'It is NOT the end of the world!' Bjorn Lomborg on climate change, UK heatwaves and adaptations

Climate concerns have been “blown out of all proportion”, leading to UK policy choices that no other nation would follow, a political scientist believes.

Bjorn Lomborg told GB News the UK’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis have contributed to the country facing some of the highest electricity prices in the world.

Rather than help people through the searing temperatures of the recent heatwaves, this prices them out of being able to adapt, he believes.

The high energy costs also make other countries less likely to follow our lead, he said.

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Speaking at the Arc conference in central London, Mr Lomborg cited air conditioning as a way to beat the heat.

But running a unit is expensive because of UK energy costs, he said.

Further, last week it emerged councils had ordered residents to remove air conditioning units because they emit too much CO2 and should only be used as a last resort.

Mr Lomborg, author of the bestselling book The Secptical Environtmentalist, said: “Let's get a sense of proportion. People are telling you this is the end of the world with the heatwave. There's something wrong about people saying no, no, no, no, you can't have air conditioning. If you want to help people with the heatwave, you should get air conditioning. With the extreme climate policies you institute, you now have the most expensive power in the world. So you're basically asking people to try to save themselves with incredibly expensive power but no air conditioning. That is the real travesty.”

Mr Lomborg believes the world is getting warmer as a result of man-made greenhouse gases – a view shared by the vast majority of climate scientists.

However, he says the best way to deal with this is “not by making climate policy that will cost hundreds of trillions of pounds and have almost no impact in a century's time”.

He also warned against exaggerating the risks of a warming climate, saying there had been “an overreaction in general”.

While the number of people dying from the heat had increased, the number of deaths from cold had dropped even further, he said.

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This was “possibly because of climate change and certainly because of the rising temperatures”.

Mr Lomborg said: “You're scaring people witless about one thing and keeping mum about the other thing. That's not a good way to inform people. There should be concern, but it's vastly blown out of proportion and it leads to bad policy decisions.”

He said the answer was innovation and cheaper energy.

Mr Lomborg explained: “Give people access to cheap, affordable and reliable power. That way you both stay cool in the summer and warm in the winter.”

On innovation, he cited the introduction of catalytic convertors as a cheap intervention that had made a huge difference.

The long-term solution was cheap, green energy, he said – but he warned it was not here yet.

He said: “We should fix climate change in the long run, because climate change is a problem. It's by no means the end of the world, but it is a problem. How do you do that smartly? Well, you don't do that by making electricity prices and energy prices go sky high. That's the only way to make sure that voters will eventually kick you out. We're not going to accept those kinds of punitive policies. You do this through innovation. We should be innovating new green energy that eventually becomes so cheap that everyone wants it. This is not going to solve the problem this year or even this decade. But the point is not to cut a little bit of CO2 emissions from the UK and feel virtuous.”

He said emissions from the UK were comparatively trivial when put against those from countries such as China and India.

Developing nations were also heavily reliant on fossil fuels, he said.

It was these countries that needed to come “on board” with decarbonisation, he said.

Yet high energy bills such as those in the UK were not going to tempt them to follow our lead.

Mr Lomborg said: “They want to lift their populations out of poverty. And they're not, quite frankly, not going to listen to a virtuous England that says, see, we have the most expensive energy policies in the world, we have deindustrialisation, do like us. People are saying, no, hell no. Let's get back to sensible policymaking. Let's not try to make the energy prices incredibly expensive, because it's both going to get you booted out of office, and it's not actually going to be something that you can sell to most of the poorer parts of the world, which are going to be by far the biggest part of the emissions.”

The UN-backed IPCC, which provides scientific advice to governments on climate change, has warned that the impacts of man-made climate change are already dangerous.

It says hitting net zero by 2050 is vital because it will give the world the best chance of keeping warming to 1.5 to 2C above pre-industrial levels.

A delay in meeting that target would increase the risk of temperature rises of up to 3 to 4 C, it warns.

Such a rise would see a much higher risk of drought, ice sheet loss and sea level rise, as well as irreversible damage to ecosystems, the scientists say.

The UK Government believes moving away from fossil fuels will not only help meet these targets but also improve energy security and lower costs, thanks to home-grown energy from renewables.

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