The Lomborg Challenge

The follow-up meeting to the 2015 Paris climate accord on Dec 12 will be slightly less impressive than the original. Having dumped the Paris Agreement, US President Donald Trump is going to skip, and China and India are sending ministers instead of their leaders. But we will hear the same defiance coming from Paris as we have heard for the past two years: the Paris Agreement will continue, even without the US.

Outside the Paris climate conference center, organizers have erected a ‘Wind Tree’ (Arbre a Vent) which produces electricity using the power of the breeze. In doing so, they have summed up exactly what is wrong with the conference.

The tree will only produce 3,500 kWh per year and it costs about €25,000. So, at a production price of about 7 cents per kWh , it will take 89 years to make up just the capital cost. Or put differently, the cost is 300% more expensive than even traditional wind power, which still struggles without subsidies.

President Biden enthusiastically describes his administration's new Inflation Reduction Act as "the most significant legislation in history to tackle the climate crisis." Curiously though, neither officials nor media praising the IRA are stating the actual climate impact of spending $369 billion on the bill's climate provisions.