Cut $548 billion of fossil fuel subsidies to alleviate poverty: Lomborg

Environmental protesters and politicians around the world are calling for countries to become carbon neutral by 2050, if not sooner. These proposals get a lot of attention, but they would incur far higher costs than almost any electorate is willing to pay.

2013-05-29 By Bjørn Lomborg, in Huffington Post. The UN is pondering which goals to set for the next decades to advance human development and sustainability. A high-level panel including Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and UK Prime Minister David Cameron will be making their recommendations this Friday. They could get a treasure trove of ideas from some of the world's top economists. In a new book, these economists summarize humanity's smartest ideas and best investments.

The concept of trade-offs has become unfashionable. Politicians around the world like to pretend that their choices will bring us nothing but superlative benefits.

Nowhere is this whitewashing more pervasive or accepted than in climate change. There is a prevalent, comforting notion that we can have our cake and eat it too: that cutting carbon need not involve financial sacrifice.