Flashback 1957 China . Mao wanted his country to become a great industrial giant ;and he was getting impatient with the lack of progress.
So he embarked on a 'Great Leap Forward ' . He forced peasants off of the farms and imposed artificial quotas on each village to produce steel. Whole villages were mobilized towards this effort ,including woman and children. Not knowing the process of making steel ;they started to melt down everything metal including farm equipment . But that did not make steel. At best they got pig iron from their efforts .Steel smelting is a sophisticated process that cannot be done on your back yard fire pit.
This campaign diverted manpower and resources away from the important agriculture needed to feed the people. But the Chicoms persisted and set unrealistic agriculture quotas . To attempt to meet these quotas farmers started to adopt unproven and unproductive methods of farming . This further reduced the yields. To make quota farmers would surrender first the grain they needed for their own sustenance ;and later to surrender the seeds for the next year's harvest .
The predictable results was mass starvation. From 1959 through 1961, 30 million to 40 million Chinese people died from hunger. ...... which the government blamed on natural forces beyond their control. They went so far as blaming sparrows for eating the grain and mandated that the peasants 'smash sparrows'.
In 1958 Mao Zedong ordered all the sparrows to be killed because they ate too much grain. This caused one of the worst environmental disasters in history (thevintagenews.com)
Fast forward to today
Western governments have decided to take a similar suicidal path to achieve a green energy future. Like Mao they are tired of the slow progress of their goals and have decided to mandate a collective move away from fossil fuels and nuclear power. Years of subsidies have not done the trick. So with the use of a pen they have decided to make it so.
They don't have the power that Mao had to force his will on the people. But they have their own bureaucratic dictatorial methods .
By decree Clueless has decided that America will make an over 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 . By decree the unelected bureaucrats of the EU have decided to cut Europe's emissions by 55% by 2030 .
It is early to say .But based on things like California power outages ;Texans freezing in the winter because the windmills don't turn in the cold; ,Sri Lanka food shortages ,do not give much hope for the future.
So like Mao's industrial 'Great Leap Forward ' I expect that the Green new deal great leap forward will be a humanitarian disaster .