EU Should Move Beyond Carbon Market to Shut Coal, IEA Says … The European Union needs to think of other ways to prevent new coal-fired power stations from being built because its carbon market won't achieve that this decade, according to the International Energy Agency. Nations should consider measures including bans of new and inefficient plants known as "sub-critical," unless they are fitted with carbon capture and storage technology, Maria Van der Hoeven, the executive director of the Paris-based agency that advises 28 developed nations, said today in a London interview. – Bloomberg

Dominant Social Theme: Market manipulation hasn't worked so let's use regulations to kill coal plants.

Free-Market Analysis: A huge change in sociopolitical policy is about to take place. The hammer is coming down on Green economics … specifically the use of coal.

Once upon a time, there was alcohol prohibition. Now there is to be coal confiscation.

Force is to be substituted for market-based policies. Why? Because the faux-economics of the industrial "green revolution" haven't taken hold. It was surely a stretch anyway, and now carbon markets are a mess. The US version shut down long ago, and the price of this plentiful gas has collapsed.

Of course, why one of the most common gases in the world should have a "price" is questionable to begin with. The larger issue is one of what happens when a vast dominant social theme such as "global warming" collapses and begins to die.

Well … those involved begin to use force. We've already observed this in numerous areas. As what we call the Internet Reformation continues to challenge globalism, various internationalists turn to war, subversion and other kinds of violence to get their way.

Thus, it is not surprising that the IEA, first proposed by Henry Kissinger in the 1970s, should be on the forefront of choosing regulatory democracy to substitute for Green market-based suasion, which hasn't worked.

Here's more from the Bloomberg article:

EU carbon permits, which have plunged 88 percent since 2008, would need to trade at 10 times their current value of about 4 euros ($5.28) a metric ton to prompt utilities to switch to cleaner natural gas from coal, according to a Bloomberg fuel switch calculator. The push in Europe to improve energy efficiency helped drive down permit prices, Van der Hoeven said. "What we want to see is that sub critical coal-fired power plants are less in use and are not going to be constructed any more," Van der Hoeven said.

"The most important thing is we look into the reasons beyond the collapse in the price of carbon" to explain why emissions are not falling faster. Lawmakers need to review energy policies to make sure they don't contradict each other or overlap to cut emissions and protect the climate, Van der Hoeven said.

Here … let us help Ms. Van der Hoeven. Emissions are not falling faster because people simply don't believe in global warming and they don't "get" its substitute called "climate change." Many think global warming is simply another thinly veiled attempt to control their lives.

It's an increasingly arcane debate anyway. All around the world people are struggling with a poor economic climate and in some cases a Great Recession. The nuances of an arctic ice melt escape them, especially when the facts are in dispute.

As a number of scientists are skeptical, the theory has been advanced that the world is in for global cooling rather than global warming. So what is a committed globalist to do?

If market-based persuasion doesn't work, try force. It sounds like a whole new campaign is going into place: "While the IEA does not have the authority to stop nations using coal power, it's urging them to halt construction of new units, Van Der Hoeven said. 'We show them with our report what will happen if they don't,' she said …"

We bet she will.