Across the world, public finances are stretched dangerously thin. Per-person growth continues dropping while costs are climbing for pensions, education, health care and defense.<\/p>\n (Article by Bjorn Lomborg republished from\u00a0NYPost.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n These urgent priorities could easily require an additional 3%-6% of GDP. Yet\u00a0green campaigners are loudly calling for governments to spend\u00a0<\/a>up to 25% of our GDP, choking growth in the name of climate change.<\/p>\n If climate Armageddon were imminent, they would have a point. The truth is far more prosaic.<\/p>\n Two major new scientific estimates of the total global cost of climate change have been published recently.<\/p>\n These are not individual studies, which can vary greatly (with the costliest studies getting copious press coverage). Instead, they are meta-studies based on the entirety of the peer-reviewed literature.<\/p>\n One is authored<\/a>\u00a0by one of the most cited climate economists, Richard Tol;\u00a0the other<\/a>\u00a0is by the only climate economist to win the Nobel prize, William Nordhaus.<\/p>\n The studies suggest that a 3 degree Celsius temperature increase by the end of the century \u2014\u00a0slightly pessimistic<\/a>\u00a0based on current trends \u2014 will have a global cost equivalent to between 1.9% and 3.1% of global GDP.<\/p>\n To put this into context, the United Nations estimates that by the end of the century, the average person will be 450% as rich as he or she is today. Because of climate change, they will feel \u201conly\u201d 435%-440% as rich as today.<\/p>\n Why is this so different from the impression we have been given by the media?<\/p>\n Alarmist campaigners and credulous journalists fail to account for the simple fact that people are remarkably adaptable and tackle most climate problems at low cost.<\/p>\n Take food: Climate campaigners warn we\u2019ll starve, but\u00a0research shows<\/a>\u00a0that instead of a 51% increase in food availability by 2100 if there were no climate change, we are on-track for \u201conly\u201d a 49% increase.<\/p>\n Or weather disasters: They killed half a million people annually in the 1920s, whereas the last decade saw fewer than 9,000 fatalities each year.<\/p>\n The\u00a097.5% reduction<\/a>\u00a0in mortality is because people are more resilient because they\u2019re richer and can access better technology.<\/p>\n Extremist climate campaigners and far-left politicians reveal their true colors when they\u00a0push for \u201cde-growth\u201d<\/a>\u00a0to cut emissions.<\/p>\n Making people worse off and reversing gains against extreme poverty would be a tragic mistake, making it harder to address all our other problems.<\/p>\n Moreover, it is laughable to envision that the West\u2019s strategic adversaries like Vladimir Putin will embrace a similar approach.<\/p>\n More responsible politicians \u201conly\u201d want to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. But this approach still means slowing growth in the name of climate change, by forcing businesses and individuals to use less-efficient green energy instead of fossil fuels.<\/p>\n The total costs would be enormous, $15 trillion to $37 trillion each year throughout the century, equivalent to 15%-37% of global GDP today.<\/p>\n Given wealthier OECD countries will foot most of this bill, the price-tag will be the equivalent to each person in the better off nations paying north of $10,000 every year.<\/p>\n The real cost of inefficient climate policy is that it distracts resources and attention from other priorities.<\/p>\n Europe offers an abject lesson. Twenty-five years ago, the European Union\u00a0proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0that with massive investments in R&D throughout the economy, it would become \u201cthe most competitive and the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n It abjectly failed: Innovation spending hardly budged and the EU is now\u00a0far behind<\/a>\u00a0the US, South Korea, and even China.<\/p>\n Instead<\/a>, the EU switched focus and with a near-myopic climate obsession opted for a \u201csustainable\u201d economy over a sound one.<\/p>\n The EU\u2019s decision to increase its 2030 emission reduction targets was pure virtue signaling.<\/p>\n The cost is likely to top several trillion Euros, yet the entire effort will merely\u00a0reduce temperatures<\/a>\u00a0by the end of the century by a trivial 0.008-degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n Not focusing on innovation has stunted Europe. The Euro area has seen anemic annual growth over the past decade of just over 1% per person.<\/p>\n For the two trillion euros it has spent on symbolic climate policy, the EU could have lived up to its own innovation spending targets for two decades.<\/p>\n Investment in innovation could have made the EU and the world \u20ac60 trillion richer in the long run, generating 500 times more benefits than its symbolic climate policy benefits.<\/p>\n Crucially, it would have allowed the EU more leeway to tackle other key challenges like pensions, education, health care, and defense.<\/p>\n The rest of the world needs to pay heed to Europe\u2019s example, and stop wasting money on bad climate policies.<\/p>\n Bjorn Lomborg is President of the Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University\u2019s Hoover Institution, and author of \u201cFalse Alarm\u201d and \u201cBest Things First.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Read more at:\u00a0NYPost.com<\/a><\/p>\n \n\t<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/naturalblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/A-City-Showing-Effect-Climate-Change.jpg\")
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