Twelve projects costing US$35 billion could do much more good than the $10 trillion the UN is spending on its official development goals

Twelve projects costing US$35 billion could do much more good than the $10 trillion the UN is spending on its official development goals

Britain’s experience with costly net-zero mandates offers a warning for other countries. Bjorn Lomborg explains how rising energy costs and public backlash are forcing governments to reconsider climate policies that impose large economic burdens for limited temperature reductions, and argues for affordable energy and greater investment in green innovation.

For years, researchers who questioned predictions of climate calamity were often treated as pariahs. The Free Press examines how the debate has shifted as political leaders, voters and philanthropists place greater emphasis on energy affordability, adaptation, economic development and human welfare, featuring Bjorn Lomborg’s longstanding case for a more pragmatic approach.

The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season ended on Sunday, and not a single hurricane made landfall in the continental U.S. this year. This is the first such quiet year since 2015; an average of around two hurricanes strike the U.S. mainland annually. You’d think this would be cause for celebration—or at least curiosity about what role, if any, global warming played. Instead there has been resounding silence.

Marian L. Tupy revisits the controversy surrounding The Skeptical Environmentalist and the effort to discredit Bjorn Lomborg for challenging environmental pessimism with long-run data. The essay argues that many of Lomborg’s central points—on human progress, climate trade-offs, adaptation and policy prioritization—have increasingly entered the mainstream.

Bjorn Lomborg examines two widely publicized climate studies whose dramatic conclusions influenced media coverage and policy despite serious methodological problems. Subsequent research found that global fire intensity has declined and that an enormous projected climate impact on global GDP was not statistically robust, illustrating the risks of building policy on headline-friendly findings.

Western politicians and climate activists are using the jungle backdrop of the poor Amazon city of Belém, Brazil for photo ops as they lecture the world on carbon emissions at the COP 30 climate summit this week.

The only bright spot for the environment is the rapid expansion of state-of-the-art nuclear power.
 

Bjorn Lomborg is a Danish political scientist, author, and president of the Copenhagen Consensus. A former Greenpeace member turned pragmatic environmentalist, he argues that fighting poverty and improving global well-being should take priority over extreme climate policies. His latest book, Best Things First, continues his mission to make the world’s resources work smarter—not louder. Follow him on X: @BjornLomborg