The green left seems to have reached a consensus on a program that includes massive subsidies and regulations, but no carbon tax. One assumes this was prompted largely by political pragmatism, and particularly by the experience of the French government with the gilets jaunes. Can a program without pricing truly work?
Not completely, because it doesn’t address the retrofit problem. Without carbon pricing, millions of cars run on gasoline that are currently on the road will remain there until they fall apart, and existing buildings will never be upgraded to the new standards. Over a decade or two, the car problem will go away, as cars depreciate relatively rapidly, but buildings are a completely different story. The inventory of new buildings will never be anything more than a small fraction of the whole.
Environmentalists don’t typically settle for half a loaf. Are they even really aware of this issue? We’ll see.