Leader of Anglican Church Should Consider Effects of His Comments on World’s Poor

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Jody Clarke, 202.331.2252

Washington, D.C., March 29, 2006—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is calling on the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury to reconsider his comments made during an interview on the BBC yesterday about global warming. During the interview, the Right Reverend Rowan Williams said that Christians have a moral duty to support reductions in greenhouse gas emissions because if they do not, it could cause “billions of people to die.”

In a letter to Reverend Williams, CEI Senior Fellow Iain Murray, who was baptized and raised in the Anglican Church, writes, “There is a terrible opportunity cost to drastic action to reduce climate change, and that cost would likely weigh heavier on the world’s poor than the effects of global warming itself.”

CEI has long contended that putting the world on an energy starvation diet would cause more harm to the world’s economies and its people than adapting to climate change through advances in technology and rational energy policies.

“Wealthier is healthier, and richer is cleaner,” says Murray. “Limiting economic activity can have a dramatic impact on quality of life. Even ‘baby steps’ towards emissions reduction could result in the deaths of more people in the U.S. than global warming would worldwide.”