Big, comprehensive plans usually come to grief. It is impossible to identify all the variables and how they interact even if things stay the same – and they never do. Big plans make hard, still and brittle systems. Being robust & adaptive is better in a world that cannot be predicted. Having a good process in mind is better than a great plan.
In Germany’s case, they ended up doing precisely what the plan was supposed to avoid. Carbon emissions are now rising in Germany, even as those in the “plan-less” U.S. are falling.
I have been following this planning debate my whole adult life. I recall that I used to be upset that we had no big plans. When I was in college, professors told me it was a weakness of ours. I recall reading how communists would dominate us because they had a coherent plan. Didn’t work out for them. I remember the Japanese supposedly had plans that thought a century ahead. (We should not have thought that was impressive. Imagine a plan from 1914. Assumptions would not have played out.) Well that one didn’t work out so well either.
A big, detailed long range plan is a work of fiction. It may be beautiful. Fiction is often clearer and more rational than fact. It makes people feel better but it is pure BS if you get more than a few years out. You cannot predict the big discontinuous change because it is discontinuous. It is the meaning of the concept. All planning depends on the future resembling the past. At times when it doesn’t … we use the simple term overtaken by events, but it is worse.
A better plan is distributed decision making and emergent strategy. You can set goal, but know that you need to change them when conditions change and assumptions prove wrong.
From a strictly personal greed point of view, however, I hope our European friends hold onto their master plan a few more years. We are experiencing a boom in wood pellets, shipped from the Port of Chesapeake to Europe. It has really helped the prices for pulp and even smaller round wood. They use our renewable forest litter to generate electricity. We can produce and ship them cheaper than our European friends can, even with their local advantage. So thanks guys. The plan is working for some people, just not maybe the ones you planned for.