Green energy: There is a way to beat climate change but COP26 snubbed it

President Trump recently hosted “Technology Week” at the White House, focusing on “modernizing government technology and stimulating the technology sector.”

Behind this string of photo-ops is the unfortunate reality that Trump’s 2018 budget request has proposed the steepest funding cuts for federal research and development in US history.

The proposed budget would reduce funding for the Agricultural Research Service in the Department of Agriculture by 26 percent, which would lead to the closure of 17 research centers.

Across the world, politicians are now promising climate policies costing tens of trillions of dollars – money we don’t have and resources that are desperately needed elsewhere.

Yet, climate campaigners tell us, if we don’t spend everything on climate now, nothing else matters, because climate change threatens our very civilization. As President Biden says: climate change is "an existential threat".

In Wall Street Journal, Matt Ridley asks how rich countries can best help poor ones and identifies five goals with great bang for the buck based on the output from Post-2015 Consensus so far.