In a recent interview, Mr. Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank, and author of “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming,” correctly states, “For almost 20 years, from Rio to Kyoto to Copenhagen, we’ve been wasting time, pursuing the failed strategy of cutting carbon-dioxide emissions. It’s about time we changed course. Do we really want to be remembered as the generation that wasted another decade? For years, we have been spinning our wheels on what I call the Rio-Kyoto-Copenhagen road to nowhere, slavishly following the notion—first endorsed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and then extended in Kyoto 13 years later—that the only way to stop global warming is by means of draconian reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. All we have to show for this devotion is a continuing series of unmet targets, along with a startling increase in the number of people who no longer think climate change is worth worrying about.”

China and India recently announced plans to reduce the carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product, of their economies over the next decade. China, which increased vehicle fuel-efficiency standards in recent years, wants to cut its carbon intensity by as much as 45% from 2005 levels by 2020 while India has targeted a reduction of as much as 25% from 2005 levels over the next decade. The Chinese can promise to do this because they’re modernizing their economy. They’re investing in more efficient energy sources and nuclear power. So this in essence is basically saying, “We’re just going to promise to do what we’re going to do anyway.” The situation is the same for India. Estimates show that India will probably end up, if they do nothing, reducing its carbon intensity by almost 50%.

In order for the world to keep temperatures from rising beyond a ceiling of 1.5 °C to 2 °C above pre-Industrial Revolution levels via solely reducing carbon emissions, it is estimated that the annual cost will be US$40 trillion by the end of the century. Mr. Lomborg estimates that for every dollar spent, the world will avoid only about two cents of climate damage. Furthermore, each dollar spent on traditional cap-and-trade plans only brings about US$0.90 in benefits. However, climate economists predict that if investment in clean energy technology is dramatically increased, for every dollar spent, the world will avoid eleven dollars of climate damage.

“Instead of trying to make fossil fuels more expensive, we should focus on making alternative energy cheaper. The cost of fully implementing the Kyoto Protocol (in terms of lost economic growth) has been estimated at roughly $180 billion a year. For just a little more than half that amount, we could fund a fifty-fold increase in spending on R&D for the kind of game-changing technological breakthroughs—like smart grids, ultra-efficient batteries or even cheap, manageable fusion—we will need to end our addiction to fossil fuels. Such a commitment would resolve many of today’s political challenges. Developing nations would be much more likely to embrace a positive path of innovation than a punitive one that handicaps their ability to grow their economies, ” Mr. Lomborg says. Trying to force drastic carbon emissions cuts in the short-term doesn’t work economically or politically.

Source: Green Car Congress