By Paul Hutcheon, Scottish Political Editor

February 12, 2006

A CONTROVERSIAL author who claims climate change has been exaggerated has been invited to address MSPs.

Lomborg has been invited to Edinburgh by the parliament’s Futures Forum, a cross-party body set up to consider long-term problems. The forum plans to stage a series of “new perspective” events that will seek to challenge MSPs and the public.

One discussion event will feature Lomborg, maverick of the green movement and author of The Sceptical Environmentalist. The book, disputing the belief that global warming was worsening, attracted an international audience.

Instead, Lomborg said that the global environment had improved in recent decades, and claimed that green groups made selective and misleading use of science to support their case.

Lomborg, admired by right-wing groups that oppose action against climate change, said policy-makers should end their “obsession”.

“Action on global warming is basically a very costly way of doing very little for much richer people far into the future. We need to ask ourselves if this indeed should be our first priority,” he wrote.

He also said money spent on complying with the Kyoto treaty, which tried to commit countries to reducing CO2 emissions, would be better spent providing clean water and food for the world’s poor.

Lomborg’s arguments were dismissed by green campaigners, who said he twisted the facts and deliberately underplayed the threat. His views are also contrary to those of the Scottish Executive.

The government is committed to reducing emissions to 12.5% below 1990 levels, with the Executive setting ambitious targets for renewable energy.

The SNP MSP responsible for attracting Lomborg to Scotland, Fergus Ewing, said the writer should be heard. He said: “One of the purposes of the Futures Forum is to consider views from different perspectives. We should approach Scotland’s future with an open mind.”

Ewing, a long-term critic of the green movement, said Lomborg’s work was factual and not party political.

“Anyone who has read Lomborg’s work would be impressed by his rigorous approach. It’s a dispassionate, non-polemical approach.”

He also hit out at the “intellectual Luddite tendency in the Green party” which, he claimed, tries to rubbish Lomborg, describing their attitude as “puerile”.

Green MSP Mark Ballard said he looked forward to exposing Lomborg’s views to rigorous analysis.

“We welcome any visit by Bjorn Lomborg to Scotland as a chance to expose the weakness of his arguments,” he said.

A spokesman for the Scottish Socialist Party said: “Bjorn Lomborg appears to advocate the right of big business to spew poisons into the air and water without penalty.”

A Scottish parliament spokesman defended the forum’s right to invite Lomborg. “Whether or not you agree with his views, the Futures Forum is about stimulating debate,” he said.