The Copenhagen Consensus (August 10, 2006)
How do you get the world's leaders to realize the world has limited resources to fix its problems and that it needs to prioritize? In 2004, a Dane, Bjorn Lomborg, brought together eight of the world's top economists - including four Nobel Laureates - in Copenhagen, where they were asked to evaluate the world's problems, think of the costs and efficiencies attached to solving each, and then produce a prioritized list of those most deserving of money. The results were stunning and, while the economists were from varying political stripes, they largely agreed.
Lomborg has since held other Copenhagen Consensus events, including one involving eight U.N. ambassadors (including those from the U.S., China and India), and plans more in the future. Prioritization, cost-effectiveness and efficiency are nearly unheard-of concepts among the governments, international bodies and aid groups that oversee good works. Yet, a rational allocation of resources would seem to be the best way to accomplish the most good in the shortest time.
Rick Bruno will moderate IIF's discussion on this topic on Thursday, August 10th. Attached is a recent Wall Street Journal article that provides a little more overview to the Copenhagen Consensus. Also, Wikipedia is a good place to find some initial information on Lomborg's project. And, of course, you can go right to the source to their website at www.copenhagenconsensus.com
Charles Hubert has been following this topic for years and renewed his interest after reading these articles:
How to save the world: Bolton v Gore
Copenhagen Consensus 2006: A United Nations Perspective
Making Money Count: Best Buys to Save Lives
His interest was initially raised by a series of articles in The Economist. Here are some additional links on the topic:
A modest undertaking
Curbing disease
A remedy for financial turbulence?
The price of peace
The learning deficit
The economics of climate change
Fighting corruption
Feeding the hungry
Migration and development
Understanding the global “water crisis”
Liberating trade
Putting the world to rights
posted by IIF BlogMeister @ 11:04 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Most of these links don't work. Somehow your copy-paste is not including the html links.
The results of the Copenhagen Consensus should be interpreted with care.
1) These are economic benefits only. No attempt is made to assess human benefits. Consider malaria as an example. Only the projected increase in GDP is considered - not the loss of life or quality of life. Another example: addressing climate change may also reduce global conflicts.
2) These are direct economic benefits only. Investment in malaria may also improve AIDS.
3) Little effort was made to understand reliability of each rating. Seventeen projects received rankings while the remaining fifteen were deemed having insufficient information. All three climate projects were rated even though the author of the summary paper admits that the discounting and climate modeling involve major uncertainties.
4) Nobel prize or not, how can a small set of economists be expected to accomplish this alone without consulting with relevant scientists and experts on the literature? This is not a consensus. The scientists who were left out of the process had every right to offer their critiques, but were dismissed as turf warriors.
Thus the Copenhagen Consensus should be treated as a set of working papers. The results should for the most part be ignored until the broader community reaches a consensus on their reliabilty.
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