Just Do It...

If ever there was an example of the need for, at the very least partial, market control and reform, it is summed up in the conundrum, nay enigma, of the current global crisis in the solar panel industry. In yesterday's Financial Times, I read of a total price collapse in the sector, with Germany's Solarwatt having to shut down its domestic operations and move production to China, the world's largest - by far - manufacturer and supplier of solar panels to the market. Even the Chinese are likely to feel the pinch in this area very soon as there is apparently a complete glut of the tech at present: supply currently outstrips demand by a very considerable margin. The conundrum of course lies in the fact that driving prices down should lead to greater consumption of the cheaper product, but things aren't apparently panning out that way, leading to mothballing and plant closures.

Which begs the obvious question: when the world is in dire need of as close to 100% adoption of renewable energy as it can manage, why let the market 'decide' on the future and scale of its deployment? Governments across the globe have publicly paid great lip-service at COP summits and at election times to the urgent and growing need to act decisively on climate change, but yet seem as reluctant as always to 'interfere' with the market Gods, as if somehow market rules were inviolable and cast in tablets of stone from the Almighty.  They're absolutely not, and given the urgency of our collective existential predicament, it might just be considered a tad prudent to exercise a little interventionism on this issue; if that doesn't sound too, well, International Socialist for everyone. Bottom line is, we need to get a grip: time's running out for us as a species, collectively.