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The warnings of The Limits to Growth were far more prescient than Bjørn Lomborg suggests, argue several critics, including two of the book’s authors. No they weren’t, Lomborg insists.
Bjørn Lomborg’s recent essay on environmental alarmism overlooked a number of grave threats to the planet, most notably overconsumption. As poorer countries grow out of poverty, the developed world must scale back how rapidly it devours natural resources.
Despite high expectations and an ambitious agenda, the Rio+20 Conference failed to deliver meaningful progress on environmental issues. Fortunately, government inaction is not the whole story: the private sector, NGOs, and civil society groups are working to fill the void.
Forty years ago, the Club of Rome produced a best-selling report warning humanity that its escalating wants were on a collision course with the world’s finite resources and that the only way to avoid a crash was to stop chasing economic growth. The predictions proved spectacularly wrong. But the environmental alarmism they engendered persists, making it harder for policymakers to respond rationally to real problems today.
Coal combustion is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet. But the fuel isn’t going away anytime soon, since demand for it is ballooning in the developing world. So instead of indulging in quixotic visions of a coal-free world, policymakers should focus on supporting new technologies that can reduce how much carbon coal emits.
For too long, climate diplomacy has focused on carbon dioxide. But at least 40 percent of global warming can be blamed on shorter-lived pollutants, which also cause disease and damage crops in developing states. Reining in pollution would thus accomplish two goals, while finally getting countries such as China and India into the climate-change business.
Proponents of renewable energy have had a hard time lately, thanks to the recession, competition from natural gas, and embarrassments such as Solyndra. But it’s too early to give up, since recent advances have made wind and solar power more competitive than ever. Still, governments must redesign their policies and help renewables slash costs.
China's appetite for energy and jobs has made it a global hub for green innovation. Washington and the West will have to change their strategies to catch up.
In their single-minded pursuit of economic growth, China's leaders have long overlooked public health -- which, by some measures, is now worse than under Mao. Despite recent reforms, China's citizens keep getting sicker, threatening the country's health-care system, the economy at large, and even the stability of the regime.
Even the biggest boosters of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change hold out little hope that its next conference this November will achieve anything concrete. It is time to supplement such global meetings with more limited talks -- which have a better chance of success.
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