Björn Lomborg: Europe's sceptical environmentalist

The constant barrage of negative stories may lead us to imagine that our progress is about to end, but the evidence says otherwise

At his recent World Leaders Climate Summit, President Biden repeated his claim that climate change presents an "existential threat."

This pervasive climate alarmism is the culmination of persistent eco-anxiety over the past decades. Already in 1982, the United Nations was predicting that climate change along with other environmental concerns could cause a worldwide “devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust” by the year 2000. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.

For three decades, climate campaigners have fought to make fossil fuels so expensive that people would be forced to abandon them. Their dream is becoming reality: Energy prices are spiraling out of control and will soon get even worse. Yet we are no closer to solving climate change.