Only the first week of January but we already have a strong contender for Twaddle-merchant of 2012!
From the depth of his Brusselsbunker, the EU Commissioner for Green Affairs warns us: “It’s very difficult to imagine [lifting Europe out of recession] without growth, and very difficult to imagine growth without competitiveness, and very difficult to be competitive without resource efficiency.” Okey-dokey we’ll all just stop worrying about the disastrously structured Euro and euro-land’s politicians failure to convince us they have a solution that will stave off recession. Good-bye to all that! We’ll worry about resource costs instead.
Mr Potočnik is certainly worried about it. He is so worried that he has got his department: “… scouring through existing regulations and proposed new ones in order to ensure that none would encourage resources to be used profligately, and to safeguard the EU’s natural resources for the future.” Good chap! Obviously what they need in Athens and Rome is more and better environmental regulation.
We clearly can’t leave eco-efficiency to that simple market formula that when the price of a resource rises individuals and organisations are incentivised to consume it more efficiently.
No headline or press release in that one.