Convenience Big Store: The government’s green “magic money tree”

26 October, 2021

In the headlines

Boris Johnson's coronavirus "Plan B" could cause £18bn worth of damage to the UK economy in just five months, says Politico. Leaked government documents show that businesses would take the main hit, with millions going back to working from home, and that officials aren't even sure how much it would reduce transmission of the virus. Rishi Sunak should consider resigning over Budget leaks, says Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle. The Chancellor's team have sent 16 briefings to reporters ahead of tomorrow's address to MPs. "At one time, ministers did the right thing if they briefed before a Budget," says Hoyle. "They walked." Japan's Princess Mako has given up her royal title after marrying her "commoner" boyfriend. The public disapproved of the wedding so strongly that there were street protests in Tokyo. "We only get one life," said the groom, Kei Komuro. "I want us to spend it with the one we love."

Comment of the day

Getty Images

The government's green "magic money tree"

No Tory government "should look this chirpy" with the money worries it is facing, says Trevor Kavanagh in The Sun. But Rishi Sunak "resembled Eric Morecambe singing 'Bring me sunshine'" as he sold Britain's bright green future on Sunday's TV shows. The Chancellor reckons wind, solar and electric car batteries will effectively give us a green "magic money tree" as prices drop. Meanwhile, boosterish Boris thinks "the world could soon be powered by sunshine from Australia, Africa and India". The market, he says, is going green.

The funny thing is that the smart money echoes this optimism. An Oxford University team estimates that green technology will boost the global economy by £10-£20 trillion over the next 25 years. It cites the plummeting cost of solar technology, down by 15 % a year since the mid-1990s. Many analysts, including those at the International Energy Agency, think we're at the beginning of the end of the oil era – that the "petrochemical dinosaur" will soon face extinction. This "new global energy economy" could take the spoils away from a few unseemly petrostates – Saudi Arabia, Russia and the rest – and give them to places that invest in the renewables revolution. If all goes well, this green rush should also deliver a "mind-boggling boost to the world's poorest". So maybe Rishi's right. Maybe "everyone's a winner".

It's folly to dismiss the Russian threat

Americans underestimate Russia, say Michael Kofman and Andrea Kendall-Taylor in Foreign Affairs. Barack Obama wrote it off as a mere "regional power", John McCain as a "gas station masquerading as a country". This summer President Biden said Russia was "sitting on top of an economy that has nuclear weapons and oil wells, and nothing else". They're all wrong. Russia's economy is not as stagnant as we're told, its population decline has been overstated and its military remains strong.

The US has this blind spot because it is so preoccupied with China. But even if Beijing proves "the more significant long-term threat, Russia will remain a long-term challenger". Moscow is still the US's greatest nuclear rival – it has more warheads than China and a greater ability to reach continental America. And when it comes to indirect warfare, Russia's record of election interference and hacking is unparalleled. Even more worrying is that Moscow is now finding common cause with Beijing. The two countries exchange technical and material support, and their military co-operation is growing. "The impact of this alignment will be greater than the sum of its parts." Biden officials brag that they "can walk and chew gum at the same time" – ie, handle two powers at once. Now they need to prove it.

Inside politics

The plan was for every Cop26 attendee to be driven around in an electric car, says Dan Hodges in The Mail on Sunday. But there aren't enough charging points available, one Cabinet minister tells me, "so they've been scrambling to find diesel generators to help boost the capacity".

Sport

What do Melinda Gates, Kim Kardashian and Larry David have in common, asks Craig Coyne in Vanity Fair. Answer: they all love pickleball, a sport like tennis but on a smaller court, with a plastic ball. George Clooney has built a court at home and Leonardo DiCaprio plays every day, making up the rules as he goes along. And it's not just celebrities who are fans. An estimated 4.2 million Americans play pickleball at least once a year – from Silicon Valley billionaires to Floridian retirees.

Noted

Luxembourg will become the first European country to legalise home-grown cannabis, says Daniel Boffey in The Guardian. People aged 18 or over will be allowed to grow up to four plants per household for personal use. In the Netherlands, which is known for its "relaxed attitude" to weed, the drug is technically illegal, but a policy of gedoogbeleid ("toleration") means its use is accepted within reasonable bounds.

On the way out

Ivory – a third of female elephants in Mozambique are now born tuskless. An awful evolutionary imperative is at work, says Science magazine: poachers killed 90% of Mozambique's elephants for their valuable tusks during the country's civil war (1977-92), but ignored those with a rare genetic quirk that left them tuskless.

Snapshot

Eating in

Waitrose customers are using Deliveroo to order "emergency avocados", says The Times. The brunch staple is one of the five most frequently ordered Waitrose items in every city where the supermarket's products are available on the delivery app. In Oxford, Cambridge and Brighton, it's number one.

Snapshot answer

It's Otoniel, Colombia's most wanted drug trafficker, who was caught this weekend. The 50-year-old, whose real name is Dairo Antonio Usuga, had a $5m bounty on his head. He was seized by 500 soldiers, who were so delighted that they posed for selfies. "This is the biggest blow against drug trafficking in our country this century," said Colombia's president, Ivan Duque. "It is only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s."