Europe, America, and the green technology trade battle

Green technologies might be cuddly and friendly way to reduce pollution, but the trade fight to come over their development and subsequent role in international trade will be anything but cuddly and friendly.

Geopolitical and economic scholars and analysts the world over have known for many years that one of the main reasons why America has stayed on top of the trade heap for many years is the country’s massive number of analytical think tanks. They provide future scenarios in many areas of national and strategic importance to policy makers in American governments and international-sized companies. Geopolitics,conflict and trade are examples.

This analysis then becomes an integral element in predicting and planning for future situations.

European countries do not rely on them anywhere near as much. Indeed, many European countries' governments openly deride them, and that partially explains their relative world decline. Europe’s lack of future vision has penalised its international interests and influence in many spheres, and this means that Europe is often forced to react to major world events because it can’t always initiate them.

It is becoming clear that the next major trade battle for the domination of world markets will be the upcoming boom in green technologies and, as usual, America is leading the pack.

The situation was excellently summed up by something I read a couple of months back in a newspaper. The article was about green car technology, and contained the startling fact that there are more green cars in San Francisco than there are in the whole of france, with its population of 60 million.

This is partially due to Europan countries’ failure to adopt common research and development projects, or even decide upon a global European strategy for the development of future energy forms.

American president Barack Obama, on the other hand, knows exactly where he wants to go, so if Europe does not pull its socks up soon it will once again be importing American technology on a massive scale, as it did in aviation for many years, as it is doing right now with the internet and computing in general, and as it already will in the future with nanotechnologies, which haven’t even been addressed yet in Europe to all intents and purposes.

Obama’s global policy on energy and climate issues is not only social and economic, it is also designed to make America the world leader in future technologies to help improve the world's climate. That is why the USA has chosen to use green energy to help the long-term economy and the environment rather than reducing current climate damage now.

The president has said he wants to double green energy production by 2025, and introduce a million eco-friendly cars before 2015. Europe will not be able to follow that rate of progress. Far from it, even if the USA’s targets are not quite reached.

He seems to want to use energy renewal and its associated technologies, both current and future, as a key part of his economic strategy because he sees them as an excellent growth motor to help kickstart the American economy into a new upward spiral.

This thinking is exactly in line with the well-anchored American belief that the solution to its present problems is to be found in the progress, changes and innovations to come. Europe, on the other hand, has a pitiful record in research and development into future technologies.

Another theme that Obama often mentions is the edge in world competitivity that the green revolution could give America if it seizes its chance now. Thus the current climate problems are seen more as an economic springboard for the future than a current problem, because future green technologies will, he says, keep America on top as well as help eradicate the climate problem at the same time.

He said in one speech that “The country which leads in the creation of a clean energy economy will dominate the economy of the 21st century.”

Europe quite rightly applauds Obama and America’s initiatives, but that is not enough. Europe gives the impressioçn that it isn’t even aware of the existence of the problems facing it. There is not the slightest hint of a common approach to future green technology trade issues, nor is there any consensus on what Europe can do to help shape the future world economy, and thus its influence in the world.

If America stays on track and Europe doesn’t wake up soon, America will once again have an unchallenged superiority in a major component of the global economy.

In other words – and very ironically - instead of having the oft-quoted-in-Europe reputation of being the world’s biggest polluter (recently overtaken by China,) America may well soon oblige Europeans to acknowledge the American domination in planet-saving technology and world trade.

Tut tut. De Gaulle and Churchill must be turning in their graves.