False Alarm

False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails the Planet (2020) by Bjorn Lomborg argues that while climate change is real, the panic surrounding it leads to enormously costly and ineffective policies. Lomborg proposes cost-effective interventions—carbon taxes, green R&D—over blanket bans and Net Zero mandates.

Applied Copenhagen Consensus cost-benefit methodology to climate policy; argued that current Net Zero approaches cost far more per unit of benefit than targeted alternatives; gave intellectual ammunition to cost-conscious climate policy critics.