The difference between appearances and reality

Bjørn Lomborg click for source

COPENHAGEN – Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital, wants to be the world’s first CO₂-neutral city by 2025. But, as many other well-meaning cities and countries have discovered, cutting CO₂ significantly is more difficult than it seems, and may require quite a bit of creative accounting.

More surprisingly, Copenhagen’s politicians have confidently declared that cutting CO₂ now will ultimately make the city and its citizens wealthier, with today’s expensive green-energy investments more than paying off when fossil-fuel prices rise. But how can deliberately limiting one’s options improve one’s prospects? These sound more like the arguments of green campaigners – and they are most likely wrong.

The first challenge that Copenhagen faces in reaching its zero-emissions goal is the lack of cost-effective alternatives for some sources of CO₂, particularly automobiles. Denmark already provides the world’s largest subsidy to electric cars by exempting them from its marginal 180% car-registration tax. For the most popular electric car, the Nissan Leaf, this exemption is worth $85,000 (€63,000). Yet, just 1,536 of Denmark’s 2.7 million cars are electric.

If there is one thing that distresses me more than  any other when it comes to warministas is their naive belief that the so called “alternatives” can be viable as this piece form Bjørn Lomborg argues in the piece that I quote that it needs much more than creative accounting and the pretense of viability .

Its certainty to be recommended to my readers who are interested in the issue of Climate change

Cheers Comrades