With European elections now less than 12 months away, political parties across Europe have woken up to the reality that the Green Deal’s proposals will increase costs, lower investment, and endanger traditional jobs and industries across the continent.

The political shift has been well-documented – Frans Timmermans’ is heading back to Dutch politics; President Macron now supports a ‘regulatory pause’; a very public fight over the Nature Restoration Law happened just before the European Parliament’s summer recess.

Those are symptoms though, not causes. The cause of the falling support for the Green Deal is much simpler: it is not working. Imposing new regulatory-driven trade barriers on everything from steel to coffee to palm oil, is increasing prices for European consumers. Subsidising inefficient and unproven technologies like e-kerosene, and trying to kill off core European manufacturing sectors, is leaving Member States with a huge bill while undermining domestic jobs and investment.

Perhaps some of the pain caused could be justified if the Commission’s approach was shown to be essential for protecting the environment. The evidence now shows that in many cases, this is not happening.

The Green Deal’s ‘Deforestation Regulation’ imposes new trade barriers on selected commodities, because they are listed as responsible for deforestation. Many of the commodities such as coffee, …