Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg has galvanised European society and politics with a simple goal: reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The path to success, however, is anything but straightforward. Not only does each country have its own needs, energy mix and development priorities, but what one region does may not be enough to solve a global problem.

European governments, seeking to placate citizens worried about the effects of climate change, have resorted to eye-catching announcements that make good headlines but not necessarily good policy.

Take the demonisation of fossil fuels. It makes for a nice narrative and creates the illusion of a simple solution. Yet this focus hurts the competitiveness of energy-intensive European industries, such as manufacturing, leading them to outsource production to countries where legislation is more lax. The EU, which represents only a tenth of worldwide emissions, feels clean but the global total continues to grow.