Europe Faces Industrial Wipeout From Net Zero, 73 Major Companies Warn

A group of 73 major companies from 17 sectors including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and engineering have launched the ‘Antwerp declaration’, calling on the EU to relax Net Zero regulations, lower energy costs and increase investment, while it still has some industry left. Matthew Lynn in the Telegraph has more.

In the U.S., President Biden has launched a tax credit scheme that will pour nearly $400bn into subsidies [for EVs], and while not all the money will be well spent it will give America a chance to build a substantial industry.

Meanwhile, China has funnelled massive amounts of money into building EVs, it has taken control of critical minerals needed to make them cheaply, and it is now about to flood the West with models that could well outcompete European manufacturers on both quality and price.

Instead of sparking a manufacturing renaissance in Europe, the pursuit of Net Zero is leading instead to imminent deindustrialisation. It might be starting with the mighty automotive industry, in which the continent once led the world, but it is being repeated again and again elsewhere.

Indeed only this week a group of major European industries launched the ‘Antwerp declaration’, calling on the EU to relax regulations, lower energy costs and increase investment, while it still has some industry left.

Signed by 73 major companies, from 17 sectors including chemicals, pharmaceuticals and engineering, it argued that “sites are being closed, production halted, people let go… Europe needs a business case urgently”.

Here’s the problem, however. All the major European Governments, including the U.K. of course, are still fanatically committed to Net Zero, and that stops them from responding properly. …

We have allowed energy prices to soar, planned to close down our own offshore oil fields, and held back the growth in fracking even as it has delivered economic booms in North America.

We have ignored the fact that these choices are putting companies out of business – and are allowing Chinese rivals with far lower power costs to trample all over European businesses.

The harsh truth is that China has weaponised Net Zero, and turned it into a way of seizing industrial leadership. America is responding, admittedly perhaps too late, and with too much state control. But Europe has been left floundering, and it is about to get wiped out.

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Net Zero will be far more expensive than the public has so far been led to believe, former Chief Economist of the IMF Olivier Blanchard told the Lords Economic Affairs Committee yesterday.