Lomborg's op-ed in Washington Post:Cost-effective ways to address climate change

Twenty nations including Japan, Italy and Australia may be releasing more greenhouse-gas pollution than they agreed to under the Kyoto treaty to curb global warming. They're failing to rein in carbon-dioxide output enough to meet their pledges signed in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, according to reports by individual countries. As a penalty for missing their goals under the treaty, the nations are required to buy permits for every excess ton of the heat-trapping gas released through 2012.

Is global warming to blame for the Syrian war? Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Beto O'Rourke and Bernie Sanders seem to think so. At the CNN climate town hall this month, Buttigieg and O'Rourke referred to climate change as a national security threat that contributed to causing the Syrian civil war. “Wars that were precipitated by climate change, like Syria, will pale in comparison to the wars that we see in the future,” O'Rourke warned. Both candidates follow the lead of Sanders, who has long claimed that “climate change is directly related to the growth of terrorism”.

This week has seen debate rage about whether the Hinkley Point deal represents good value. But there is another vital element of energy policy that is not being discussed. For one of the key benefits of the vote to leave the European Union is that Britain will not longer have to cooperate with overzealous regulations on shale gas extraction, or fracking, which has the potential to transform the energy market.