Margaret Thatcher famously observed that socialism as a political project would ultimately fail simply because “eventually you run out of other people's money.” The enduring wisdom of the Iron Lady’s dictum was well illustrated by the recently concluded COP 29 World Climate Conference in Azerbaijan.
It began in disunity and ended in futility, owing to the now self-evident absurdity of the conference’s central premise: that the rich countries of the West should willingly donate trillions of dollars to the poor countries of the Global South in return for their commitment to the crusade against fossil fuels.
Given that the left-leaning (i.e. socialist) elites of the West long ago embraced the idea that climate change was the greatest threat to the planet and that dealing with this existential danger should be the highest priority for public policy—while artfully ignoring the long-term fiscal implications of these beliefs—it is not surprising that there would be widespread expressions of shock and dismay when the Green Agenda finally hit a wall called reality.
One who clearly foresaw that reality was President Barack Obama, who in a moment of memorable candor in 2013 stated that the enactment of the Green Agenda would “send electricity prices through the roof.” That prediction has now come to pass, and its effect is a principal driver of the runaway inflation that has dramatically impacted elections throughout the Western world.
In an insightful Wall Street Journal column (11/21/24)—"They Wouldn't Know Inflation if it Bit Them in the Ballot”—Joseph Sternberg described the condition of denial afflicting Democrat economists who claim that Bidenomics in general and inflation in particular had almost nothing to do with their party’s resounding defeat in November when in fact "the policy disaster that this crew must argue around is unprecedented spending,” which was the ultimate cause of the economic anguish that led millions of heretofore Democratic voters to propel a new Republican ascendancy.
Compounding the damage done by profligate spending was the ideologically driven “war on fossil fuels” which aimed at the complete elimination of the existing energy industry—the centerpiece of the American economy and provider of millions of well-paying jobs—and its replacement by a transformative system based on renewable energy (e.g. wind, solar) electric vehicles and undefined “green jobs,” which thoughtful economists predicted would result in soaring prices not just of electricity but virtually everything else.
These dilemmas should have been foreseen if America’s green advocates had examined Europe's lamentable experiences with renewable energy. In 2007 Spain's Socialist government made an all-out commitment to solar energy, but subsequently had to reverse course when the project became as described by the country's leading newspaper “a neoliberal nightmare” that bankrupted nearly 100,000 families owing to spectacularly bad government planning and management.
Similarly, in Germany, as reported by the Center for Energy Studies, “slow permitting processes, bureaucratic hurdles, a lack of skilled labor, inadequate grid infrastructure, and the premature phase-out of nuclear power” actually led to “increased reliance on fossil fuels and higher energy costs for consumers,” and the abandonment of the country's ambitious Renewable Energy Act of 1999.
Finally, the UK celebrated ending all coal production in 2024—but as a consequence electricity prices in Britain are 81% above the European Union average and still rising.
Similar circumstances can be seen all across Europe, and now the cumulative effect of these policy calamities is being reflected in the destabilized political environment emerging throughout the Western world, where the pent-up frustration and economic pain of working- and middle-class voters is causing them to turn to “populist” (usually, but not always, right-leaning) alternatives that have appeared within their respective countries’ electoral systems.
Thus, in broad perspective, the financial implosion of the globalist Green Agenda, compounded by the related international phenomena of uncontrolled migration, has dramatically reshaped basic political and economic elements that have been constants in the Western world for decades.
Unfortunately the response of the Western elites—insulated by their affluence from the economic pain of the poorer classes—has been to demonize the populists, who responded to the people's distresses, characterizing them as “fascist” or “threats to democracy” or potential “dictators.” Nowhere are these destructive tendencies better illustrated than in America's last three presidential elections.
Meanwhile much of the rest of the world, including some truly malignant actors currently on the global stage, view these unfolding pathologies as certain proof of the irreversible decline of Western society. For the sake of future generations, we must hope that the West can find leaders with the courage and determination to prove these skeptics wrong.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.