Bjørn Lomborg
Danish author; president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Author of The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), False Alarm (2020) and Best Things First (2023); writes newspaper columns arguing for cost-benefit priorities in climate and development policy.
Bjørn Lomborg did not write this page.
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Their wordsThird, climate policy is staggeringly expensive and accomplishes remarkably little. The world has already spent more than $16 trillion on climate measures, with promises of hundreds of trillions more. Yet a landmark study in Science examined 1,500 climate policies across 41 countries over two decades and found that only 4% meaningfully cut emissions.
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Their wordsWe are warned that rising seas could displace 187 million people, a figure that assumes humanity does nothing for an entire century. Once you account for the seawalls and adaptation that people obviously undertake, that estimate of displacement turns out to be overstated 600-fold or more.
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Our reading
Unchecked warming is expected to cost between 2% and 3% of global GDP by the end of the century.
Their wordsBut the best climate economists consistently estimate that unchecked warming will cost 2% to 3% of global GDP by the end of the century.
- 4 months earlier
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Our reading
Global economic analysis shows that reaching net zero costs more than its climate benefits.
Their wordsGlobally, the best economic analysis shows going net zero costs far more than its climate benefits.
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Their wordsIn this century, such poor policies deliver less than 17 cents in benefits for every dollar spent.
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Their wordsBut this is true even for the entire rich world - if it actually went net zero by 2050, it would still cause only a miniscule temperature reduction of less than 0.2°F by 2100.
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsThe total shortfall to achieve all goals is likely a spectacular $10 trillion to $15 trillion each year.
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Their wordsWorse, the world's big development banks are funneling over $85 billion of their scarce funds into trendy climate virtue-signaling initiatives, starving real basics like health and education.
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Their wordsAltogether, our 12 policies would cost about $35 billion a year - chicken feed compared to the more than $10 trillion needed to deliver the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. That $35 billion would save 4 million lives annually and provide benefits to the bottom half of the world worth a trillion bucks - generating jobs, stability and a safer planet.
- 3 weeks earlier
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Their wordsRather, it insists that we shouldn't deny the costs of climate policy - and must admit that net-zero will cost hundreds of trillions of dollars and deliver few benefits.
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Their wordsThe truth is that the rich world matters very little for climate in this century.
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Their wordsThe main UN model shows that even if all rich countries were to cut their carbon emissions to zero, it would avert less than 0.2°F of projected warming by the end of the century, while imposing massive hits of up to 18% on rich-world GDP by 2050.
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordsLeaders from Europe, Australia and Canada, making ever-larger climate promises with ever-emptier rhetoric, ignore the crucial reality that Western actions are no longer central to solving climate change.
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Their wordsWhile the West dominated carbon emissions in the past, future emissions will overwhelmingly come from China, India, Africa, Brazil, Indonesia and other countries clambering out of poverty.
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Their wordsSo the liberal West's net-zero pledge for 2050 will cost hundreds of trillions of dollars, but deliver little.
- 3 weeks earlier
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Their wordsClimate change is a real problem, but it is not the end of the world.
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Their wordsUnaddressed, climate economics shows that it might shave 2-3% off global GDP by 2100-meaning we'll be 435% richer instead of 450%.
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Their wordsThat is money spent on climate that won't be spent on preventing disease and hunger.