Lomborg participates in the How the Light Gets In philosophy festival

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?

The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers
Foreign Policy presents a unique portrait of 2012's global marketplace of ideas and the thinkers who make them.

58 BJORN LOMBORG
For taking the black and white out of climate politics.
Director, Copenhagen Consensus Center | Czech Republic

ast week, a study in the prestigious journal Nature revealed just how much CO₂ increases have greened the Earth over the past three decades. Because CO₂ acts as a fertilizer, as much as half of all vegetated land is persistently greener today. This ought to be a cause for great joy.

Instead, the BBC focused on warning that the paper shouldn’t make us stop worrying about global warming, with threats like melting glaciers and more severe tropical storms. Many other major news outlets did not even report on the study.