Showing 1 - 10 of 16
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.
The high cost of cutting funding for vaccines
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 04/09/2025
» Vaccines are a vital tool that save millions of lives every year. Concerningly, the US government wants to cut funding for a key organisation that saves lives around the world through immunisation. And amid vaccine safety debates, the world is seeing rising measles cases.
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.
Environment on the up as world prospers
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 22/04/2025
» As we celebrate Earth Day today, it's tempting to believe that the world is on the brink of environmental collapse. We are constantly inundated by dire predictions of climate catastrophe and warnings about the planet's imminent destruction. But this is misleading. Rather than panic, we should take a moment to appreciate the remarkable progress we've made in improving the environment -- and acknowledge that a key factor is prosperity.
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 transition to green energy that wasn't
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 06/09/2024
» Despite much hype, the much-vaunted green energy transition away from fossil fuels isn't happening. Achieving a meaningful shift with current policies turns out to be unaffordably costly. We need to drastically change policy 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.
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.
Development goals need to be prioritised
Oped, Bjorn Lomborg, Published on 20/09/2023
» The world is failing on its development promises. These are known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by all governments in 2015 to be achieved by 2030. Progress across all these promises -- including in areas as important as eradicating poverty and ending hunger -- is happening at less than one-fourth of the pledged speed. On current trends, the world will reach its 2030 promises half a century late.