Science Quote by Bjorn Lomborg

A price tag that big is meant to stop the conversation before it starts. Lomborg’s number-driven framing turns the Kyoto Protocol from a moral and ecological question into a budget item so enormous it feels self-evidently irresponsible. It’s a classic move from a certain strain of technocratic contrarianism: concede, implicitly, that climate change matters, then pivot to the alleged inefficiency of acting on it this way, right now, at this scale.

The intent is less about Kyoto’s mechanics than about shaping the emotional reaction to climate policy. “US$150 to $350 billion a year” isn’t just information; it’s an anchor, a rhetorical boulder dropped into the debate. The range is wide enough to sound cautious (“estimated”), but still tight enough to read as authoritative. “Starting in 2010” adds a countdown effect, implying an imminent, recurring drain - not a transitional investment with long-run payoffs. The subtext: governments are about to impose a vast, permanent tax on prosperity for benefits that are distant, diffuse, or uncertain.

Context matters. Kyoto was never just a treaty; it was a symbolic first test of whether industrial economies would accept constraints for a global commons problem. Lomborg, speaking as a “scientist,” borrows institutional credibility to argue like a cost-benefit policy entrepreneur. The quiet elision is what’s not priced: avoided damages, health gains, innovation spillovers, the cost of delay. By foregrounding expense and backgrounding risk, the quote functions as a cultural nudge toward “wait, optimize, don’t commit” - a posture that can look prudent while locking in the status quo.