Climate-Change Colonialism Keeps Poor Countries Impoverished

On his personal web-page, Bill Gates highlights Bjorn Lomborg's arguments: the 3 billion people living in energy poverty can’t afford today’s expensive clean energy solutions, and we can’t expect them wait for the technology to get cheaper. Gates and his team produced two videos with Bjorn Lomborg, in which he explains why fossil fuels can fight poverty and save lives.

Scenes of devastation from Australia’s fires have been heartbreaking. How do we stop this suffering? For many campaigners and politicians, the answer is clear-cut: drastic climate policies. When we examine the evidence, this simple answer falls short.

To tackle climate change, rich nations are promising to end fossil fuel use in 29 years. As this becomes excruciatingly costly, the G7 is now thinking about making the world’s poor pay for it. That’ll go badly.