If even FIFA World Cup was forced to pause for heat, the myth that developed nations can manage climate change is over. They should recommit to deep emission cuts, transfer finances & tech to developing world.

William Nordhaus was the poster child of the “global warming isn’t so bad” camp in the 1990s — precisely when the world was negotiating the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol. His much-cited 1991 paper, ‘To Slow or Not to Slow’, projected that a 3°C rise in global temperature would shave barely 0.25% off US income. His later work went further, predicting gains for cold developed regions — lower heating bills, longer growing seasons, better farming in the US, Canada, Russia and Europe — while poor tropical countries bore the losses.