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

Sky News TV, Australia. Aug 21, 2012.

Bjorn Lomborg first grabbed world attention in 1998 as 'the sceptical environmentalist', questioning global action on climate change. He's currently in Australia for his fourth visit, this time to talk about global poverty and development, more so than climate issues. In recent years, he's been an advocate for using cheap fossil fuels to alleviate poverty. But he now says abolishing $548 billion of global fossil fuel subsidies would be a 'smart' sustainable development goal for the United Nations to adopt later this year.

The UN Climate Summit in Lima achieved little, just like the previous meetings for more than 20 years. As the saying goes, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”