The High Cost of Green

World leaders will soon arrive in New York for a climate summit likely to do little more than add to the hysteria drowning out any sober talk on climate policy. Amid warnings that we have days left to act, politicians will jostle to share the spotlight with celebrity activists such as 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who came from Europe by wind-powered boat. Hurricane Dorian looms large over proceedings as a harbinger of doom.

Op-ed by Bjørn Lomborg in Project Syndicate.

The Doha meeting continued 20 years of failed climate negotiations, since the original Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. There, countries pledged to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000; the OECD countries fell short by almost 9%. The Kyoto Protocol from 1998 has almost entirely failed. And the effort intended to save the world in Copenhagen in 2009 collapsed spectacularly. 

After the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic, the world will be spending trillions of dollars to get us back on track. Increasingly, campaigners and influential policymakers demand this spending be tied to climate goals. IMF chairwoman Kristalina Georgieva urges “We must do everything in our power to make it a green recovery,” and U.S. Democrats, the European Commission and many other countries are pushing ”Green New Deals.” These could cost us tens of trillions of dollars, and, unfortunately, will be one of the worst ways to help us recover.