Bjorn Lomborg: Make COP30 about human welfare

A climate summit focused on human welfare would recognize that, by making people more resilient, boosting prosperity is one of the best policy responses to climate change, writes Bjorn Lomborg. Photo by Wagner Meier/Getty Images/Postmedia files

Article content

Article content

Article content

I have long argued that policy-makers should always ask: What’s the smartest way to do the most good with limited resources? For billions of people in the developing world, tackling immediate challenges like poverty and disease outweighs chasing distant temperature goals.

Article content

Article content

Article content

In poor countries, parents are not kept awake by concern about achieving a 0.1°C temperature reduction over a century. They worry whether their children will survive a bout with malaria or get a decent education. As Gates points out, “the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.” Every year, more than 7.5 million people in poorer countries die from illnesses that could be prevented or managed very cheaply. Smart investments in health, nutrition and education could save over four million people every year, while also building growth and resilience for the future.

Article content

Gates’ common-sense message is at the crest of a growing global shift in thinking. For years, no departure from dogmatic climate conformism has been tolerated. Making drastic emissions cuts at any cost has been the paramount policy goal. This extremist message has been repeated ad nauseam by the United Nations’ secretary-general, numberless politicians and an army of hectoring celebrities. Anyone questioning the supremacy of the climate threat or expressing skepticism at the costly policies required has been derided as a “climate denier.”

Article content

Article content

Suddenly, pragmatism and nuanced thinking are back in fashion. Prime Minister Mark Carney — who warned a decade ago that potential climate catastrophe meant fossil fuel reserves could be “unburnable” — is fast-tracking the construction of an LNG export terminal and promising to “transform our country into an energy superpower.”  In the U.S., Democratic Senator Chris Coons says climate is “not a top three issue right now.” Even the green-leaning British and German governments are talking about the need to inject some economics into climate and energy policy.

Article content

Article content

It is time to move beyond the doomsday narratives that have dominated the climate discussion in recent years. Climate change is a real problem, but it is — literally — not the end of the world. If it’s not addressed, climate economicsshows that it might shave two to three per cent off global GDP by 2100 — meaning we’ll be 435 per cent richer instead of 450 per cent. Climate is one issue among many, not an apocalypse that eclipses everything else.

Article content

And yet the same old activists are repeating their well-worn arguments. First, the notion that climate spending is not crowding out efforts to tackle poverty. This idea is pushed by climate professor Michael Oppenheimer, who claims Gates sets up a “false dichotomy.” But anyone living in the real world knows money can’t be spent twice. By their own proud admission, the world’s multilateral development banks — international organizations funded largely by taxpayers to help the world’s poorest countries — devoted an astonishing US$137 billion to climate financing in 2024. That is $137 billion that won’t be spent on preventing disease and hunger.