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Bøjrn Lomborg: We need $100 billion a year to fight climate change
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Harvey Rubin directs the Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (email [email protected]). Alice Conant is a student at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California
One minute with...
Bjørn Lomborg Has the “sceptical environmentalist” changed his mind about climate change? After all, he’s asking for megabucks to tackle it First off, let’s get something straight. Exactly how sceptical are you about climate change? Man-made global warming exists. My problem is with the single-minded focus on drastic carbon emission reductions that have been promised in the 18 years since the Earth Summit in Rio, and have gotten virtually nowhere. What’s the alternative to this approach to cutting carbon emissions? I assembled a team of leading economists to do cost-benefit analyses on a range of solutions, from planting more trees to methane reduction and carbon taxes. The top short-term solution was investing in research into climate engineering, such as whitening clouds to reflect more sunlight – with the caveat that we don’t know if it works yet. The best long-term option turned out to be investment in green energy technology. Can decisions about climate change be boiled down to monetary calculations? No. These are political and moral questions – but economists can help. We can put monetary value on things like the loss of ecosystems and show how to prioritise climate change compared with other problems. Your new book calls for $100 billion a year to fight climate change. Yet in the past you’ve criticised those who advocate throwing money at the problem. I would hope that everyone would criticise the strategy of carbon cuts at a cost of $250 billion, with every dollar spent only saving a couple of cents of climate damage. That is a waste of money. If you spend that money as our research shows, you avoid $11 of climate damage every year for every dollar spent. That’s a great deal. Where will the money come from? Most economists would suggest a carbon tax because you should tax negatives according the damage done. The latest research estimates that the cost of emitting an extra tonne of CO2 is about $7. If you applied this tax worldwide, you would
Profile Statistician Bjørn Lomborg is adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and director of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center, which analyses the best way to spend development money. His latest book is Smart Solutions to Climate Change
raise around $250 billion dollars. But this level of taxation only amounts to around 6 cents on a gallon of fuel, so is not going to make people switch off from fossil fuels. How come everybody else has got it wrong? There is a complete polarisation of the debate on climate change. You either hear that global warming is not happening, or it is the end of the world. We need to look at the smart middle. What’s the smartest way to stop emitting CO2? A lot of campaigners who are wedded to cutting carbon emissions say we shouldn’t talk about climate engineering as this will detract from the morally superior choice of accepting that we should do without. Frankly, it hasn’t happened and I don’t see most of the world accepting that. Doing without may work for a small proportion of well-meaning westerners, but it’s not going to work for the majority, nor for anyone in the developing world. Interview by Alison George
18 September 2010 | NewScientist | 25
Redux/eyevine
recognise the potential for powering entire villages. Our first aim is to solve the cold chain problem due to its minimal energy requirements. Cold-chain refrigerators require a minimum of 8 hours of electricity a day, and even the most energy-hungry models require no more than 2 kilowatts of power – less than it takes to run a clock radio. Offgrid cell towers produce about 5 kilowatts of excess power on average, so this should be achievable with no negative impact on the cellphone network. Other cold-chain solutions are being explored, including heat-stable vaccines, solar powered refrigeration units and immunisation teams with refrigeration units in their cars. However, these methods are expensive and some require many more years of research. Water purification is more complicated. There are numerous purification methods, so the energy requirements are not as easy to calculate. In addition, infrastructure for transporting water is often lacking. But if cell towers can provide the energy for water purification and are then integrated with transportation projects, clean water could be made available to all rural locations in developing countries. Our idea has received enthusiastic support and we are starting to put the wheels in motion. The next step is quite straightforward. We want to implement a pilot project in collaboration with the cellphone and pharmaceutical industries and a local healthcare system. We are ready to start immediately – we must start immediately – and we are available to provide further information or to receive suggestions. n
Harvey Rubin directs the Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (email [email protected]). Alice Conant is a student at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California
One minute with...
Bjørn Lomborg Has the “sceptical environmentalist” changed his mind about climate change? After all, he’s asking for megabucks to tackle it First off, let’s get something straight. Exactly how sceptical are you about climate change? Man-made global warming exists. My problem is with the single-minded focus on drastic carbon emission reductions that have been promised in the 18 years since the Earth Summit in Rio, and have gotten virtually nowhere. What’s the alternative to this approach to cutting carbon emissions? I assembled a team of leading economists to do cost-benefit analyses on a range of solutions, from planting more trees to methane reduction and carbon taxes. The top short-term solution was investing in research into climate engineering, such as whitening clouds to reflect more sunlight – with the caveat that we don’t know if it works yet. The best long-term option turned out to be investment in green energy technology. Can decisions about climate change be boiled down to monetary calculations? No. These are political and moral questions – but economists can help. We can put monetary value on things like the loss of ecosystems and show how to prioritise climate change compared with other problems. Your new book calls for $100 billion a year to fight climate change. Yet in the past you’ve criticised those who advocate throwing money at the problem. I would hope that everyone would criticise the strategy of carbon cuts at a cost of $250 billion, with every dollar spent only saving a couple of cents of climate damage. That is a waste of money. If you spend that money as our research shows, you avoid $11 of climate damage every year for every dollar spent. That’s a great deal. Where will the money come from? Most economists would suggest a carbon tax because you should tax negatives according the damage done. The latest research estimates that the cost of emitting an extra tonne of CO2 is about $7. If you applied this tax worldwide, you would
Profile Statistician Bjørn Lomborg is adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark, and director of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Center, which analyses the best way to spend development money. His latest book is Smart Solutions to Climate Change
raise around $250 billion dollars. But this level of taxation only amounts to around 6 cents on a gallon of fuel, so is not going to make people switch off from fossil fuels. How come everybody else has got it wrong? There is a complete polarisation of the debate on climate change. You either hear that global warming is not happening, or it is the end of the world. We need to look at the smart middle. What’s the smartest way to stop emitting CO2? A lot of campaigners who are wedded to cutting carbon emissions say we shouldn’t talk about climate engineering as this will detract from the morally superior choice of accepting that we should do without. Frankly, it hasn’t happened and I don’t see most of the world accepting that. Doing without may work for a small proportion of well-meaning westerners, but it’s not going to work for the majority, nor for anyone in the developing world. Interview by Alison George
18 September 2010 | NewScientist | 25
Redux/eyevine
recognise the potential for powering entire villages. Our first aim is to solve the cold chain problem due to its minimal energy requirements. Cold-chain refrigerators require a minimum of 8 hours of electricity a day, and even the most energy-hungry models require no more than 2 kilowatts of power – less than it takes to run a clock radio. Offgrid cell towers produce about 5 kilowatts of excess power on average, so this should be achievable with no negative impact on the cellphone network. Other cold-chain solutions are being explored, including heat-stable vaccines, solar powered refrigeration units and immunisation teams with refrigeration units in their cars. However, these methods are expensive and some require many more years of research. Water purification is more complicated. There are numerous purification methods, so the energy requirements are not as easy to calculate. In addition, infrastructure for transporting water is often lacking. But if cell towers can provide the energy for water purification and are then integrated with transportation projects, clean water could be made available to all rural locations in developing countries. Our idea has received enthusiastic support and we are starting to put the wheels in motion. The next step is quite straightforward. We want to implement a pilot project in collaboration with the cellphone and pharmaceutical industries and a local healthcare system. We are ready to start immediately – we must start immediately – and we are available to provide further information or to receive suggestions. n