Letter from Europe: The trouble with the trilemma

Pursuing three different goals as part of the same package may mean achieving none of them

The transition away from fossil fuels is often framed as part of an ‘energy trilemma’, with lowering carbon emissions packaged with ensuring affordability and maintaining security of supply. Wrapping several goals together is generally a bad idea. It tends to be a result of negotiations among many diverse parties, each one with somewhat different objectives. The outcome is a compromise with a number of goals, each one of them usually challenging in its own right. The UN-endorsed sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a good example of this. There are 17 of them, and while there is nothing wrong with making efforts to achieve them all, what is problematic is believing they can all be achiev