World Bank eco policy shifts aid from poor

At the Glasgow climate conference, President Biden declared climate change an “existential threat to human existence as we know it.” No, it’s not. Climate change is not a meteor hurtling toward Earth to destroy humanity. Rather, it is a chronic, manageable condition humanity can live with. So argues Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book “False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet.”

PARIS – The beautiful Champs-Élysées is lit with millions of sparkling lights. This year, they are powered by renewable energy. There is a wind turbine as tall as the Arc de Triomphe, and 440 solar panels take up much of the Champs-Élysées roundabout. One evening during the COP21 climate change conference this month, there was neither sunlight nor wind, so organizers asked those of us strolling down the avenue to power the lights via stationary bikes and hamster wheels. 

The United Nations climate conference in Paris starting Nov. 30 will get under way when most minds in the French capital will still understandably be on the recent terror attacks. But for many of the 40,000 attendees, the goal is to ensure that climate change stays on the global economic agenda for the next 15 years.