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This James Rogan column denies climate science by pretending the climate crisis isn’t acute.

He says Europe’s climate policies are inane and stupid.

Yet it is pretence that trade can continue to spur the wrecking of the planet that is stupid.

Some sections of the column are good, yet there are major mistakes.

The EU is not reacting to the US. The obnoxious, protectionist Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was retaliation for the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) plan.

The EU is showing global leadership.

Clever, clean emerging-nation investors will benefit from CBAM. As will US ones.

The EU already allowed US investors to enjoy its energy transition. Tesla sales are surging in Europe.

Now, unsharing and uncaring US policies are cutting non-American investors out of its transition via the IRA.

It’s basically corruption.

When America loses a competition (and it is losing the climate transition), it doesn’t compete better.

What America does is change the rules of its markets to rig them in its favor. Eg effectively ban imports of Chinese solar panels.

That market rigging is what the stupidly named* IRA did.

America and its corporations have screwed up the planet. It continues to screw up climate solutions.

I do like this part of Rogan’s column: “The United States and the EU are revisiting the disastrous economic consequences of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. With that tariff act, the U.S. attempted to protect its domestic industries from international competition. The U.S. failed miserably. Other nations responded in kind and enacted their own protectionist measures against the import of U.S. goods. Global trade volumes collapsed. The Smoot-Hawley legislation deepened the Great Depression.”

Here is Rogan’s context:

Rogan’s last bit demonstrates his ignorance:

“China will be hard hit by the CBAM tax, which begs a question. Namely, will the EU have the courage to stand up to China on climate change?”

Because the CBAM treats all EU importers equally, Europe is already standing up to China.

Meanwhile, the US is seeking to sell more climate-killing liquefied natural gas (LNG) to China (and Europe). Some LNG expansion does make sense, it has to be said.

But will the US properly collaborate with China instead of demonising it? … is the much better question.

*Note: IRA is stupidly named because it gives the game away. It undermines Europe in a somewhat similar (yet also different) way to how the Irish Republican Army undermined Britain in the last three decades of last century.