Dirty Development Money

When a “solution” to a problem causes more damage than the problem, policymaking has gone awry. That’s where we often find ourselves with global warming today.

Activist organizations like Worldwatch argue that higher temperatures will make more people hungry, so drastic carbon cuts are needed. But a comprehensive new study published in Nature Climate Change led by researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has found that strong global climate action would cause far more hunger and food insecurity than climate change itself.

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.

By Bjorn Lomborg and Todd Sandler. ...Recently, Copenhagen Consensus, whose purpose is to weigh the costs and benefits of different solutions to the world's biggest problems, commissioned new research into the merits of different methods of combating terrorism. The results are surprising and troubling...