Press release
August 12 2004
Discussion of Copenhagen Consensus in Nature magazine Today the British magazine Nature published a commentary on Copenhagen Consensus – the May 2004 meeting where some of the world’s top economists made a prioritized list of global solutions (www.copenhagenconsensus.com). The commentary is written by Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, USA. He is positive toward the Copenhagen Consensus idea of bridging the gap between researchers and politicians. However, he is critical of the Copenhagen Consensus approach.
”Perhaps it is unsurprising that the concerns Jeffrey Sachs raises are the same as those put forward – and found wanting – in the Danish debate preceding the meeting, “ says the architect of Copenhagen Consensus, Bjørn Lomborg. He is nevertheless happy that the important debate on prioritization is continuing to gain traction internationally.
“Sachs disparaged the Consensus ‘dream team’ because it only consisted of economists. But that was the very point of the project. Economists have expertise in economic prioritization. It is they and not climatologists or malaria experts who can prioritize between battling global warming or communicable disease,” says Bjørn Lomborg. “But obviously the economic analyses build on science. This applies for all the thirty background papers of Copenhagen Consensus. The papers are not isolated economic calculations.” Sachs was critical that the economists focused on how best to spend $50 billion over the next 4 years. He wrote, “the Copenhagen Consensus would be more convincing if it acknowledged what the rich world has already promised”, referring to United Nations (UN) targets for development assistance. Bjørn Lomborg emphasized that the $50 billion were an optimistic but realistic example of actual spending. “Experience shows that pledges and actual spending are two different things. In 1970 the
UN set itself the task of doubling development assistance. Since then the percentage has actually been dropping,” says Bjørn Lomborg. “But even if Sachs or others could gather much more than $50 billion over the next 4 years, the Copenhagen Consensus priority list would still show us where it should be invested first. “
“I hope Copenhagen Consensus has given greater attention to the plight of poor countries and the tremendous and efficient investments that are available to tackle them, so that politicians will set aside more resources. But it is hardly realistic to assume that the resources allocated will be so large that we would not have to prioritize. “ ”Apparently, Sachs is irritated that efforts to handle climate change ended up at the bottom of the Copenhagen Consensus list,” Bjørn Lomborg continues. “Sachs thinks that there is enough money to simultaneously implement the Kyoto accord on climate change and solve the problems of unclean drinking water, illnesses and hunger.”
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Professor Nancy Stokey from the Copenhagen Consensus expert panel has stressed that climate change is an important problem, but that solutions such as Kyoto are not effective. For the world’s poor countries that will be hardest hit by climate change, problems like HIV/AIDS, hunger and malaria are more pressing and can be solved more efficiently. “It is surprising that Sachs, an economist himself, thinks there is money to solve everything and that we do not need to prioritize,” Lomborg concludes. “Politicians prioritize every day. The prioritization does not go away simply because we do not want to face it. It just means we prioritize implicitly, and we remove our ability to do better – and thereby the opportunity to give better lives to millions of people around the world.” Bjørn Lomborg will shortly send a reply of the criticism to Nature. A note on Nature magazine: While Nature is a respected publication that puts forward many peerreviewed articles, it also publishes commentaries such as Sachs’. These commentaries, according to Nature, are “journalistic, persuasive, stimulating and often controversial comments on topical issues of public interest that have some bearing on scientific research.” http://www.nature.com/nature/submit/gta/Others/index.html#commentary. Further comments: Consultant Bjørn Lomborg ph: +45 20 99 60 60 MSc (engineering) Anders Kristoffersen ph. +45 72 26 58 10 or +45 51 90 25 49 Press Officer Anita Furu, ph: +45 72 26 58 18 or +45 26 12 58 03