EU policy on climate change is right even if science was wrong, says commissioner
Regardless of whether or not scientists are wrong on global warming, the European Union is pursuing the correct energy policies even if they lead to higher prices, Europe’s climate commissioner has said.

..."Say that 30 years from now, science came back and said, 'wow, we were mistaken then now we have some new information so we think it is something else'. In a world with nine billion people, even 10 billion at the middle of this century, where literally billions of global citizens will still have to get out of poverty and enter the consuming middle classes, don't you think that anyway it makes a lot of sense to get more energy and resource efficient," she said.

"Let's say that science, some decades from now, said 'we were wrong, it was not about climate', would it not in any case have been good to do many of things you have to do in order to combat climate change?." ...

...Bjorn Lomborg, a professor at the Copenhagen business school and the author of Cool it, a book arguing that too much climate change policy is based on scaremongering, accused the commissioner of being "both callous and wrong".

"EU climate policies have directly increased energy costs and caused more energy poverty - 300,000 households in Germany lost their power last year because they couldn't pay the bills, and millions are energy poor in the UK. EU climate policies will cost £174 billion annually by 2020, the EU commissioner seems to suggest wasting £174 billion is no problem," he said.

"To the extent the EU climate policies have affected the world, it has made energy more costly, reduced growth and consigned more people to poverty." ...