Only £695 billion for 0.00376 °C less warming by 2100
If Britain reaches its Net Zero target in 2050, the world will be 0.00376 °C less warm by 2100. Is that really worth £695 bn?
The British science writer and businessman Matt Ridley mercilessly pointed out the futility of Net Zero in a recent article in the Daily Mail:
“Bjorn Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus, a project set up to identify the greatest challenges facing the world and how to solve them, has launched a new website netzerocostbenefit.com – based on the temperature models and economic models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
“You can enter the name of your country and find out how much benefit you can expect to get from the climate policies being pursued by your government and at what cost. In Britain’s case, if we reach Net Zero by 2050, the world will be 0.00376°C less warm in 2100. That is to say, at a cost of £695 billion we can make our great-grandchildren’s lives cooler by under four thousandths of a degree.”
Snow in July
Ridley continues:
“Even if the whole world were to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 – of which there is less chance than snow falling in London in July – the world would be just 1.38 degrees less warm than it would otherwise be in 2100, 74 years from now. The benefit of achieving this would be worth $24 trillion, if you believe the models, but the cost would be $255 trillion. I don’t know about you, but in my own life I don’t generally spend £10 for £1 worth of goods.”
The creator of the new website, Bjorn Lomborg, reacts on X:
Matt Ridley writes about the expensive futility of net zero in the Daily Mail:
The UK’s net zero in one number: 11p back on every pound
The bill is £695 billion ($934 billion), to make our great-grandchildren’s lives “cooler by under four thousandths of a degree Celsius”
https://t.co/f4IWx5CixO
https://t.co/u8sqok6SpC— Bjorn Lomborg (@BjornLomborg) November 14, 2026
COPs are a waste of time
In the article Ridley also reflects on COP31 in Antalya:
“COP31, the annual jamboree of the climatocracy officially known as ‘the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change’, has finally managed to unite both sides of the climate debate. Yes, the sceptics and the alarmists are in agreement at last: COP meetings are a waste of time.”
“Those who insist the climate is in ‘crisis’ also complain ever more loudly that 31 meetings, attended by a record 93,000 people this year, have had zero effect on slowing the relentless rise of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – up from 0.032 per cent to 0.042 per cent in 60 years.”
“Meanwhile, people who think the climate is not in crisis complain that 31 meetings attracting dozens of private jets (a record 93 this year) appear to have done nothing to change the weather, with storms, droughts and floods still showing no sign of getting either worse or better than they always were.”
Ridley concludes: “Nothing of diplomatic significance is ever agreed at these meetings. The COP meetings are an entirely self-sufficient enterprise in their own right, now largely cast adrift from any real-world issue. The purpose of each meeting is to prepare for the next meeting.”
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