WSJ Opinion: How the Climate Elite Spread Misery

COPENHAGEN – For the better part of a decade, I have upset many climate activists by pointing out that there are far better ways to stop global warming than trying to persuade governments to force or bribe their citizens into slashing their reliance on fuels that emit carbon dioxide. What especially bugs my critics is the idea that cutting carbon is a cure that is worse than the disease – or, to put it in economic terms, that it would cost far more than the problem it is meant to solve. “How can that possibly be true?” they ask. “After all, we are talking about the end of the world.

By Bjorn Lomborg In a week's time, several thousand well-meaning officials from 194 countries will gather in Cancun, Mexico, for yet another global climate summit. And just as they did last year in Copenhagen, and the year before in Poznan, Poland, and in fact every year since 1995 in a variety of locales from Kyoto, Japan, to Marrakech, Morocco, they will fill the air with apocalyptic warnings about what will happen to the planet if we don't cut carbon emissions drastically. After that, they will go home, once again having done nothing meaningful about global warming. (...) 

The developed world’s response to the global energy crisis has put its hypocritical attitude toward fossil fuels on display. Wealthy countries admonish developing ones to use renewable energy. Last month the Group of Seven went so far as to announce they would no longer fund fossil-fuel development abroad.