Lomborg interviewed at the Monica Crowley Show

2013-09-22 With the first overview in six years from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it is time to raise two big questions. Why have panic and catastrophe dominated the debate? And why have the solutions presented thus far been so expensive and ineffective? We really need to start talking about what will work. 

...The question is, what comes next? The author of the Copenhagen Consensus (not to be confused with December's Copenhagen summit), Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg, has talked about a "third way" forward: acknowledging that climate change is real, but pursuing a cost-benefit approach that would commit countries to projects that yield the greatest benefits for the greatest number of people. "I've read Lomborg," Mr. Ramesh says with a smile. "I don't think you should dismiss Lomborg the way climate evangelicals have dismissed him. He makes reasonable points.

There’s a lot of focus now on the politics of Paris. Will poor countries get the "climate aid" they want? Will China agree to reduce its growth, leaving millions more in poverty, by committing to far-reaching carbon cuts? What will be the wording of the treaty that emerges?

It’s easy to become cynical. Let’s instead take a step back and ask a much more interesting question: what would it take for Paris to succeed? By this, I don’t mean that the delegates manage to sign some kind of treaty. I mean, what would it take for Paris to have a real impact on climate change?