Environmentalism...For the Rich Only?

...the cost of climate policies is already falling most heavily on today’s poor. Subsidies for renewable energy have raised costs of heating and transport disproportionately for the poor. Subsidies for biofuels have raised food prices by diverting food into fuel, tipping millions into malnutrition and killing about 190,000 people a year. The refusal of many rich countries to fund aid for coal-fired electricity in Africa and Asia rather than renewable projects (and in passing I declare a financial interest in coal mining) leaves more than a billion people without access to electricity and contributes to 3.5 million deaths a year from indoor air pollution caused by cooking over open fires of wood and dung.
Greens think these harms are a price worth paying to stop the warming. They want (other) people to bear such sacrifices today so that the people of 2100, who will be up to seven times as rich, do not have to face the prospect of living in a world that is perhaps 0.8 - 1.2 degrees warmer. And this is the moral high ground?
It is not just climate change. The opposition to genetically modified food is mostly a middle and upper class obsession, but the people who would benefit from such foods are often poor people. Golden rice, for example, could prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people a year from vitamin A deficiency, but has been stymied for 15 years by opposition organized by western green groups, especially Greenpeace. They are entitled to think that this philanthropic project is a bad idea, but they are buying their reassurance at the expense of the poor’s health.
Other examples are organic farming and renewable energy, both of which require more land than the conventional alternatives. Most conservationists now recognize that “sustainable intensification” is a key ingredient of environmental protection – that is, using as little land as possible to grow crops and make energy, so as to spare more land for nature. Fortunately, this plan also means cheaper food and cheaper energy so it helps the poor. By all means go organic and use wind power if you insist, but don’t pretend there is anything morally superior about it.

Matt Ridley, in The Times (firewalled) and his blog here