|
Few would argue that the December 2009 Copenhagen conference on global warming was a success; in fact, the strong case could be made that it was a dismal failure. Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, argues that “the summiteers did the planet a favor by refusing to endorse a binding agreement to drastically reduce carbon emissions. That’s because their inability to make progress may be the nudge the international community needs to face the real inconvenient truth: that after nearly two decades of fruitless efforts, its time to give up our Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen fantasy and get real about combating global warming.” There are at least two conclusions one can reach after Copenhagen: (1) the developing nations have no intention of letting the developed world force them to stop using carbon-emitting fuels. They are understandably wary of any policy that might curtail the domestic economic growth that is allowing their populations to climb out of poverty. (2) Trying to force drastic cuts in carbon emissions makes no economic sense. Lomborg argues that “all the major climate economic models show that to achieve the much-discussed goal of keeping temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, we would need to institute a global tax on carbon emissions that would start at $102 per ton (or about 90 cents per gallon of gasoline)—and increase to $4,000 per ton (or $35.51 per gallon of gasoline) by the end of the century. In all, this would cost the world $40 trillion per year. Most mainstream calculations conclude that this is 50 times more expensive than the climate damage it seeks to prevent.” Forcing cuts in carbon emissions is a solution that will cost far more than the problem it is meant to solve.
For that reason, Lomborg, among others, is arguing that the world has been putting the cart before the horse. We have bought the lie that we should cut carbon emissions now and solve the technology problems later. We should turn this around. Instead of condemning billions of people to continued poverty by trying to make fossil fuels more expensive, we should make green energy cheaper. Our focus should be on developing the technology through significant increases in research and development. Lomborg writes that “Devoting just 0.2 % of global domestic product—roughly $100 billion (70 billion Euros) a year—to green energy R and D would produce the kind of game-changing breakthroughs needed to fuel a carbon-free future.” Lomborg also suggests that the world has its priorities wrong. As I demonstrated above, to reduce carbon emissions to pre-industrial levels would cost $40 trillion per year through 2100. By contrast, we could spend $3 billion a year on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays and subsidies for new therapies—and within 10 years cut the number of malaria infections by half. “In other words, for the money it would take to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000.” The silliness of the carbon reduction efforts is demonstrated by this fact: “Spending $50 billion on Kyoto-style carbon-emissions cuts would reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years. Money spent on carbon cuts is money we can’t use for effective investments in food aid, micronutrients, HIV/AIDS prevention, health and education infrastructure and clean water and sanitation. . . [It] does raise serious questions about our dogmatic pursuit of a strategy that can only be described as breathtakingly expensive and woefully ineffective.”
The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro announced carbon-reduction targets that were in fact economically, technically and politically impossible to achieve. The same thing was done a decade later at Kyoto, Japan. Fortunately, this insanity was rejected at Copenhagen. This model does not and will not work. Bjorn Lomborg, in my judgment, is providing an alternative model for addressing the matter of climate change. Our stewardship responsibility over God’s world is broad and complex, but it is nonetheless real and significant. We cannot ignore that we are God’s theocratic stewards and He expects us to care for His world and the inhabitants of His world. The Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen model is not working. We must find another way, one with realistic priorities and realistic, achievable goals.
See Lomborg’s two essays: Wall Street Journal (15 December 2009) and the Washington Post (15 January 2010). |
