We need climate policies that work
2019-11-29
Climatechange is clearly an important global issue, but we are tackling it very badlyand our overwhelming focus on reducing carbon emissions also distracts us frommany of the world's most pressing problems. What makes it so hard to cutemissions is that CO2 is a by-product of prosperous economies, and replacingcheap fossil fuels with today's mostly expensive and unreliable green alternativesremains incredibly expensive. An analysis for the government of New Zealandrecently showed that achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 would cost the nation16% of GDP.
Inan interview with CNBC, Bjorn Lomborg argues that it's easy for politicians tomake big promises for political applause now, but as the consequences ofexpensive climate policies become apparent, opposition will be strong, as wehave seen in France and other countries. Instead of the grand rhetoric,policy-makers need to focus on innovating the next generations of greentechnologies that will make them feasible and affordable foreveryone.
www.lomborg.com/news/we-need-climate-policies-that-work
Empty Gestures on Climate Change
2019-12-20
Switch to energy-efficient light bulbs, wash your clothes in coldwater, eat less meat, recycle more, and buy an electric car: we are beingbombarded with instructions from climate campaigners, environmentalists, andthe media about the everyday steps we all must take to tackle climate change.Unfortunately, these appeals trivialize the challenge of global warming anddivert our attention from the huge technological and policy changes that areneeded to combat it.
www.lomborg.com/news/empty-gestures-on-climate-change
Likewise, electric cars are branded as environmentally friendly,but generating the electricity they require almost always involves burningfossil fuels. Moreover, producing energy-intensive batteries for these carsinvariably generates significant CO2 emissions. According to the InternationalEnergy Agency (IEA), an electric carwith a range of 400 kilometers (249 miles) has ahuge carbon deficit when it hits the road, and will start saving emissions onlyafter being driven 60,000 kilometers. Yet, almost everywhere, people use anelectric car as a second car, and drive it shorter distances than equivalentgasoline vehicles.
Despite subsidies of about $10,000 per car, battery-powered electric cars represent less than one-third of 1% of the world’s one billion vehicles. The IEA estimates that with sustained political pressure and subsidies, electric cars could account for 15% of the much larger global fleet in 2040, but notes that this increase in share will reduce global CO2 emissions by just 1%.
We already spend $129 billion per year subsidizing solar and wind energy to try to entice more people to use today’s inefficient technology, yet these sources meet just 1.1% of our global energy needs. The IEA estimates that by 2040 – after we have spent a whopping $3.5 trillion on additional subsidies – solar and wind will still meet less than 5% of our needs.
That’s pitiful. Significantly cutting CO2 emissions without reducing economic growth will requirefar more than individual actions. It is absurd for middle-class citizens inadvanced economies to tell themselves that eating less steak or commuting in aToyota Prius will rein in rising temperatures. To tackle global warming, wemust make collective changes on an unprecedented scale.
By all means, anyone who wants to go vegetarian orbuy an electric car should do so, for sound reasons such as killing feweranimals or reducing household energy bills. But such decisions will not solvethe problem of global warming.
The one individualaction that citizens could take that would make a difference would be to demanda vast increase in spending on green-energy research and development, so thatthese energy sources eventually become cheap enough to outcompete fossil fuels.That is the real way to help fight climate change.
