Former Greenpeace academic says Kyoto Protocol is a waste of money

Environmentalist, and former Greenpeace member, Dr. Bjorn Lomborg has authored a new book arguing that the Kyoto Treaty on greenhouse gas emissions is a monumental waste of money. Lomborg, associate professor of statistics at Denmark's University of Aarhus, is releasing the results of his four-year study of environmental issues through Cambridge University Press. The book which will be published in August this year still accepts the global warming theory but argues that the Kyoto Treaty will not be very beneficial for the world as a whole, and could damage Third World countries.

Lomborg argues that money spent to implement the treaty would be better spent on issues like poverty and malnutrition, which would save more lives. He also maintains that money spent on implementing the treaty should rather be used for adapting to global weather changes. The author says that independent scientific models indicate that the treaty will have little impact on global warming and offers poor value for money. He says:

What happens with the Kyoto protocol, according to the most-accepted model, is that by 2100 global temperatures will rise by 1.9 degrees C rather than by 2.1 degrees C if nothing is done.

Another way of looking at it is that a temperature rise of 2 degrees C which would otherwise have been reached in 2094 is postponed to 2100.

Source: The Times of London, 12 June, 2001.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,27062,00.html

For more information about the book: http://uk.cambridge.org/earthsciences/catalogue/0521804477/default.htm