Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-208)
Professor Bjorn Lomborg
1 FEBRUARY 2005
Q200Lord Layard: Dr Pachauri talked about the
various views that were taken into account with the IPCC and yet
we have also been talking about an overwhelming consensus, a very
powerful narrative that has developed, which is obviously difficult
for people like yourself to speak against, because if I am right
you suffered a lot of personal attack and professional vilification
for what you have written. Has that climate changed in the last
couple of years? Is it more tolerant with more open debates, or
do you feel there are still oppressive factors at work?
Professor Lomborg: It has probably got better,
but you also have to realise that we are really asking the wrong
people to be tolerant. Obviously, if you are talking about climate
change, that is your ball game, and IPCC is bottom line talking
about the fact that we should do something about climate change.
I am simply trying to say maybe we should worry more about other
issues. We should worry about the long-term, but that is still
a fairly small financial investment, about changing incentives
towards renewables. But, very much so, there are other pressing
issues where we can do a lot more good, like HIV/AIDS and malaria
and other issues. When you are basically talking about where you
should be spending the money, it is obvious that people who get
out on top of such a list will love you, and people who get out
in the bottom are not so inclined to do so.
Q201Lord Lawson of Blaby: One thing you said
a moment ago may be true, it seems to me, Professor Lomborg—or
it may not be true. You said that if more money was spent into
renewables there would be technological benefits and the cost
will come down. That may well be true, or not, but the other side
is if the oil companies and governments are also spending a lot
of money on technology for producing oil more cheaply, particularly
off-shore oil, with huge technological benefits, the cost of conventional
energies might also come down. It seems to me a little less clear
than you said. We are concerned very much about public policy.
On the whole governments have out-sourced—the fashionable
thing nowadays—this area to the IPCC. Is that, in your view,
a satisfactory way to proceed and, if not, how should governments
proceed?
Professor Lomborg: Let me briefly answer the
idea that conventional resources will obviously also get cheaper,
but they cannot show any kind of increase in their efficiency
at the rate of 50 per cent per decade. You are right that they
will also get cheaper, but they cannot compete hopefully with
renewables as we certainly have seen them over the last couple
of decades. More to your point, you have outsourced the discussion
to IPCC. I think it is entirely good to the extent we want to
know what is going to happen if we put out so much carbon dioxide,
what will happen if we put out less carbon dioxide—basically
the natural science model of climate. But you might want to consider
whether you want to have the IPCC running the discussion of where
is it cost-efficient and where should we otherwise do it. Basically,
the mandate for IPCC is that we should cut emissions, and so perhaps
it is a little hard for them to have economists in there who say
maybe we should not. So you could imagine doing that elsewhere.
Also, you have to basically take that discussion, which in the
circumstances is a political discussion, namely should our first
priority be to deal with climate change, or should it be with
some of the other issues that are also on the world agenda, as
I have tried to point out with the Copenhagen Consensus.
Q202Lord Skidelsky: I would like to elicit your
views on what all this shows about the state of science, and the
relationship between science and politics. You made the point
that all climate changes are in the same ball-park and therefore
you could not really expect them to be tolerant, but science is
supposed to be a disinterested activity, and it has been pointed
out to us time and time again, including by Dr Pachauri, that
there is a consensus between scientists that certain things are
likely to happen, and also a consensus, though less of a consensus,
on what to do about them, which is basically to slow down the
rate of emissions. If indeed there are valid criticisms to make
of this approach, would you expect that in the end there will
be some re-evaluation of the existing prejudice, or do you think
that the forces of politics which influence what scientists say
are so strong—and the panic and hysteria which journalists
and others create from this—that there will not be any really
serious challenge?
Professor Lomborg: I do not think there will
be any real serious challenge but I am not so sure I would be
so pessimistic about the fact, because if you look at another
area, for instance malaria research, if I was a malaria researcher
I would feel strongly that it is worthwhile to do a lot of effort
and that we really need to focus on it. All my research might
be true, all my research about how we can do something about malaria
and how many people are out there might be true; yet I would also
have the opinion that this is a very important issue and we should
really do something about it. That is no different from climate
change researchers. I think they are honestly trying to do as
well as possibly they can to tell us what is likely to happen
and what we can do and the impacts. But of course they are also
looking into a situation where, as I think we all agree, global
warming all in all will be a negative. So it is something that
inevitably you will feel you should do something about.
Q203Lord Skidelsky: But there is a religious
element in climate-change arguments that you do not on the whole
find in malaria research?
Professor Lomborg: No, I—well, you tell
me.
Q204Lord Skidelsky: I am just suggesting it.
Professor Lomborg: My feeling is that they are
telling the exact same story: "If we do not do something
here, terrible things will happen", just like malaria and
just like anyone else. Of course, they are probably telling us
on a slightly longer timescale, but the bottom line seems to me
to be the same thing. I think it is good; it shows that these
people are really enthusiastic about their area.
Q205Lord Macdonald of Tradeston: But linking
that to Lord Lawson's question, clearly the action would have
to be done at huge cost to governments. Why should governments
go along? Is there not another approach to making decisions?
Professor Lomborg: That is where I think politicians
will have to show their strength and say that many different areas
argue that we should spend more money here, not only domestically—we
both have national health services and the arts, and everyone
wants more money—but also in the international area everyone
wants more money, and everyone wants their problem fixed. So we
have to set priorities. We have to ask ourselves if we can do
a lot of good here and we can do a little good here, maybe we
should spend our money where it would do most good first.
Q206Lord Goodhart: Although there is a lot of
talk and stories about global warming and the possibly disastrous
consequences, is it not also true that politically it is extremely
difficult to persuade people to accept a net reduction in their
use of energy? Is it oversimplifying what you are saying that
it would be more effective to concentrate on finding alternative
sources of non carbon-producing energy than to actually cut energy
supplies?
Professor Lomborg: Yes. First of all, it is
going to be very hard, but the point is we can do pretty much
anything we want. We cannot do everything, so we have to make
sure that we do the right things. Of course we can cut people's
carbon emissions right now, but it will be very costly—or
the flip side is that it will have serious impacts on people's
well-being. So we have to ask ourselves if that is the right way
to go. I would generally argue that it is not, and that we should
invest in long-term strategies instead. I think you are on to
something else as well, which is that it is very hard for politicians
to say, "yes, maybe the Gulf Stream will turn, but it is
going to be too expensive to do something about it". It feels
amazingly callous to say that. But the real point is to say: "The
question is, are we going to spend a lot of money on postponing
for six years the slight risk there is of this happening?"
Q207Lord Goodhart: I am thinking of what happened
over petrol price increases in this country a couple of years
ago. It is very difficult to take steps to force people to use—
Professor Lomborg: Frankly, that is also why
we are going to see that a lot of countries, when Kyoto starts
hitting European countries, will realise that it will cost them
real money, and that will be somewhat problematic at least.
Q208Lord Lawson of Blaby: Dr Pachauri said the
Chinese should not have cars and they should have public transport.
You are right about maybe a slightly less broad-brush approach
to the issue. Fundamental choices that governments and politicians
have to make might be perhaps more illuminated. You say the Copenhagen
Consensus said that the most important thing to put money on is
HIV/AIDS, but as far as I know there is no connection between
HIV/AIDS and global warming. If you are going to focus the public,
which in democracies politicians have to do, on alternative courses,
surely it would be more sensible to say that there are certain
consequences of global warming, like maybe an increase in the
incidence of malaria and the problems in the coastlines of low-lying
areas; and it may be much more economic and much more effective
to tackle these by anti-malaria policies and spending more on
that, by doing what the Dutch did many, many years ago in order
to protect their low-lying areas from flooding from the sea and
so on. You could focus on these things to see how you could substantially
reduce the damage that global warming is likely to induce, rather
than talking about other things like HIV/AIDS, which is perfectly
valid to talk about, but in this particular context I think only
confuses the issue.
Professor Lomborg: I see your point, and I think
it is a discussion of what is politically more valid. I would
say it is a more intellectually honest argument to say we never
compensate everyone for all the damages that civilisation does.
We have a hope that democracy in general makes a lot of different
decisions, and that they will not all be detrimental to some people;
but there will be goods and bads in between. The bottom line is
that it is much more important for us to say, not that we are
going to try and help specific individuals, but that we are going
to try to spend our money doing the most good we can in the world.
I certainly take your point.
Chairman: We have come to the end of the time available.
On behalf of all of us I would like to say how grateful we are
to you for coming and answering all these questions. You probably
got the feeling by the end that many of us sitting around the
table have in the past had to make difficult political decisions
and had responsibilities, but that we all thought we did the right
thing at the time, and we look at our successors in office and
just wonder if they have the same determination that we had, but
it has probably been like this since the beginning of time. However,
let me say how grateful I am that you have come along to help
us in what we are finding a difficult subject. You have helped
enlighten us.
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