COPENHAGEN, 9 October 2007 — The discussion about climate change has turned into a nasty dustup, with one side arguing that we’re headed for catastrophe and the other maintaining that it’s all a hoax. I say that neither is right. It’s wrong to deny the obvious: The Earth is warming, and we’re causing it. But that’s not the whole story, and predictions of impending disaster also don’t stack up.
We have to rediscover the middle ground. We shouldn’t ignore climate change or the policies that could attack it. But we should be honest about the shortcomings and costs of those policies, as well as the benefits.
Environmental groups say that the only way to deal with the effects of global warming is to make drastic cuts in carbon emissions — a project that will cost the world trillions (the Kyoto Protocol alone would cost $180 billion annually). This approach is unsound; it means spending an awful lot to achieve very little. Instead, we should be thinking creatively and pragmatically about how we could combat the much larger challenges facing our planet. Nobody knows for certain how climate change will play out. But we should deal with the most widely accepted estimates. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), ocean levels will rise between half a foot and two feet, with the best expectation being about one foot, in this century, mainly because of water expanding as it warms. That’s similar to what the world experienced in the past 150 years.
Some individuals and environmental organizations scoff that the IPCC has severely underestimated the melting of glaciers, especially in Greenland. In fact, the IPCC has factored in the likely melt-off from Greenland (contributing a bit over an inch to sea levels in this century) and Antarctica. At the moment, people are alarmed by a dramatic increase in Greenland’s melting. This high level seems transitory, but if sustained it would add three inches, instead of one, to the sea level rise by the end of the century.
A one-foot rise in sea level isn’t a catastrophe, though it will pose a problem, particularly for small island nations. But let’s remember that very little land was lost when sea levels rose last century. Like our parents and grandparents, our generation will ensure that the water doesn’t claim valuable land.
The IPCC tells us two things: If we focus on economic development and ignore global warming, we’re likely to see a 13-inch rise in sea levels by 2100. If we focus instead on environmental concerns and, for instance, adopt the hefty cuts in carbon emissions many environmental groups promote, this could reduce the rise by about five inches. But cutting emissions comes at a cost: Everybody would be poorer in 2100. With less money around to protect land from the sea, cutting carbon emissions would mean that more dry land would be lost, especially in vulnerable regions such as Micronesia, Tuvalu, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Maldives.
As sea levels rise, so will temperatures. It seems logical to expect more heat waves and therefore more deaths. But though this fact gets much less billing, rising temperatures will also reduce the number of cold spells. This is important because research shows that the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat. According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change’s health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It’s estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.
Global warming will claim lives in another way: By increasing the number of people at risk of catching malaria by about 3 percent over this century. According to scientific models, implementing the Kyoto Protocol for the rest of this century would reduce the malaria risk by just 0.2 percent. On the other hand, we could spend $3 billion annually — 2 percent of the protocol’s cost — on mosquito nets and medication and cut malaria incidence almost in half within a decade.
Of course, it’s not just humans we care about. Environmentalists point out that magnificent creatures such as polar bears will be decimated by global warming as their icy habitat melts. Kyoto would save just one bear a year. Wherever you look, the inescapable conclusion is the same: Reducing carbon emissions is not the best way to help the world. I don’t point this out merely to be contrarian. We do need to fix global warming in the long run. But I’m frustrated at our blinkered focus on policies that won’t achieve it.
We need to reduce the cost of cutting emissions from $20 a ton to, say, $2. The way to achieve this is to dramatically increase spending on research and development of low-carbon energy. Ideally, every nation should commit to spending 0.05 percent of its gross domestic product exploring noncarbon-emitting energy technologies, be they wind, wave or solar power, or capturing CO2 emissions from power plants. This spending could add up to about $25 billion per year but would still be seven times cheaper than the Kyoto Protocol and would increase global R&D tenfold. Obviously we should also work on a long-term solution to climate change. But embracing the best response to global warming is difficult in the midst of bitter fighting that shuts out sensible dialogue. So first, we really need to cool our debate.
— Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, is the author, most recently, of “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming.”
