When the Only Problem Was Climate Change

Solving warming is about innovation: Lomborg

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 02/03/2011
Reporter: Tony Jones
Bjorn Lomborg is the author of the controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist and says we are taking the wrong approach to tackling climate change.

Copenhagen Consensus Centre President Bjorn Lomborg says there are constantly climate catastrophes and it’s very easy to claim them as global warming.

“Global warming is real and it’s very likely that it does have an impact, but what you need to recognise is that because we are richer and more resilient we’ve dramatically drove down the number of people that die from climate-related disasters,” Mr Lomborg told Sky News Australia.

The suburb of Alajo is about as far from the posh hotels of Paris as you could get. But the bureaucrats and politicians here in France are negotiating a climate treaty to ‘help the world’s poorest’ including billions of dollars of guarantees of "climate aid" to developing nations.

I’ve argued in this blog that this kind of aid isn’t what’s wanted. I’ve pointed to a massive global survey of 8 million people showing that people in the world’s poorest countries rank climate policy last after other policy priorities.