Next-Generation Development

The Prime Ministers of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are meeting in Bergen, Norway, tomorrow to present a common approach on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unfortunately, the prime ministers have their priorities backward.

The potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic is enormous. But draconian policies to tackle the virus also have colossal costs. Ignoring the trade-offs could land us with one of the worst possible outcomes.

A landmark study by London’s Imperial College on death impacts from different policies helped change the minds of US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson towards implementation of lockdown policies. It showed that without any such policies, COVID-19 would kill a half-million people in Britain and 2.2 million people in the US.

President Trump’s executive order eliminating President Obama’s standards for power plants guts the main U.S. measure to reduce harmful carbon emissions, and in doing so reveals the emptiness of the Paris climate treaty.

The science is clear-cut: Climate change is real and mostly caused by humanity. Obama committed America to major carbon cuts.

According to the International Energy Agency, the U.S. promised to cut more energy-related CO2 emissions than any country in the world from 2013 to 2025, under the Paris climate treaty.