Reality.
It's a concept with teeth, because you can only deny it for so long, living in a fever-dream world, before it bites.
As it inevitably will.
The European Union is finding that out now, as are industries that have built their business plan around the EU's unicorn fart diktats, which were always cast in stone until they weren't.
What started out as a suggestion became a hum, then a general hue and cry, as the EU's big, Brussels-sprout-colored climate change walls swayed alarmingly in the economic vortex their insane cult policies created.
Something is going to give, and it very much looks as if the sacrificial lamb will be the 2035 ban on new gasoline-powered cars.
ACH DU LIEBE!
EU hits brakes on climate idiocy and abandons plans to ban gasoline-powered cars.https://t.co/4nhLoy3zYS pic.twitter.com/kw5AagGOQc
— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) December 11, 2025
And 'abandons' is the right word. They didn't push the 'ban' back - they dumped the ban, period.
What a stunning crawldown.
Plans to impose an effective ban on selling new cars with combustion engines in the European Union have been abandoned, a senior EU lawmaker told German mass tabloid Bild on Thursday.
Instead, there will be more flexible rules to achieve a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from cars, Manfred Weber, president of the EPP, the largest party in the European Parliament, was quoted as saying.
"For new registrations from 2035 onwards, a 90% reduction in CO2 emissions will now be mandatory for car manufacturers' fleet targets, instead of 100%," Weber told the paper.
"There will also be no 100% target from 2040 onwards. This means that the technology ban on combustion engines is off the table. All engines currently manufactured in Germany can therefore continue to be produced and sold."
And that '90%' reduction in fleet CO2 emissions is done by averaging all the vehicles, plus buying and selling offsets from other companies. So it's nowhere near as restrictive as the Biden CAFE standards were going to be here.
Unsurprisingly, having been stuck with showrooms full of unsold EVs and having cheaper Chinese models eating their lunches in sales, the major automakers had been pushing the Brussels Brahims for this very thing - arguing that consumers should have a 'choice' in what they drove.
...Volkswagen, Stellantis, Renault, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have all argued in favour of dropping the ban, instead letting customers decide what they want rather than having firm targets.
This 'decide' word, indicating freedom of choice, is a complete anathema to the EU hierarchy, but the economics of a near meltdown in the automotive sector over the regulations forced their hand.
One Dutch blogger called it the 'beginning of the end' for electric driving.
The House of Representatives has a majority in favor of the cabinet in Brussels advocating against the ban on new fuel-powered cars from 2035 onward. The EU itself is already considering postponing that ban and could decide to do so soon. It's to be hoped for the sake of people, the environment, society, and the economy that this decision is indeed made.
This would be the fifth major climate measure to fail after I repeatedly argued in my books that these climate measures are neither feasible nor effective. Previous examples included the supposed sustainability of biomass, the counterproductive taboo on nuclear energy, the ineffective ban on natural gas for homes, and the subsidization of energy-wasting hydrogen production.
He also goes into what he calls 'the steel subsidy trap,' as Indian steel producer Tata has large operations in the Netherlands that would be adversely affected by the increasingly stringent CO2 and carbon requirements.
...Instead, Parliament and the cabinet are throwing everything together and, on behalf of all of us, swimming with open eyes into a steel subsidy trap. Tata Steel and the government cannot achieve a CO2 reduction as large as that achieved by driving calmly in ten years, not even if the steel company, under pressure from environmental laws and taxes, decides to close its doors in IJmuiden. The Indian parent company would then move steel production to other countries, and that certainly won't lead to less air pollution and CO2 emissions worldwide. The steel would then be imported from far away to be used in the production of our cars.
The Dutch government understands this, and the cabinet is rightly trying to keep Tata Steel here. However, it must simultaneously continue to meet a legally mandated CO2 reduction obligation of 55 percent by 2030 within our own borders. This legal obligation has proven to be a textbook example of what the English call "hang yourself," for both the previous and current governments . Tata Steel is exploiting this burdensome obligation to the fullest by placing all the risks and costs of making steel production more sustainable on the Dutch state—that is, on all taxpayers, meaning on you and me.
Tata Steel must replace its coal with biomethane, a fuel similar to natural gas extracted from plants. However, biomethane is extremely scarce and expensive. The Dutch government must ensure sufficient affordable biomethane after 2030, or that Tata Steel is compensated for the additional costs. Otherwise, Tata Steel may terminate the sustainability agreement. The Dutch government must also ensure that electricity grid tariffs do not increase, or that Tata Steel is compensated for the additional costs.
As always, Tata Steel, thanks to the government subsidies agreed to, won't pay a dime of the €200 billion for the additional overhead or underground cables. Everyone else will.
And if the biomethane is unavailable in sufficient quantities to run the manufacturing process, Tata can terminate the agreement. The only loser is the Dutch people.
So this fellow is advocating a rollback of the arbitrary Dutch standards to coincide with the EU's retrenchment on emissions standards.
...The cause of this ironclad subsidy trap lies with Parliament and the cabinet, who have imposed a 55 percent CO2 reduction obligation on themselves in the short term without knowing if and how it can be achieved. We will all pay the price for this in the coming years. The alternative is that yet another high-quality, essential industry will disappear from our country, with the loss of more than 10,000 high-quality jobs and no global environmental benefit. A new government would be wise to abolish or at least suspend the statutory 55 percent reduction obligation by 2030.
It's a hard lesson to learn.
history’s lesson is simple: revolutions in energy only succeed when they strengthen national power, not weaken it.
— Parimal (@Fintech03) December 12, 2025
Two camps find themselves stymied over this volte-face and are both angry and stumbling about looking for a solution.
The first group is electric vehicle manufacturers who bet the farm on being the only show in town in ten years.
They are torqued, having taken the EU at face value, dumped hundreds of billions into product development and production, and...squish. It's as if they had the carmats pulled out from under their feet.
Europe’s EV rollback threatens billions in industry investment, Lucid exec says
Europe is in the midst of a heated debate over rolling back its Green Agenda, including the European Union’s most ambitious measure: banning sales of new passenger cars with combustion engines starting in 2035. Scrapping the ban now appears increasingly likely, pleasing legacy automakers still reliant on gasoline and diesel — but upsetting electric-only manufacturers that invested heavily based on the original policy trajectory. Lawrence Hamilton, who oversees Lucid Motors’ European operations, discussed the implications of shifting EU policy for the U.S.-based EV maker and the wider industry during an interview with Automotive News Europe Correspondent William Boston in early December.
...How damaging is the current debate over extending the life of internal-combustion vehicles, plug-in hybrids and extended range EVs?
Our position is clear: EVs are the only logical, efficient and scalable technology that meets Europe’s climate, energy security and public health goals. Extending the life of fossil fuel-based solutions does not meaningfully address those issues. Short-term uncertainty hurts the industry; longer-term reversals are worse. The path toward 2035 has been understood for years. Automakers and suppliers invested billions based on that trajectory. Rolling policy back now risks stranding those investments. These are long-term infrastructure and technology commitments, and investors need regulatory certainty. A firm 2035 deadline remains fundamentally important.
The other unhappy party is Labour Minister and Big Green fanatic Ed Miliband in the United Kingdom.
He's sort of looking like a confused John Travolta at the moment, only with a Thunberg scowl.
Miliband has had basically dictatorial powers in order to shove the entire island into the Net Zero Stone Age and has managed to do serious damage in his year or so on the job.
Read more 👇https://t.co/eMdH1TBZAu
— Net Zero Watch (@NetZeroWatch) December 12, 2025
...Net Zero has destroyed energy affordability and spare capacity. As such, we have undermined the material foundations of our own security.
And now the EU's skittering retreat on the EV ban has left him in one helluva spot. Not only from the regulatory side of it - how does a hardcore ideologue reverse on one of the subjects he's been the most rabidly insistent on?
The other is again the economics - if he stubbornly digs in and refuses, what does he do as the Chinese manufacturers who are already overstocked with EVs in Europe, dump the excess into Britain at fire-sale prices when Europeans buy the ICE vehicles they wanted to begin with?
The China EV excess has to find a home in export markets. If EU consumers can restore their own sanity by continuing to purchase petrol BMW/ Renault/ Fiat/ VW then they won’t be buying EV’s. All of these will be dumped on the UK. This will crush rivals & destroy the supply chain! https://t.co/eXTrAgaXkW
— UxbEconomist 🇬🇧🏴🇮🇱 (@UxbEconomist07) December 12, 2025
The Chinese have a lot of EVs to unload.
European industry is in deep trouble. China now sells twice as much to the EU as it buys from the bloc by value, and by volume, for every container the EU ships east, China sends four west. Over the past five years, Germany’s trade deficit with China has soared, while its GDP has… pic.twitter.com/jZfIV4TbOe
— Michael Kovrig (@MichaelKovrig) December 11, 2025
...Over the past five years, Germany’s trade deficit with China has soared, while its GDP has flatlined. The EU has imposed 35% tariffs on Chinese EVs, but that won’t be enough to level the playing field.
They will be on England's fertile mandated EV fields like flies on roadkill, which is what's left of the once vaunted British auto industry will become.
Sucks to be Miliband, but couldn't happen to a worthier fellow.
I do not have faith that he will make the right decision for the UK. True believers tend to think only of their religion, not their obligation to the whole.
As for Europe, it's kind of nice to know I'll still be able to hear most of the cars whizzing up behind me in an alley and hopefully be able to jump out of the way.
I'm not as spry as I used to be.
I need that roar of a mighty Lancia motor for a warning.
Okay - the buzz. It's still something.
I'm glad they get to keep it.
