https://nypost.com/2025/09/22/opinion/un-climate-week-reveals-elites-scorn-for-the-worlds-poor/
By Bjorn Lomborg
As world leaders and influencers converge for New York’s UN General Assembly and Climate Week, two incompatible visions are about to clash — rich-world elites obsessed with climate change versus developing nations battling poverty, hunger and disease.
Here’s a plain fact the elites refuse to accept: Hundreds of trillions of dollars spent on traditional climate policy can only deliver tiny benefits, but devoting just billions to simple, proven policies can transform lives, alleviate poverty, promote health and boost resilience.
This chasm highlights why most of the world perceives rich virtue-signaling elites as disconnected from reality.
The climate activists flooding New York this week ignore decades of failed summits.
Since 1992’s Rio Earth Summit, the renewable share of global energy has risen just two percentage points, from 12% to 14%, despite the world spending over $14 trillion — mostly on ineffectual subsidies.
And even if all unconditional pledges are fully implemented, emissions in 2030 will still be about 19% higher than 2019 levels, the UN predicts.
Yet expect the activists to make bolder, costlier promises, blind to their economic toll and puny impact.
Last year, the world spent over $2 trillion on climate policies. By 2050, net-zero will cost an impossible $27 trillion every year.
This will choke growth, spike energy costs and hit the poor hardest — and still will deliver only 17 cents back on every dollar spent.
Meanwhile, mere billions of dollars could save millions of lives.
No glitzy “Maternal and Newborn Care Week” in New York draws celebrity advocacy power, yet 260,000 mothers and 2.3 million newborns die annually.
Simple interventions — like a $5-per-use hand-pumped neonatal resuscitator for birth asphyxia—could avert 166,000 maternal and 1.2 million infant deaths for $2.1 billion.
Every dollar invested in such a program would generate social returns worth $87, an investment 600 times more effective than net-zero policies.
And there’s more: For $1.7 billion we could extend childhood vaccines to save 500,000 kids annually, yielding $100 in social returns per dollar spent.
Another $1.1 billion would fight malaria, avoiding 200,000 deaths and giving $48 back to society on every dollar.
And $5.5 billion in agricultural research and development would hike food yields by 10%, cutting hunger for 100 million people.
