Germany: A Top Aide to Habeck Who Planned Green Fascism

One of the “brains” of Robert Habeck’s “climate transition policy” is Elga Bartsch, an investment banker who now leads the Economic Policy Division of Habeck’s Economy Ministry, where she is now responsible for the ministry’s annual economic reports. This year — her first on the job — the economic report includes for the first time “climate sustainable” assessments.

It is known and is a source of controversy, which may create another scandal weakening Habeck’s “super-ministry”, that Elga Bartsch worked for BlackRock, Inc. which she quit shortly before being hired by Habeck at the beginning of January. Less well known, is that she has been working on a blueprint for climate-change “green finance” since at least 2007, when she was working at Morgan Stanley, before moving to BlackRock.

A Morgan Stanley report dated Oct. 3, 2007 and entitled The Economics of Climate Change, was authored by Bartsch. It lays out with shocking clarity the main features of the climate policy currently being implemented by the European Union and other Western governments. In the chapter “Another Dose of Creative Destruction”, Bartsch wrote:

“After the collapse of communism… climate change could be the next major shock to the global economy. Like the fall of the Iron Curtain, climate change could cause part of the existing capital stock to become obsolete as the production structure suddenly faces a big shift in relative prices (driven by carbon pricing). In addition, climate change could trigger major changes in global workforce dynamics.”

This certainly applies to what is happening to German industry and to the living standards of EU nations now. When talking about “climate change,” Bartsch means, in reality, policies to “rectify” climate change, as she makes clear later on. Thus, her actual intended meaning is: After a major shock to the world economy, actions to “rectify” climate change can depreciate fossil-based assets, as forced disinvestment and CO₂ pricing can make energy prices skyrocket. In addition, climate-rectification policies could provoke mass unemployment worldwide.

Further on, Bartsch suggests implementing climate policies dictatorially, top-down:

“Containing climate change will likely be top-down technological change heavily influenced by government policies. Climate change is not only the largest externality ever experienced globally, rectifying it will also require the most far-reaching government intervention.”

She also cautioned not to rely on voters’ support, since they won’t understand why they should eat less, heat less, travel less, etc., to save the planet:

“Rational voter-behavior can result in too low a level of environmental protection because individuals lack the incentives to obtain all the necessary information on climate change and therefore don’t express their environmental preferences properly. In this context the rise of ‘green’ parties in many countries is an interesting breaking of the mould.”

One might wonder, had she lived in the 1930s, would she have followed Keynes’s example in proposing Hitler’s regime as the one best suited to implement her schemes?