New British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Thursday rolled out an energy-price subsidy plan that could cost £150 billion. Throw that on the pile with the tens upon tens of billions of dollars’ worth of subsidies other European governments are offering to take the sting out of energy prices this winter. It adds up to a stunning cost for Europe’s climate-change ambitions.
The contours of Europe’s crisis are well-known by now. Governments across the Continent for decades concocted increasingly aggressive plans to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions in the name of arresting climate change. The effort is to meet a pledge to achieve “net-zero” emissions in the 2040s or 2050s.