At the UN’s just-concluded “COP30” climate summit in Belém, Brazil, world leaders focused most of their discussion on keeping warming below 1.5°C and overcoming dependence on fossil fuels. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has branded it the “COP of truth,” and negotiators are under pressure to agree on new targets and a large increase in climate finance.
This is a mistake. The focus should not be on unrealistic targets, but on affordable, reliable energy. Over the last century, incomes have increased by more than 500% in the United States and worldwide. Life expectancy has risen by over 60%, and child mortality has fallen by more than 80%.
Even Bill Gates has recognized this. The tech billionaire turned philanthropist spent years championing the need for “zero emissions by 2050 … to avoid a climate disaster.” He now argues that “the metric that should count even more than emissions and temperature change” is improving human prosperity and that the popular “doomsday view” is misguided.
Gates now writes that the moral metric should not be an abstract atmospheric measure but concrete human well-being via health, nutrition, and access to affordable energy. Cheap, reliable power has lifted billions out of poverty. The pursuit of unrealistic emissions goals based on virtue signaling risks halting that accomplishment, as energy becomes scarce or unaffordable because of it.
Nevertheless, 43 countries and the European Union have signed a Belém declaration that links climate policy to ending hunger and poverty and calls for “people-centered” climate action. On paper, that sounds like a shift toward human well-being, but such policies still treat temperature targets and fossil-fuel phaseouts as the primary goal, with energy affordability and poverty reduction pushed to the margins.
For years, public discourse has equated climate virtue with the pursuit of “net-zero by 2050,” a slogan elevated to moral commandment. Yet, even if you accept today’s models to the decimal, the payoff is modest. At the Heritage Foundation, we have calculated that eliminating all American emissions would lower global temperatures by no more than 0.23°C by 2100. Doing so amongst European Union nations would result in no more than 0.13°C by 2100.
These are just upper bounds. Western nations throughout the world have poured trillions into subsidies, mandates, and symbolic emissions targets that barely register in global temperature models, while simultaneously neglecting the trade-offs imposed by such policies.
Countries that use more energy per person are not reckless, but richer and healthier. Data shows a close relationship between per capita energy use and higher incomes, lower extreme poverty, longer life expectancy, and sharp declines in deaths from unsafe water, indoor air pollution, and other preventable causes. Countries that remain stuck with low electricity use also struggle with weak hospitals, limited refrigeration and sanitation, and fragile food systems, while those with affordable power support modern medicine, clean water, and resilient infrastructure. Without sufficient reliable energy, the basic ingredients of modern prosperity never arrive.
Affordable, reliable energy has powered the technological advances behind these gains. Everyone wants clean air, clean water, and a healthy environment, and we share the goal of helping people progress. Countries with dependable, low-cost energy, primarily in the West, have reduced such deaths by over 90% compared with many lower-income nations.
Lawmakers throughout the world should focus on empowering people not only to progress, but also to equip them to handle calamities, weather-related or otherwise, that may arise. Access to affordable and reliable energy is paramount for doing so.
By emphasizing economic growth, innovation, and adaptation, governments reject the fatalism that has dominated the debate for decades. This focus allows policymakers to focus on meaningful outcomes such as cleaner air, safer cities, stable food systems, and affordable energy. The COP30 negotiators should realize that this is not a retreat from responsibility but a return to reason.
Kevin Dayaratna, Ph.D., is Director, Center for Data Analysis and Chief Statistician at he Heritage Foundation. Krishna Mehta is a member of Heritage’s Young Leadership Program.
