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Global Warming – Are We Doing The Right Thing?

By Bjørn Lomborg, Ph.D., associate professor at the Department of Political Science,
University of Aarhus, Denmark
Pls. Note that this is a first (un-edited) version, with references.

Last month in Bonn, most of the world’s nations (minus the US) reached an agreement to cut carbon
emissions. Generally, the deal was widely reported as almost saving the world. Yet, not only is this
untrue in the scientific sense – the deal will do almost no good – but it is also unclear whether carbon
emission cuts are really the best way for the world to ensure progress on its most important areas.
Global warming is important, environmentally, politically and economically. There is no doubt that
mankind has influenced and is still increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and that this will
increase temperature. I will not discuss all the scientific uncertainty, but basically accept the models
and predictions from the 2001 report of the UN Climate Panel (IPCC). Yet, we will need to separate
hyperbole from realities in order to choose our future optimally.
When the IPCC tells us that the world might warm some 5.8°C over the coming century, this is based
on an enormous variety of scenarios and models, where the IPCC has explicitly rejected making
predictions about the future, and instead gives us “computer-aided storytelling,”1 basing the
development of crucial variables on initial choice and depicting normative scenarios “as one would
hope they would emerge.”2 Yet the high-end scenarios seem plainly unlikely. Reasonable analysis as
we saw yesterday, suggest that renewables – and especially solar power – will be competitive or even
outcompete fossil fuels by mid-century, and this means that carbon emissions are much more likely to
follow the low emission scenarios, causing a warming of about 2-2.5°C.3
Moreover, global warming will not decrease food production,4 it will probably not increase
storminess or the frequency of hurricanes, [“there is no general...