Juno News - November 05, 2023Why electric cars won’t solve climate change (ft. Bjørn Lomborg)
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Summary
In this episode of the Andrew Lawton Show, I sit down with the CEO of the Centre for Innovative Solutions to Climate Change and the Director-General of the World Economic Forum, Anne Hathaway, to talk all things climate change. In this episode, we discuss: - Why is climate change so important? - What are the best ways to tackle climate change? - Is climate change inevitable? - How much money should we be spending on climate change research and development? - Why should we invest in it? - How can we make climate change a better problem? - What is a smart solution?
Transcript
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Let's start by talking about electric cars here.
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You were sharing some data this week suggesting this, you know, great electrification of vehicles is simply not happening.
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But why are political leaders talking as though it is?
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Because it's convenient to say, oh, we're going to fix climate change by all switching to electric cars.
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I don't have one, but I could imagine me having one.
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And you actually need a place where you can charge it.
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That's only available for people who have a home.
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If you live in an apartment building or something, where are you going to charge it?
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That's why I shared this scenario from the Biden administration's own Energy Information Administration
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that suggests that in the U.S., even by 2050, with the Inflation Reduction Act, you will only have 12% electric vehicle.
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But it's far, far from the idea that, oh, we're all going to have an electric car by 2030.
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And that's important to know because this is one of the many things that could be part of the solution.
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And we have no sense of how costly that's going to be.
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In Canada and around the world, we're being told that this transition is inevitable.
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The terms that we use in policy, the so-called just transition, to move away from traditional energy sources.
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And there has still yet to be a single compelling alternative that could meet the needs of traditional energy, isn't there?
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It's really hard to see that challenge out there right now.
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Well, I almost think when people start saying it's inevitable, well, then we can just lean back and not have to do anything.
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And then, of course, the next thing, no, no, no, we've got to do everything in order to make this happen.
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Look, there's a lot of good arguments to eventually switch away from fossil fuels, mostly climate change, but also air pollution.
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These are not bad things, but they also have costs.
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So you need to weigh the two, and we don't do that in the current conversation.
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We're essentially willingly spending trillions of American dollars every year on solutions that will give us just a tiny bit of benefit.
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We estimate probably you do 10 or 20 cents of climate good for every dollar spent.
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We can do much better if we start thinking smartly, and I hope that's part of the conversation that we have here at ARC.
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Well, one of the big themes, I think the big theme of the conference has been a new story.
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And I would say right now, there seems to be from a lot of the leaders you hear from at the United Nations, the World Economic Forum,
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certainly a lot of more left-of-center governments, a story that's very much rooted in seeking the demise of oil and gas.
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And I guess, what would you want that new story to be?
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What would you want the new perspective or narrative to be on the issues that you advocate?
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So, my sense is, first of all, we need to get people to realize the world is a much, much better place,
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and it's likely to become an even better place by the end of the century.
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So, fundamentally, we're in a path of incredible progress.
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That is important because people think the end is nigh with climate change.
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Climate change means progress happens slightly more slowly.
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We need to understand this is one of the many problems we need to fix in the 21st century.
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So, the good story, which also happens to be true, is things are getting better.
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That means we can start talking about what are the smart solutions now.
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A smart solution for climate is to invest dramatically more in research and development into green energy.
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So, if we focus on getting smarter green energy, that's green energy research and development,
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if we get innovations that will eventually make green energy cheaper than fossil fuels,
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Everyone will switch, not just rich, well-meaning Canadians,
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but also the Chinese, the Indians, and the Africans.
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And it also means we can start thinking smartly about all the other challenges that we're facing.
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Remember, most people on this planet have much, much bigger issues like the fact that their kids die
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from easily curable infectious diseases, there's not enough food, there's a lack of education,
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If we tell the story, which I happen to believe is the right story and the true story,
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that things are getting better, then we can start, we can stop panicking,
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we can start actually making smart decisions that is smart on climate, smart on all the other challenges.
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So, where do you view as being the policy role versus the market role in all of this?
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So, look, the market economy is what has gotten us so far.
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This is what we know for a fact that this is what makes us rich.
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There are things we don't like about the market mechanism.
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I don't think it's not one of those neat, oh, it's all market or all politics.
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But what we need to recognize is that if politics is driven by fear, we're likely to make bad decisions.
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And currently it is, very much so on climate change,
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so we're actually wasting an enormous amount of money achieving very little good.
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I want us to get away from the fear trip and start realizing, look, things are much, much better.
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Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
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