Focus on climate change draws resources best used elsewhere

Politicians are gathering in Poland for a climate summit being billed as the most important conference since the Paris treaty was signed in 2015. Around the world the chattering classes have declared that more political willpower is needed to solve global warming. This is deluded: it ignores the privileged place climate change has among all of humanity’s challenges and misses the real reasons for our failure.

Across the past quarter-century climate change has received more attention — and generated more prophesies of doom — from political and religious leaders, celebrities and royalty than any other issue.