$16 trillion question: Was the climate agenda history’s biggest financial misfire?

February 23, 2026
By External Outlet

By Stephen Moore | Commentary, The Epoch Times

Environmental scholar Bjorn Lomborg recently calculated that across the globe, governments have spent at least $16 trillion feeding the climate change industrial complex.

And for what?

Arguably, not a single life has been or will be saved by this shameful and colossal misallocation of human resources. The war on safe and abundant fossil fuels has cost countless lives in poor countries and made those countries poorer by blocking affordable energy.

Since the global warming crusade started some 30 years ago, the temperature of the planet has not been altered by one-tenth of a degree—as even the alarmists will admit.

In other words, $16 trillion has been spent—a lot of people got very, very rich off the government largesse—but there is not a penny of measurable payoff.

But it’s much worse than that. In economics, there is a concept called opportunity cost: What could we have done with $16 trillion to make the world better off?

What if the $16 trillion had been spent on clean water for poor countries? Preventing avoidable deaths from diseases such as malaria? Building schools in African villages to end illiteracy? Bringing reliable and affordable electric power to the more than 1 billion people who still lack access? Curing cancer?

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE EPOCH TIMES

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