Showing 1 - 10 of 11
COP30 must be more focused on human welfare
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 13/11/2025
» With the United Nations climate summit, COP30, now in full swing in the humid jungle city of Belém, Brazil, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has cut through the noise with a blunt truth: these UN climate gatherings must zero in on lifting human lives, rather than fixating solely on slashing emissions or dialling down global temperatures. It's a perspective that's long overdue yet seems so obvious.
Climate week fanfare hides the poverty gap
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 24/09/2025
» As world leaders converge on New York for the UN General Assembly and Climate Week, two incompatible visions are about to clash: rich-world elites obsessed with climate change versus developing nations battling poverty, hunger, and disease.
Thailand should chart its own path on climate
News, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 14/06/2025
» In recent years, climate anxiety has taken over many Western governments and most international organisations. The result has been ruinous policies that help little but undermine future prosperity needed to deal with a host of other problems. Fortunately, Thailand can avoid repeating these mistakes.
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.
Climate policies are getting far too expensive
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 02/11/2024
» As climate policy increasingly drives up living costs with next to no results, voters are becoming wearier of expansive green promises. We can only hope this backlash could lead to better, cheaper and more effective measures.
Eyeing climate change, follow science, warily
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 06/06/2024
» We endlessly hear the flawed assertion that because climate change is real, we should "follow the science" and end fossil fuel use. We hear this claim from politicians who favour swift carbon cuts, and from natural scientists themselves, as when the editor-in-chief of Nature insists "The science is clear -- fossil fuels must go".
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.
Rich world raids development funds for climate
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 27/01/2024
» Too many rich-world politicians and climate campaigners forget that much of the world remains mired in poverty and hunger. Yet, rich countries are increasingly replacing their development aid with climate spending. The World Bank, whose primary goal is to help people out of poverty, has now announced it will divert 45% of its funding toward climate change, shifting some US$40 billion annually away from poverty and hunger.
COP28 won't admit real cost of net zero
News, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 06/12/2023
» The spectacle of another annual climate conference is getting underway in Dubai. Like Kabuki theater, performative set pieces lead from one to the other: politicians and celebrities arrive by private jets; speakers predict imminent doom; hectoring NGOs cast blame; political negotiations become fraught and inevitably go overtime; and finally: the signing of a new agreement that participants hope and pretend will make a difference.