Showing 1 - 9 of 9
Climate fixation fails world's poor
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 17/04/2026
» This week in Washington, more than 10,000 delegates, finance ministers, and central bankers are gathering for the World Bank and IMF Spring Meetings. Their stated goal: accelerate global development, drive economic growth, and lift billions out of poverty.
Green energy has become a pricey delusion
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 13/05/2025
» Ask families in Germany and the UK what happens when more and more supposedly cheap solar and wind power is added to the national power mix, and they can tell you by looking at their utility bills: it gets far more expensive. This goes against everything that we're being told. Green energy is supposed to be incredibly cheap. But we're not hearing the real story.
What climate spending really costs the globe
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 24/01/2025
» Across the world, public finances are stretched dangerously thin. Per person growth continues dropping while costs are climbing for pensions, education, healthcare, and defence. These urgent priorities could easily require an additional 3-6% of GDP. Yet green campaigners are loudly calling for governments to spend up to 25% of our GDP choking growth in the name of climate change.
Pricey policies to curb climate change 'dead'
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 28/11/2024
» The latest climate summit has been as hypocritical and dysfunctional as every one before, with most world leaders not even bothering to turn up. Still, 50,000 people flew in from across the world, while essentially telling the rest of us to stop flying. Poor-country politicians performatively staged a "walk-out", and rich nations ended up promising a climate slush fund of US$300 billion (about 10 trillion baht) a year.
The education policy that can bridge the gap
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 11/10/2024
» Children's educational test scores are a major cause for concern across the world. Learning plummeted nearly everywhere during the Covid-19 pandemic -- but even before that, standardised test result measures in mathematics, science and reading were heading in the wrong direction.
Why solar and wind are not winning
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 20/04/2024
» Despite us constantly being told that solar and wind are now the cheapest forms of electricity, governments around the world needed to spend US$1.8 trillion (66.3 trillion baht) on the green transition last year. "Wind and solar are already significantly cheaper than coal and oil" is how US President Joe Biden conveniently justifies spending hundreds of billions of dollars on green subsidies. Indeed, arguing that wind and solar is cheapest is a meme employed by green lobbyists, activists and politicians around the world. Unfortunately, as the $1.8 trillion price-tag shows, the claim is wildly deceptive.
Two education policies to make a difference
News, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 15/05/2023
» One thing that taxpayers and politicians agree on practically everywhere is that more money should be spent on children's education. This seems like a no-brainer: better education means children get a better start in life. But we need to be careful. Many popular educational investments deliver little or no learning, while we rarely hear about the most effective investments.
Reducing emissions not so easy
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 10/11/2021
» At the UN Climate Summit in Glasgow (COP26), most leaders of rich nations are eagerly promising to decarbonise their economies by mid-century or even sooner. Yet, it is highly questionable if they and their successors will want or be able to keep their promise. Even worse, growth-reducing climate policies won't convince developing countries who need to lift their populations out of poverty and whose emissions matter most this century.
Shifting climate costs to the world's poor
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 28/05/2021
» To tackle climate change, rich nations are promising to end fossil fuel use in 29 years. As this becomes excruciatingly costly, the G7 is now thinking about making the world's poor pay for it. That will go badly.