who are much hungrier for capital than their fossil-fuel-fired fellows.
All this means that, if investing is to stay attractive, green power will need to be sold at higher prices than governments would like. If the energy transition is to happen fast, there must not be a race to the bottom.
