'India Has Great Opportunity As G20 President': Bjorn Lomborg Hails India's Global Rise

President of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre and famous author Bjorn Lomborg spoke to Republic Media Network's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami on various issues from climate change to other persisting problems in the world and said that India currently has an incredible opportunity to contribute towards the growth of the world as it is hosting the G20 presidency.

He said, "The rest of the world is very clearly focusing exclusively on climate change to the detriment of all the other problems and I think this is an incredible opportunity for India as it hosts the G20. It has the presidency to start saying exactly those points. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out that he wants India to be the spokesperson for the global south."

He added, "There is a real opportunity to say that obviously, climate change is a problem but we should also focus on all the other stuff that matters."

Media continuously showing risk of climate change

He also spoke about how the media is continuously showing the risk of climate change and the way it has popularised Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.

He said, "Greta Thunberg is a great example of those people who hear this media story over and over. Greta Thunberg is one of the most honest teenagers who said, 'I've seen all of these on TV, and you can't constantly tell me that this is the end of the world. Why the hell are we not doing much more than we need to?'"

Bjorn Lomborg at Republic Summit 2023 

Last month, Bjorn Lomborg attended the third edition of Republic Summit 2023, themed "Time of Transformation". There he spoke on a variety of issues such as India's sustainable development goals and the need for climate policy amidst climate change.

At the summit, he lauded India and spoke about how it is doing relatively better than the rest G20 countries on the development row.

He said, "India has the opportunity to develop smart policies to tackle climate change. The world runs on energy, every country needs energy to be rich. It is high time we need a sustainable green energy resource." Talking more on climate change, he said, "Need to talk about climate policy with climate change, globally we will lose around $140 trillion."