Other countries prioritize growth- they won’t pick renewables

(Nicolas, Deputy Director of the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies and Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation, , 2-25)

Wishful Thinking. Although one of the priorities of the Green New Deal is to make the U.S. a lead exporter in green technologies, assuming developing countries will forego cheap abundant carbon dioxide–emitting energy for more expensive intermittent sources is pure fantasy. Developing countries will likely expand their use of renewable power sources, but not to the extent it will have any meaningful impact on global temperatures. While some countries are shuttering their coal-fired plants, others in both developed and developing countries are building new plants and expanding the life of existing generators. Affordable, reliable, and widely available energy is essential to lifting people out of poverty and improving the life, health, and comfort of people trying to reach a better standard of living.