TADEAS:
Europe drove decarbonization of power supply but did not drive electrification. They're on the top left-hand side above the Americans, but not on the top right-hand side where the Chinese are to be found.
- The Germans and Italians shut down nuclear as an essential part of their politics of green modernization, but they agonizingly extended the protection for the coal sectors.
- They created a market for power supply through feed-in tariffs, then surrendered that market to the Chinese, and then slapped on protectionism anyway.
- They introduced the carbon pricing mechanism but took almost fifteen years to make it work. It now does work—carbon prices in Europe are at very significant levels, sometimes above one hundred euros per ton—but they were unprepared for the shock of delivering that particular price signal.
- Rather than focusing on new energy models, European politics and interest groups converged on the diesel, and the European car industry was milked as a source of dividends for its oligarchic investors. And they now complain about Chinese competition and demand protectionism.
- The Europeans were clearly at odds with both Russia and the US, and yet did nothing to develop strategic autonomy with regard to either of them.
On the left-hand side, the ramp-up you see: the formation period of this new synthesis of green governance in Europe through to the maximum level of investment in 2011 at $131 billion. And then you see, in the wake of the Eurozone crisis—which of course dramatically affected southern Europe, where unsurprisingly the investment in solar was particularly dramatic—as that crisis hits under the sign of austerity, the European push collapses. And this is the moment of China's overtaking.