Policies aimed at increasing the pace of developing renewable energies could accelerate global warming, according to Dr Rod Duncan, a lecturer in economics at Charles Sturt University. It wouldn’t be the first time regulations have had the opposite of the desired effect. When US Congress introduced the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, Detroit car makers responded by producing petrol-guzzling SUVs. And when Mexico City implemented no-drive days where a car could only be used every other day, the citizens reacted by buying a second car. “Air quality in Mexico City got worse, because the second car tended to be an old bomb,” said Dr Duncan. And what does all this have to do with alternative energies? “If cheaper alternatives are being developed, oil producers will have an incentive to pump oil faster and sell it cheaper. The renewables could be worth it in the long run, but at least temporarily, you may actually make the global warming problem worse.”