EU slips in bid to keep pace with US, China in clean-tech race

Europe’s efforts to foster the investment needed to build a sustainable economy and fend off challenges from the US and China are still in the very early stages.

While the European Union has made an initial push to respond to a massive US green subsidies program, it’s only starting to wake up to the challenges involved in turning its bold vision for a climate-neutral trading bloc into reality.

Faced with losing investors to President Joe Biden’s $369 billion package of tax breaks, regulators in Brussels proposed a mix of measures this week including domestic production targets and quicker permitting for key clean-tech projects. But the response lacks the simple framework of the US’s Inflation Reduction Act and only addresses part of the problem.