India Mustn't Follow the Ruinous Climate Policies of Other Nations

It should innovate in green energy and focus on climate adaptation as well as highly rewarding measures of public welfare

- BJORN LOMBORG

In recent years, climate anxiety has taken over many Western governments and most international organizations. The result has been ruinous policies that help little but undermine future prosperity needed to deal with a host of other problems. Fortunately, India can avoid repeating these mistakes.

Climate change is a man-made problem, but campaigners and irresponsible politicians have distorted this out of all proportion and now falsely call it an existential problem that could lead to the extinction of humanity. This exaggeration grossly twists the science in the United Nations Climate Panel reports and is repudiated by the world's leading climate economists, including the only one to win the Nobel Prize. The cost of no further action on climate is equivalent to lowering gross domestic product (GDP) by 2-3% by the century's end—a problem, but not the end of the world.

Yet, incessant scare stories have driven some Western governments to enact immensely costly policies. The UK has gone further in its climate policies over the past two decades than nearly any other country. As a result, the inflation-adjusted electricity price in the country, weighted across households and industry, has tripled from 2003 to 2023. By comparison, the US electricity price has remained almost unchanged over the same period.