Innovation not global regulation will save the planet

WSJ blog By Joseph B. White January 27, 2011 Obama’s Energy Shift: It’s Not About Climate

(...) The new, 2011 Obama energy rhetoric appears to embrace the idea that the politically palatable way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is to make low-carbon energy cheaper, instead of using taxes or government-imposed limits to make coal and oil more expensive. That approach has been promoted by Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg and like-minded thinkers in the U.S. such as Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute. (...) 

SAN JOSÉ, COSTA RICA – One commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it. (...) Lomborg's article as a Project Syndicate Thought Leader, Sept 2008.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this month is being billed as an opportunity to save the planet. It is no such thing. As I show in a new peer-reviewed paper, even if successful, the agreement reached in Paris would cut temperatures in 2100 by just 0.05° Celsius. The rise in sea level would be reduced by only 1.3 centimeters.