The largest US renewables developer has warned President Joe Biden not to impose more trade tariffs on Chinese clean energy technologies, saying it risks slowing the green transition.
Rebecca Kujawa, chief executive of NextEra Energy Resources, told the Financial Times that tariffs were raising costs for consumers and making it “more difficult” to accomplish the country’s clean energy goals.
“It adds to the level of uncertainty,” said Kujawa.
“Any uncertainties in the development process can definitely create higher costs for customers and make it more difficult to get some of the clean energy goals that the Biden administration has over the finish line.”
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@TrustingDemocratGreen2yrs2Y
Very sad to see that continually escalating a pointless trade war to provoke a new cold war is now politically more acceptable than environmental action, even among Democrats.
As someone that remembers the last cold war, I really don't want a new one, but there now seem to be very few political voices in the US or Europe that would agree with me. Are they so out of ideas for solving domestic issues, that they can only resort to distracting voters by ramping up pro-war rhetoric? Very dangerous.
@CrushedPorcupineVeteran2yrs2Y
Don't you see the world transitioning towards authoritarianism? The future generation will thank us if we can undermine a few clear cheer leaders of that transition at the expense of "Western green transition" (as opposed to global green transition)
@TrustingDemocratGreen2yrs2Y
Not really. I'd like to see more democracy, but much of the world had unfortunately always been either autocratic or only superficially democratic.
I am concerned about certain Western politicians with an authoritarian attitude that could well be a threat to existing democracies, and Biden's remarks about promoting democracy around the world clearly aren't sincere - the US has only ever supported democracy abroad when it aligned with their own interests. (E.g. consider Obama's reaction to the coup in Egypt a few years ago.)
Anyway, back on topic, a green transition will only happen if world leaders put aside such considerations and actually work together. That seemed to be happening, to some extent, a decade ago - but clearly any such cooperation is now evaporating in favour of warmongerin
@P0pulistCicadaDemocrat2yrs2Y
This is an analysis of energy policy and markets, limited in scope. It does include the obvious political issue that China, like Russia, is a dictatorship and wants to dominate the world politically and economically. Moreover, if China attempts to invade Taiwan (like Russia in Ukraine), then access to these cheap renewables will be gone, with no infrastructure set up in the West. That’s a liability. As shown in Ukraine, we cannot separate out the politics.
@VoterSophieRepublican2yrs2Y
There's no such thing as the "green transition". These so-called renewables require massive amounts of minerals, which have to be extracted using lots of equipment that runs on Diesel. Not to mention all the ecosystems that are going to be destroyed by coming extraction projects. There's even the question whether there are enough minerals in the first place...
Charging tariffs is a mockery of climate policy and a very bad deal for consumers.
Keep in mind the Dems with the implementation of NAFTHA and other trade globalization initiatives further encouraged outsourcing of manufacturing and jobs to the far east and elsewhere. That backfired because of the massive loss of manufacturing jobs and eventual shift of a big part of blue collar workers to the GOP/Trump. Joe is no trying to reverse the trend and get them back.
We have lost the battle against climate change and we have also lost the battle against China dominating the electric/digital age.
While those in Western states were arguing over whether oil or gas is more gay China, with an eye to the future and its energy independence, started cementing ties with suppliers of critical minerals and now dominates the entire renewable supply chain. It is leaping ahead of the west in research and without all those weird western ideas about data sovereignty and privacy has a huge stock of data to feed its renewable-powered AI super computers.
I’m annoyed that future generations will lump us all together as negligent and selfish non-actors in the same way I curse all boomers every time I have to pay rent.
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
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