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Lomborg-errors
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| No regret - options |
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| Home Cool it Carbon cuts, American ed. Carbon cuts, British ed. Carbon cuts, Skeptical Environmentalist |
In The
Skeptical environmentalist, pages 312-313, Lomborg has a box on the so-called
no-regret options.
Lomborg downplays the potential of
the no-regret options, and exaggerates the costs of developing
new, cleaner technologies. He admits that it might be possible to
reduce energy consumption by up to 5 % without any consequences
to material welfare - a very modest admission, considering that
the total energy consumption of Danish households was reduced by
29 % from 1972 to 1990, without any decline in material welfare.
However,
even though he admits this possibility, he feels able to
disregard the
no-regret options altogether.
But what, then, are the no-regret
options that Lomborg disregards ? First, of course, it includes
small everyday details, such as using ordinary light bulbs where
we could just as well use energy-saving bulbs. Second, there are
large scale options. For instance, the International Energy
Agency (IEA) calculated in 1999 that 8 of the most
energy-consuming countries outside the OECD are subsidizing
energy consumption to such an extent that average energy prices
are cut by 20 %. Abolishing these subsidies would reduce the
world´s total energy consumption by 3.5 %, and the world´s
total CO2 emissions by 4.6 %. By doing this
the GDP of these countries would be improved by 1 % (IEA
(1999): World Energy Outlook 1999. Insights. Looking at energy
subsidies: Getting the prices right. OECD/IEA). Also, within the
OECD countries, there is much room for more energy efficient
production without reducing output. In countries such as the USA
and Australia, energy consumption and associated emissions could
be cut by 20-40 % at no net cost - more than enough to meet Kyoto
targets (ref.: Clive Hamilton & Hal Turton, the Australia
Institute). According to IPCC, working group III, 1996, the
global potential for CO2 reduction without
costs to production are 20 % now, 40 % in 2020 and maybe 70 % in
2030. Even if such figures are very uncertain, it is not honest
to disregard them altogether.