Reaction on Lomborg's Earth Day op-ed

Politicians at the Glasgow climate conference seem to be competing to come up with the most outrageously dire forecast. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called global warming “a doomsday device,” while United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said that humans are “killing ourselves with carbon.” They both get points for alliteration,...

Many western donors love the idea that instead of dirty, coal-fired power-plants, poor nations should ‘leapfrog’ straight to cleaner energy sources such as off-grid solar technology. The World Bank is at the forefront of these efforts, no longer funding coal energy projects.

Off-grid solar projects begin with grand intentions, but too often end with recipients barely better off. We can see this in the small Pacific island nation of Fiji, where the government – advocates of strong global climate policy – teamed up with a Japanese technology company to deliver off-grid solar power.

The disconnect between the global elite and the real world is growing by the day. Most people are worn down by the pandemic, food and energy price hikes and general inflation, and worried about recession. Yet the chattering classes are jetting into conferences at Davos or Aspen to declare that our biggest and most immediate threats are climate change, environmental disasters and biodiversity loss.