One can tell – with a high
degree of confidence – what topics are expected to be raised here, this morning
when it comes to discussing the key challenges of today’s world. The selection
of the moderator and my fellow-panelists only confirms it. I guess
it is either international terrorism or poverty in Africa. Talking about both of these
topics is necessary because they are real dangers but it is relatively easy to
talk about them because it is politically correct.
I do see those dangers and do not in any way
underestimate them. I do, however, see another major threat
which deserves our attention – and I am afraid it does not get sufficient
attention because to discuss it is politically incorrect these days.
The threat I have in mind is the irrationality with which the world has
accepted the climate change (or global warming) as a real danger to the future
of mankind and the irrationality of suggested and partly already implemented measures because they will fatally endanger our
freedom and prosperity, the two goals we consider – I do
believe – our priorities.
We have to face many prejudices and misunderstandings in this respect. The
climate change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It
is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It
is not about nature or scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, about
one – recently born – dirigistic and collectivistic ideology, which goes
against freedom and free markets.
I spent most of my life in a communist society which makes me particularly
sensitive to the dangers, traps and pitfalls connected with it. Several points
have to be clarified to make the discussion easier:
1. Contrary to the currently prevailing views promoted by global warming
alarmists, Al Gore’s preaching, the IPCC, or the Stern Report, the increase in global temperatures in the last
years, decades and centuries has been very small and because of
its size practically negligible in its actual impact upon human beings and
their activities. (The difference of temperatures between Prague where I was yesterday and Cernobbio
where I am now is larger than the expected increase in global temperatures in
the next century.)
2. As I said, the empirical evidence is not alarming. The arguments of global warming alarmists rely
exclusively upon forecasts, not upon past experience. Their
forecasts originate in experimental simulations of very complicated forecasting
models that have not been found very reliable when explaining past
developments.
3. It is, of course, not only about ideology. The problem has its important
scientific aspect but it should be stressed that the scientific dispute about the causes of recent
climate changes continues. The attempt to proclaim a scientific
consensus on this issue is a tragic mistake, because there is none.
4. We are rational and responsible people and have to act when necessary. But
we know that a rational response to any
danger depends on the size and probability of the eventual risk and on the
magnitude of the costs of its avoidance. As a responsible
politician, as an academic economist, as an author of a book about the
economics of climate change, I feel obliged to say that – based on our current
knowledge – the risk is too small and
the costs of eliminating it too high. The application of the so
called “precautionary principle,” advocated by the environmentalists, is –
conceptually – a wrong strategy.
5. The deindustrialization and similar restrictive policies will be of no help.
Instead of blocking economic growth, the increase of wealth all over the world
and fast technical progress – all connected with freedom and free markets – we
should leave them to proceed unhampered. They
represent the solution to any eventual climate changes, not their cause.
We should promote adaptation, modernization, technical progress. We should
trust in the rationality of free people.
6. It has a very important North-South and West-East dimension. The developed
countries do not have the right to impose any additional burden on the less
developed countries. Imposing overambitious and – for such countries –
economically disastrous environmental standards on them is unfair.
No radical measures are necessary. We need something “quite normal.” We have to
get rid of the one-sided monopoly, both in the field of climatology and in the
public debate. We have to listen to arguments. We have to forget fashionable
political correctness. We should provide the same or comparable financial
backing to those scientists who do not accept the global warming alarmism.
I really do see environmentalism as a threat to our freedom and prosperity. I
see it as “the world key current challenge.”
Václav Klaus, Ambrosetti Forum,Villa d’Este,Itálie
www.klaus.cz
http://www.euportal.cz/Articles/1852-global-warming-hysteria-or-freedom-and-prosperity-.aspx
