Climate activism diverts funds from poverty relief

The climate summit in Poland has been given a boost in recent weeks by well-timed climate change reports shaping the news agenda. But if we dig deeper than most of the media did, these reports demonstrate what is wrong with global warming policy discussion.

The first report was by the United Nations’ panel of climate scientists, the IPCC. It was widely reported as urging the world to draconically cut emissions to keep temperature rises below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In an interview on Sky News Australia, Bjorn Lomborg points out that "the current way we tackle climate policy is really wishful thinking".

"It's spending large sums of money in cutting very little emissions, mostly in rich world countries. This is not going to fix global warming, it is going to harm the poor, both in the rich world and poor world.

"Really it's going to undermine the ability to actually fix climate change while of course fixing all the other problems in the world."

As promised, below you can read responses from Bjorn Lomborg to questions I posed related to “ Cool It,” the new documentary on his approach to global warming. Other sites are starting to critique points made in the film. While staking what he calls a sensible stance on the issue, he has elicited strong reactions for nearly a decade, including a pie in the face from Mark Lynas, the British environmental campaigner and writer, in 2001. (...) Read it online Int BL 2010 Nov 13 NYTimes Revkin.pdf