The Green New Deal (GND) pact embraced by scores of US Democrats is chock- full of vibrant ideas and urgent policy considerations. It’s right that with the climate crisis accelerating faster than scientists predicted and our window to curb it narrowing, we have to think big – indeed something at least as sweeping in scope as the New Deal recovery program of the 1930s. Paul Hockenos reports Yet, the Green New Deal overlooks some of the key lessons from Europe’s renewables revolution – to the detriment of rolling out renewables as fast as possible in the US. Critically, the clean energy boom here was not ignited foremost by government spending, which the current GND implies is critical for the US to do the same. Rather, in Europe legislation passed by the EU and the national states opened energy markets to renewable-energy producers and revamped the regulatory framework in order to help the private sector and communities to get a foot in the door. “Laws matter,” explains Toby Couture, director of E3 Analytics, an energy consultancy … Continue reading Look to Europe to Improve the Green New Deal: Why Laws Matter