How the energy crisis can be solved

Bjorn Lomborg on Cost-Effective Ways to Address Climate Change The author of The Skeptical Environmentalist reviews humanity's "pretty impressive track record" of adapting to various climates in The Washington Post. (...) 

Bjorn Lomborg points out that the costs of our climate promises would be higher than the total tax intake of all governments across the world today, far exceeding the benefits of climate change mitigation.

Climate change is clearly an important global issue, but we are tackling it very badly and our overwhelming focus on reducing carbon emissions also distracts us from many of the world's most pressing problems. What makes it so hard to cut emissions is that CO2 is a byproduct of prosperous economies, and replacing cheap fossil fuels with today's mostly expensive and unreliable green alternatives remains incredibly expensive. An analysis for the government of New Zealand recently showed that achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 would cost the nation 16% of GDP.