As we face the UN climate circus where hysteria prevails it is important to reflect on the policies that the World needs.
Bjorn Lomborg, head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and former director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute, is a leading expert on climate and environmental policies.
Lomborg does not question whether climate change is man made or not. He accepts that it is, at least in part, and bases all his analysis on the findings of the official IPCC reports. Something the governments should do but don’t.
In this brilliant article for The Australian he says that we should leave the extremely expensive policies focused mostly on a dramatic cut in CO2 emissions. Taken seriously — which everybody knows they won’t be, based on past experience — they would harm the well being in the developed world and sacrifice millions to poverty and death in developing countries. Instead we need a profound shift and focus on a new approach based on growth policies, adaptation and R&D.
https://www.lomborg.com/news/a-climate-of-burning-money
Excerpts:
“World leaders will soon arrive in New York for a climate summit likely to do little more than add to the hysteria drowning out any sober talk on climate policy.”
“After 30 years of failed climate policy, more of the same is not the answer. Since the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, our use of renewable energy has increased by only 1.1 percentage points — from meeting 13.1 per cent of the world’s energy needs in 1992 to 14.2 per cent today. Most nations are failing to deliver on carbon cut undertakings already made — yet politicians will be feted in New York for making new, empty promises.”
“Alternative energy has increased so little because green energy remains incapable of meeting all of our needs met by fossil fuels. Replacing cheap and reliable fossil fuel energy with more expensive and less reliable energy alternatives weighs down the economy, leading to slightly lower growth.”
“At great cost, the Paris Agreement will reduce emissions by just 1 per cent of what politicians have promised.”
“Yet politicians are being celebrated for going even further than the Paris treaty’s current promises, vowing to make entire economies “carbon-neutral” within decades.”
“According to the UN climate science panel’s last major report, if we do absolutely nothing to stop climate change, the impact will be the equivalent to a reduction in our incomes of between 0.2 per cent and 2 per cent five decades from now.
Work by Nobel laureate climate economist William Nordhaus based on the UN findings shows the likeliest outcome is a cost to the planet of about 3 per cent of gross domestic product in coming centuries. That should be taken seriously — but it does not equal Armageddon.”
“And electric cars are not the answer. Globally, there are only five million fully electric cars on the road. Even if this climbs to 130 million in 11 years, the International Energy Agency finds CO2 equivalent emissions would be reduced by a mere 0.4 per cent of global emissions.”
“…We must look at how we solved past major challenges — through innovation.
The starvation catastrophes in developing nations from the 1960s to the 80s weren’t fixed by asking people to consume less food but through the Green Revolution in which innovation developed higher-yielding varieties that produced more plentiful food.
Similarly, the climate challenge will not be solved by asking people to use less of more expensive green energy. Instead, we should dramatically ramp up spending on R&D into green energy.
The Copenhagen Consensus Centre asked 27 of the world’s top climate economists to examine policy options for responding to climate change. This analysis showed that the best investment is in green energy R&D. For every dollar spent, $11 of climate damages would be avoided.”
“We must also focus on adaptation — this can generate a broad range of benefits at low cost and help with challenges beyond global warming. And we should remember one of the most powerful development and climate policies is to accelerate economic growth for the world’s worst-off.
The most powerful way to achieve this is through opening up trade opportunities. That is very far from the direction the world is heading in right now. Yet research shows that a successful Doha round could increase the annual income of the world’s poorest by about $US1000 a person in 2030. This is not only good in and of itself but it also would deliver much more resilience and reduce vulnerability to any climate impacts the future will bring.”