The claim that economists have lost control is based on the absence of a cost-benefit analysis in the Green New Deal and the fact that carbon pricing is rejected.
Of course, the Economist is wrong. There is a cost-benefit analysis in the Green New Deal: we cannot afford not to do it, whatever it costs.
And carbon pricing does not work. Marco Fante explains why here. The essence is simple though: renewables are cheap enough to ensure that carbon pricing is itself priced out of the market.
So, a carbon tax raises the price of emitting technologies, reducing the relative price of non-emitting.
OK
Our task with climate change is to replace emitting with non-emitting technologies.
‘K.
Renewables are now so cheap that we don’t need a carbon tax to change those relative prices.
Fine.
So, we’re done then, right? Everyone will, from now on, install non-emittive technologies as they’re cheaper and we’ve solved climate change.
So why is Ritchie insisting we still need the Green Leap Forward?