New Malthusians are wrong: a rich world will need less energy
We will need to generate only half the energy we do now to replace today’s electricity use, lift the global South, and feed all those data centres. So rejoice.
A cardinal fallacy reigns over the debate on green energy and global decarbonisation. It taps into deep Malthusian instincts and creates near-universal confusion.
It causes well-educated people to accept the claim that stabilising greenhouse emissions by mid-century will prove to be a near-impossible task. It contaminates economic models and explains why the UK Treasury and other bodies – though not the Energy Institute – cling to exorbitant estimates of what it will cost.
