2013-11-18 The last twenty years of international climate negotiations have achieved almost nothing and have done so at enormous economic cost. Japan’s courageous announcement that it is scrapping its unrealistic targets and focusing instead on development of green technologies could actually be the beginning of smarter climate policies. 

2013-11-14 Today’s policies to combat climate change cost much more than the benefits they produce. Unfortunately, bad political choices often make these policies even less cost-effective.  Consider the European Union’s 20-20 policy, which targets a 20% reduction in CO2 emissions below 1990 levels by 2020. It is important to examine this approach, not only because the EU is pursuing the world’s largest and most ambitious climate policy, but also because other climate policies suffer from similar shortcomings. (...) 

Bjorn Lomborg gave a TED Talk in New York on How Much Have Global Problems Cost the World? A Scorecard from 1900 - 2050. He presents a new way to compare global problems and shows that the world is becoming a better, more livable place.

2013-11-11 Subsidizing first-generation, inefficient green energy might make well-off people feel good about themselves, but it won't transform the energy market. Yet when inefficient green subsidies are criticized, their defenders can be relied on to point out that the world subsidizes fossil fuels even more heavily. But the misinformation surrounding energy subsidies is considerable, and it helps keep the world from enacting sensible policy.

2013-11-09  What kind of Australia do you want in 2040? What kind of jobs will be available to the next generation? And how do you want your society to look in three decades?  It is a conversation conducted far too rarely, overshadowed by day-to-day policy battles and the sensational scare of the month. In some ways, it is easy for Australia to avoid this conversation. (...)  

2013-11-06 One of the longest-running big picture debates is between optimists and pessimists  arguing the state of the world. Pessimists  have constantly painted a dystopian future from Malthus and Jevons to the 1972 book Limits to Growth. Optimists have cheerfully pointed to how everything is getting better. 

2013-10-16

COPENHAGEN – For centuries, optimists and pessimists have argued over the state of the world. Pessimists see a world where more people means less food, where rising demand for resources means depletion and war, and, in recent decades, where boosting production capacity means more pollution and global warming. One of the current generation of pessimists’ sacred texts, The Limits to Growth, influences the environmental movement to this day.

2013-10-19 Ignore the doomsters: on nearly every measure our planet is getting fairer, healthier and safer. 

2013-10-15 En af de mest vedholdende påstande i klimadebatten er, at den globale opvarmning fører til mere ekstreme vejrforhold. Vi hører det ustandseligt fra grønne grupper, og selv respektable medier som Scientific American er bukket under for presset til generelt at erklære, at »ekstreme vejrforhold er et produkt af klimaændringer.« Men alarmisme og panik er sjældent den bedste måde at opnå gode politikker på.

2013-10-14 FOR the past half century, a fundamental debate has raged between optimists and pessimists over the state of the world. Pessimists build their case on overpopulation, starvation and depletion of resources. Optimists stand for the infallibility of the market economy. Wouldn't it be nice to remove the darkened or rose-tinted spectacles for once, and try to quantify how the world really has done and will do in future? I asked some of the world's leading economists to do just that. The result is a groundbreaking book, How Much Have Global Problems Cost The World?