The upcoming UN climate summit in Turkey from Nov 9-20 will once again misuse a catastrophe to get attention. This year, the summit will highlight the tragedy in Nepal, where an ice-and-rock avalanche tore through the northern part of the country in late August. The disaster has left more than 1,400 dead and 5,000 missing and a recovery bill of nearly US$5 billion (167 billion baht), about an eighth of the country's economy. And yes, it carries a lesson for the world, just not the one campaigners are selling: ever bigger climate budgets.
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Bjorn Lomborg
President of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre
Bjorn Lomborg is President of the Copenhagen Consensus and Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.