Bill Maher on France

I just saw this Bill Maher video on someone else’s blog. In case you wondered what American liberals think of France…

A Green Industrial Policy to Stop Climate Change?

Nicolas Véron just published an interesting column in La Tribune (available in English), in which he distinguishes two ways of fighting climate change: multilateral binding limits like the Kyoto Protocol and clean technologies. While everyone at the G8 is discussing the former, he stresses the potential of the latter. He points out that General Electric’s “green sales” reached $12bn in 2006 and that JP Morgan, Crédit Suisse, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers have all announced renewable energy projects: “‘Clean Tech’ is also turning into the US venture capital industry’s new frontier, behind information technology and biotech, with total investment doubling in the last two years to reach close to $3bn in 2006.”

European countries may be leading the world on the “multilateral binding limits” front, but the US might be taking the lead on the “clean tech” front. As many French, Véron is worried that France and Europe will find themselves outpaced by the US. And so he asks whether the new French government could “create an efficient green industrial policy to complement its diplomatic moves on the post-Kyoto regime.” Insofar as, according to Véron, such policy would have to depart from the French dirigiste tradition and involve European and global markets in order to be efficient, the most likely outcome is that not much will happen on this front. But fear not. There are still plenty of G8 summits ahead of us in the future.

UPDATE: As G8 countries have reached some (vague) agreement on the reduction of GGE, former adviser of President Mitterrand Jacques Attali already announces that the US will soon lead the world in the fight against climate change. Although there could be some motive for celebration, Attali is essentially worried that Europeans won’t be able to compete against new American clean technologies. After D-Day, he writes, here comes Green Day.