copenhagen consensus center
REAL PEOPLE, REAL PROBLEMS Stories from Global Warming Hotspots By Bjørn Lomborg
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Contents Introduction
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A Quiet Voice from Vanuatu
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Malaria is Here Right Now
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A Heaven’s Gift in Bangladesh 18
14 All articles are by Copenhagen Consensus Center director Bjørn Lomborg. The names of the researchers who conducted the interviews are noted on each article.
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One of the ‘Good Countries’
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In the Wake of Cyclone Aila
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What Tourists Don’t Go to See on Kilimanjaro
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An Elusive Search for a Better Life
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Rescued But Still in Need
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The Real Test for Aid
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First published Copenhagen Consensus Center Copenhagen, Denmark © Copenhagen Consensus Center 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.
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Introduction By Bjørn Lomborg
Media organizations in wealthy countries regularly send forth reporters to find “victims of global warming.� In dispatches from the Pacific Islands, Bangladesh, or Ethiopia, journalists warn of impending calamity. Global warming is the most horrific challenge facing these regions, we are informed. Its resolution is vital. We see the terrible plight of those living in the shadows of Mount Kilimanjaro, or on the edge of the Zambezi River, and we are told that climate change will significantly worsen these fragile communities. Rich countries, we are told, must sign up to drastic, urgent carbon cuts. But seldom do we hear from the local people who are said to be in danger. These people are not voiceless; we just pay no attention to what they say. As part of the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate, the Copenhagen Consensus Center set out to ask people in global-warming hot spots about their fears and hopes.
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For a few hundred million dollars, we could help almost half of humanity now. The stories presented here are one strand of the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate project. Another strand involved identifying the best responses to global warming. The Copenhagen Consensus Center commissioned top climate economists to write research papers that each examine the benefits and costs of one response to global warming. Eight sets of authors looked at the following topics: climate engineering, carbon mitigation, forestry, black carbon, methane, adaptation, technology-led policy response, technology transfers. Much of the world’s current focus is on cutting carbon dioxide emissions, but there are many ways to go about fixing the climate. The optimal policy response will create the biggest impact for the available money. An Expert Panel of five world-class economists – including three recipients of the Nobel Prize – met in September 2009 to consider the research papers, and form conclusions about which solution to climate change is the most promising. The Expert Panel comprised: Finn E Kydland (Nobel Laureate), Thomas C Schelling (Nobel Laureate), Vernon L Smith (Nobel Laureate), Nancy L Stokey (Frederick Henry Prince Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago), and Jagdish Bhagwati (University Professor at Columbia University). After scrutinizing the 21 research papers, the Expert Panel agreed upon a prioritized list showing the most – and least – effective ways of reining in temperature increases. They concluded that the most effective use of resources would be to invest in:
- Researching solar radiation management technology;
- A technology-led policy response to global warming that is designed to develop green technology faster;
- Researching carbon storage technology
These would form a smart response to global warming. More information about these options can be found in the Copenhagen Consensus publication, Advice for Policymakers.
Tadese Denkue, Mojo, Ethiopia
While economists and Nobel Laureates inform us about how to respond to this threat, we can also learn a lot about this challenge and other priorites by listening to the people who live in global warming hotspots. Over the summer of 2009, the Copenhagen Consensus Center interviewed more than 50 people, all around the world. Our goal was to ask them about their priorities and concerns, and then consider the policy options that would help the most. Some of these stories were published, in the build-up to the COP15 meeting in Copenhagen, in the Wall Street Journal. In Mojo, central Ethiopia, our researchers met Tadese Denkue, a 68-year-old former soldier with no regular income. “I never know when I will be able to buy myself some food,” he said. “I only know that I suffer a lot. This is not a decent life.” Tadese had never heard of global warming. When it was explained to him, he was dismissive. He had more immediate concerns: “The first thing I need is food, and then a job.” Tadese was suffering from his second bout of malaria this year. He had lost count of how many times he had contracted the disease. Our researcher accompanied him to a free clinic. The electricity was not working. A doctor admitted that most patients are sent home without testing or treatment: the clinic had run out of medicine. The threat of more malaria has been used to argue for drastic carbon cuts. Warmer, wetter weather will improve conditions for the malaria parasite. Most estimates suggest that global warming will put 3% more of the earth’s population at risk of catching malaria by 2100.
Our researchers found people who ask simply that we first listen to them, before we form our views about the best policy options to help.
The most efficient, global carbon cuts – designed to keep temperature increases under two degrees Celsius – would cost $40 trillion a year by 2100, according to research by Richard Tol for the Copenhagen Consensus Center. In the best-case scenario, this expenditure would reduce the at-risk population by only 3%. In comparison, spending $3 billion annually on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for effective new combination therapies could halve the total number of those infected within one decade. For the money it takes to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives. Of course, malaria is far from the only reason we worry about global warming. Twenty kilometers from Mojo, our researcher met Desi Koricho and her eight-month-old son, Michel. Every two weeks, Desi walked four hours to take Michel to the health center. After two months of malnutrition treatment, Michel had grown a lot but remained half the normal size of a baby his age. Michel is not Desi’s biological child. She took him in after his father committed suicide and he was abandoned. Desi likely suffers from undiagnosed malnutrition herself. It is rife here. There are no roads, electricity, or other infrastructure. Conditions are cramped and unhygienic. “We need everything,” Desi said. Solving the malnutrition challenge would be a good start. Campaigners across Europe and the US use the threat of starvation to argue for drastic carbon cuts. For most regions, weather changes will increase agricultural productivity. Cruelly, this is not the case for parts of Africa that are already suffering from hunger.
Desi Koricho and her family, central Ethiopia
But, as with malaria, all of the evidence shows that direct policies are much more effective than carbon cuts. One effective, under-appreciated intervention is providing micronutrients to those who lack them. Providing Vitamin A and zinc to 80% of the 140 million or so undernourished children in the world would require a commitment of just $60 million annually. For $286 million, we could get iron and iodine to more than 2.5 billion people. In 2009, the Copenhagen Consensus Center launched Best Practice Papers showing how investments in this area can be made most effective, and launched them to practitioners, NGOs, donors and officials in Kenya and New York. The choice is stark: for a few hundred million dollars, we could help almost half of humanity now. Compare this to the investments to tackle climate change – $40 trillion annually by the end of the century – which would save a hundred times fewer starving people (and in 90 years!). For every person saved from malnutrition through climate policies, the same money could have saved half a million people from micronutrient malnutrition through direct policies. Some argue that the choice between spending money on carbon cuts and on direct policies is unfair. But it is a basic fact that no dollar can be spent twice. Rich countries and donors have limited budgets and attention spans. If we spend vast amounts of money on carbon cuts in the mistaken belief that we are stopping malaria and reducing malnutrition, we are less likely to put aside money for the direct policies that would help today.
Much of the world’s current focus is on cutting carbon dioxide emissions, but there are many ways to go about fixing the climate.
Indeed, for every dollar spent on strong climate policies, we will likely do about $0.02 of good for the future. If we spent the same dollar on simple policies to help malnutrition or malaria now, we could do $20 or more good – 1000 times better, when all impacts are taken into account. On Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania – where the effects of global warming can already be felt – our researcher encountered 28-year-old Rehema Ibrahim. Rehema was divorced by her husband and disowned by her family after she failed to produce children. To find out if she was the cause of the infertility, she started sleeping with other men. She is now HIV-positive, an outcast in a terribly poor society. Rehema has noticed changes in the weather. She says that the snow and ice have been melting. She knows what our researcher means by “global warming.” But, she says: “The issues I am experiencing have greater priority. The HIV and the problems it is causing are greater than the [receding] ice.” Campaigners for carbon-emission reductions regularly highlight the melting snow and ice of Mount Kilimanjaro. But we need to pay as much attention to the people living in the mountain’s shadow. The interviews contained here make for challenging reading. There are many massive problems in the world that we could solve easily today. Again and again, our researchers found people who ask simply that we first listen to them, before we form our views about the best policy options to help.
Rehema Ibrahim, Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
Seldom do we hear from the local people who are said to be in danger. These people are not voiceless; we just pay no attention to what they say.
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What is global warming?
Torethy Frank, Nguna Island, Vanuatu
A Quiet Voice from Vanuatu Torethy Frank, Vanuatu Researcher: Jessica Patterson
Global warming is a serious challenge that has captured the world’s attention. But in the areas that will be worst hit by climate change, what do locals value and want prioritized? The tiny island nation of Vanuatu speaks with a big voice on global warming, calling for larger countries to make immediate carbon cuts. In a warning often repeated by environmental campaigners, the Vanuatuan president told the United Nations that entire island nations could be submerged. “If such a tragedy does happen,” he said, “then the United Nations and its members would have failed in their first and most basic duty to a member nation and its innocent people.” Torethy Frank, a 39-year-old woman carving out a subsistence lifestyle on Vanuatu’s Nguna Island, is one of those “innocent people.” Yet, she has never heard of the problem that her government rates as a top priority. “What is global warming?” she asks a researcher for the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Torethy Frank has more immediate concerns—problems that are not spoken about on the world stage, and that do not attract the attention of the media or environmental advocates.
Torethy and her family of six live in a small house made of concrete and brick with no running water. As a toilet, they use a hole dug in the ground. They have no shower and there is no fixed electricity supply. Torethy’s family was given a battery-powered DVD player but cannot afford to use it. Three of Torethy’s four teenage children have never spent a day in school. The eldest attended classes on another island, which cost Torethy and her husband 12,000 vatu ($110) a year, but she now makes him stay home because “too many of the kids at the school were smoking marijuana.” Three years ago, an outbreak of malaria ravaged Torethy’s village, Utanlang. The mosquito-borne illness is a big problem in Vanuatu, although aid from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is helping. This deadly disease causes fever, headaches and vomiting, and can disrupt the blood supply to vital organs. One small clinic in Utanlang provides basic medicines like painkillers and bandages. For real medical care, Torethy must travel to the capital, Port Vila. In perfect conditions, that involves a 30-minute boat trip and then a two-hour car ride. Because the villagers are too poor to own any boats other than outrigger canoes, it can take up to five hours. To get by, Torethy’s village sells a few fish, fruit and baskets in mainland Vanuatu. But after paying for transport, little money is made. Torethy has learned that “it’s best to return with no money and nothing new,” because otherwise other villagers ask for their share.
Scenes from Nguna Island, Vanuatu
The government, too, takes its cut in the form of tax. “But it doesn’t give anything back,” Torethy says. “No education, no power, no water, no transportation, no health care. Why should we pay them?” Torethy’s life would not be transformed by foreign countries making immediate carbon cuts. What would change her life? Having a boat in the village to use for fishing, transporting goods to sell, and to get to hospital in emergencies. She doesn’t want more aid money because, “there is too much corruption in the government and it goes in people’s pockets,” but she would like microfinance schemes instead. “Give the money directly to the people for businesses so we can support ourselves without having to rely on the government.” Vanuatu’s politicians speak with a loud voice on the world stage. But the inhabitants of Vanuatu, like Torethy Frank, tell a very different story.
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Give the money directly to the people for businesses so we can support ourselves without having to rely on the government.
Malaria is Here Right Now Samson Banda, Zambia Researcher: Thor Hampus Bank
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Samson Banda and his children, Bauleni Compound, Lusaka, Zambia
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If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?
When he first got sick, Samson Banda didn’t realize he had malaria. Only after he came down with a serious fever did he end up at a clinic in the Bauleni slum compound in Lusaka, Zambia. The clinic has just a few nurses and staff with basic medical skills. Locals can wait for an entire day to be seen. Unchecked malaria is serious. Nine out of 10 of the world’s annual one million malaria-caused deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The disease—transmitted via mosquitoes—can cause low blood sugar, an enlarged spleen and liver, severe headaches, a shortage of oxygen to the brain, and renal failure. It can lead to coma and death. Twenty-seven year-old Samson was ill for six months before he started to recover. Bauleni is an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes during the rainy season between November and April. The slum lacks any sanitation or sewer supply, so locals dig pit latrines. The waste overflows. Most adults have some long-term infection that tends to recur. “Our conditions are pathetic—both the health clinics and the sanitation in this area,” Samson told a Copenhagen Consensus Center researcher. Ask what he wants to see foreign donors’ money spent on, and he is quick to answer: better health care. When he is asked about global warming, Samson responds: “I have heard about it, but I don’t even know how it would affect me. If I die from malaria tomorrow, why should I care about global warming?” In the West, campaigners for carbon regulations point out that global warming will increase the number of malaria victims. This is often used as an argument for drastic, immediate carbon cuts.
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Our conditions are pathetic—both the health clinics and the sanitation in this area.
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Warmer, wetter weather will improve conditions for the malaria parasite. Most estimates suggest that global warming will put 3% more of the Earth’s population at risk of catching malaria by 2100. If we invest in the most efficient, global carbon cuts—designed to keep temperature rises under two degrees Celsius—we would spend a massive $40 trillion a year by 2100. In the best case scenario, we would reduce the at-risk population by only 3%. In comparison, research commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center shows that spending $3 billion annually on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for effective new combination therapies could halve the number of those infected with malaria within one decade. For the money it takes to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives. Samson has not done these calculations, but for him it is simple: “First things first,” he says. Malaria “is here right now and it kills a lot of people every day.” Malaria is only weakly related to temperature; it is strongly related to poverty. It has risen in sub-Saharan Africa over the past 20 years not because of global warming, but because of failing medical response. The mainstay treatment, chloroquine, is becoming less and less effective. The malaria parasite is becoming resistant, and there is a need for new, effective combination treatments based on artemisinin, which is unfortunately about 10 times more expensive. Samson is right to ask what spending money on global warming could do for him and his family. The truthful answer? Very little. For a lot less, we could achieve a lot more.
Samson Banda, Bauleni Compound, Lusaka, Zambia
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When my kids haven’t got enough to eat, I don’t think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about.
Scene From Geneva Camp, Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh
A Heaven’s Gift in Bangladesh Momota Begum, Bangladesh Researcher: Nazia Haider
When the monsoon rains come, Momota Begum and her and children must take turns sleeping in their tiny concrete house’s one bed to escape the waste and human excrement that can wash in from outside. They live in a threedecade old refugee camp in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is run for Urdu-speaking people who found themselves on the wrong side of the border after Bangladesh won its independence from Pakistan in 1971. Late last year, campaigning politicians and journalists visited the 20,000 residents of the camp. This visit gave many of the refugees hope that their living conditions would soon be improved. “They saw our living conditions here,” 45-year-old Momota told a Copenhagen Consensus Center researcher in June. “It gave us hope every time these people came, but now I understand that even if people know about us, it doesn’t matter.” As a cart-puller, Momota’s husband earns about $44 each month. The family has no savings. Momota believes that education could help her children achieve a better life. But her eldest daughter dropped out of school at age 13. The family could not afford the $22 annual fee for books and uniforms. “It’s better that she stays at home and helps out,” Momota said. Bangladesh provides camp residents with water and electricity, but not proper sanitation. Momota cooks the daily meal next to an open drain. Diarrhea is common. Momota’s family cannot afford the $2.90-$4.30 cost of going to a private health clinic when someone in the family gets sick.
Momota Begum (left), her son, aunt and sister, Geneva Camp, Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh
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It would be a heaven’s gift if a proper drainage system could be arranged in this area where all the drains are covered and do not overflow.
In the developed world, when we consider how best to help Bangladesh, our minds quickly turn to policies that would reduce the amount of carbon emissions to lessen the risk that global warming will lead to rising sea levels over the next 50 or 100 years. Momota’s biggest challenge is not what the sea level may do in five or 10 decades. She has a more modest request: “It would be a heaven’s gift if a proper drainage system could be arranged in this area where all the drains are covered and do not overflow.” Getting basic sanitation and safe drinking water to the three billion people around the world who do not have it now would cost nearly $4 billion a year. By contrast, cuts in global carbon emissions that aim to limit global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius over the next century would cost $40 trillion a year by 2100. These cuts will do nothing to increase the number of people with access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Cutting carbon emissions will likely increase water scarcity, because global warming is expected to increase average rainfall levels around the world. For Momota, the choice is simple. After global warming was explained to her, she said: “When my kids haven’t got enough to eat, I don’t think global warming will be an issue I will be thinking about.” One of Bangladesh’s most vulnerable citizens, Momota has lost faith in the media and politicians. “So many people like you have come and interviewed us. I have not seen any improvement in our conditions,” she said. It is time the developed world started listening.
One of the ‘Good Countries’ John Mwila, Zambia
Researcher: Thor Hampus Bank
The British high commissioner to Zambia recently declared that Zambia is one of the “good countries” in the fight against global warming: a vulnerable nation that “hardly produced any of the greenhouse gases which are changing the world’s climate”. Donor countries are offering Zambia money to help it prepare for the effects of climate change. Inside the John Laing slum compound in the southwest of Lusaka, John Mwila, 54, believes the rich nations’ priorities are wrong. “We are not thinking so much about global warming. The weather has changed since the seventies and eighties, but we want the money to be spent on the problems we have here,” he says. Like 16 percent of adults in Zambia, John is HIV-positive. So is his wife. One of his eight children is HIV-positive, along with a grandchild. His eldest daughter died of the disease last year. Recently a massive effort has made in-roads to the vast challenge of HIV-Aids. But the epidemic has not been beaten. In Zambia, more than 30,000 children will be born HIV-positive this year. This disease threatens every aspect of this nation’s development and security. Treatment is inadequate. John must travel for three hours every two months to purchase anti-retroviral drugs. He cannot hold down a fulltime job because of his illness. Research for the Copenhagen Consensus Center by Dean Jamison of the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco finds that investing more on “combination prevention” holds great promise to tackle the epidemic. This involves simultaneous and substantial scaling up of condom distribution, treatment of sexually transmitted disease, male circumcision, and peer intervention among sex workers.
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The government is aware [of these problems], but it is not doing anything. It is the same with the foreign governments and NGOs.
“ John Mwila and his family, John Laing Compound, Lusaka, Zambia
Jamison estimates that spending $2.5 billion would prevent two million HIV infections each year. Because of increased development and security, and a lower burden on fragile health systems, Jamison estimates the economic benefits would be 12 times higher than the costs. In comparison, when fellow economists added up all of the environmental and economic benefits of spending $800 billion over 100 years combating climate change through reducing carbon emissions with taxes and trading systems, they discovered that each dollar would only achieve 90 cents of good, and rein in temperature increases by just 0.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. In other words, the cost of this investment outstrips the benefits. HIV-Aids is not the only challenge in John’s life – or the only area where donors could make a massive impact with relatively little money. John wants three, basic things for his community: clean water, schools and clinics. The John Laing compound houses 60,000 people without water supply or sanitation. Locals must buy dirty water from the local tap and pay the government to take their garbage. Human waste floods the broken streets in the rainy season. There are two schools in very poor condition, and parents must pay for their children to be educated. The only clinic is volunteer-run, and only offers basic services. “The government is aware [of these problems], but it is not doing anything. It is the same with the foreign governments and NGOs,” says John. John’s world is coming to an end and coming to an end soon. It seems more than a little self-indulgent that the western world purports to want to help the ones most vulnerable – the world’s many poor – yet focus almost exclusively on the strategy that will do the least to help John at the highest cost. Zambia is, indeed, one of the “good countries” in the fight against climate change: it is not responsible for the gases that are warming the planet. But as John points out, it is also a victim of the rich world’s fixation with this one problem.
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The weather has changed since the seventies and eighties, but we want the money to be spent on the problems we have here.
Scene from John Laing Compound, Lusaka, Zambia
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We have been living on a bowl of rice for the past few days
Lakshmi Bera, Gangapur village, West Bengal, India
In the Wake of Cyclone Aila Lakshmi Bera, India
Researcher: Devjyot Ghoshal
One week after Cyclone Aila flattened Lakshmi Bera’s mud, bamboo and thatched grass house in May, a Copenhagen Consensus researcher found her family of five under the open sky. Their only protection was a plastic tarp. “We have been living on a bowl of rice for the past few days”, said 35-year-old Lakshmi Bera. “The food that we had stocked up was lost. Whatever water we are getting we are sharing with our cattle, since the animals too are suffering. The only clothes we have left are the ones we are wearing.” After the cyclone ravaged parts of India and Bangladesh, a Greenpeace spokesperson announced that the disaster should be used to teach politicians a lesson. “India must continue to pressure the industrialized world to make deep and urgent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.” Greenpeace was following a script. In 2005, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope told members of his organization they should “[r]ide the wave of public concern created over extreme weather.” In Gangapur village in the Sundarbans, India, Lakshmi had more immediate fears than carbon. “If we don’t have a house, food and water, how can we think about these things?” she asked. Lakshmi needed 25,000 Indian rupees to rebuild and dreamed of being able to afford a concrete house that would not wash away. She wanted the Indian government to improve the mud embankments—last substantially worked on in the 1970s—that were supposed to protect her home.
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Had we known the storm would come we could have at least moved some of our belongings elsewhere
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She also was angry that the early-warning system failed. “Had we known the storm would come,” she said, “we could have at least moved some of our belongings elsewhere.” While it is impossible to link a single weather event to global warming, scientists warn that tropical storms like Cyclone Aila could become more severe. The global cost of climate-related disaster has increased relentlessly over the past half-century. The cause is not global warming, however. Rather it is rising concentrations of people and infrastructure along coastlines. Roger A. Pielke Jr. noted in a 2005 paper for Environmental Science and Policy that if everything else stays the same but we halt global warming, there would still be a 500% increase in hurricane damage in 50 years time. If global warming continues but we halt the number of people moving into harms’ way, the increase in hurricane damage would be less than 10%. If the entire world had signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, and its binding restrictions were to last all the way until 2050, the predicted reduction in global warming could cut hurricane damage by half a percentage point.
Lakshmi Bera, Gangapur village, West Bengal, India
By following the advice of hurricane victims like Lakshmi, however, we could achieve a lot more. Better evacuation plans, community education, and the distribution of relief would reduce the amount of suffering caused by severe storms. Regulating vulnerable land and not offering state-subsidized, low-cost insurance that encourages people to settle in high-risk areas would reduce the number of people hit by hurricanes. Better building codes, upgraded dikes and levees, and improved warning systems would also reduce storm damage. Protecting wetlands and beaches that act as natural seawalls would also help. These measures are much cheaper than carbon cuts and could dramatically cut the losses due to storm damage that are sure to come. They would also save a huge amount of heartache and suffering—and at lower cost. Rather than riding a wave of concern about big storms, we would do better to follow the advice of those, who like Lakshmi, have to live with the consequences of our actions.
What Tourists Don’t Go to See on Kilimanjaro Mary Thomas, Tanzania Researcher: Thor Hampus Bank
Every year, more than 10,000 tourists are drawn to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, driven in no small part by the fear that the mountain’s magnificent ice will soon melt. Mary Thomas lives not far from their path, on the southwestern slopes of that mountain, but tourists do not come to her town of Mungushi. At 45, Mary is a widow. Her husband died of HIV/AIDS; she too was diagnosed as HIV positive. “When my husband’s family found out that I had HIV, they isolated me and took my house,” she told a Copenhagen Consensus researcher in June. “Before I got HIV I never expected to live like this and be so poor. I had a good house and food on the table and I was living a good life.” Today, Mary lives in a small house with two small rooms. There is no electricity and the toilet is a hole in the ground outside the house. Her three children, all HIV negative, have been taken away by relatives. She worries about their care after her death. She has heard talk of melting ice on Mount Kilimanjaro, and she has noticed less snow and rain and drier conditions since she was a child. “It worries me.” This, according to climate groups, is a critical and urgent problem. Greenpeace warns there could be no ice left on the mountain within just eight years. “This is the price we pay if climate change is allowed to go unchecked,” warns the group.
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Before I got HIV I never expected to live like this and be so poor.
Mary Thomas, Mungushi, Tanzania
For climate activists, the receding ice is evidence of the need for developed countries to drastically reduce carbon output. The glaciers on Mount Kilimanjaro have actually been receding continuously since 1890. When Hemmingway published ‘Snows of Kilimanjaro’ in 1936, the mountain had already lost more than half its surface ice area in 56 years. This is more than it has lost in the 70 years since. According to scientific research, the reason the ice is disappearing is not warming temperatures, but a shift around 1880 towards drier climates. What we see today is a hangover from that climactic shift. Even if some of their claims are questionable, climate activists have managed to promote local tourism and have done a great job at bringing the world’s attention to a mountain’s glaciers – but they are doing a poor job at bringing attention to the actual people of Tanzania. For Mary, arguments over the state of the ice are irrelevant. She does not think for long when asked what donors and the Tanzanian government should do here first. She wants the opportunity to earn a living. “Education is the first priority and it should provide proper understanding of HIV and reduce the stigma. The next priority is micro-finance so people can have the chance to become self-reliant.” As she puts it, ”there is no need for ice on the mountain if there is no people around because of HIV/AIDS.”
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Education is the first priority and it should provide proper understanding of HIV and reduce the stigma.
Mary Thomas, Mungushi, Tanzania
An Elusive Search for a Better Life Maya Bishwokarma, Nepal Researcher: Prakash Adhikari
Nine years ago, Maya Bishwokarma moved with her family to Kathmandu from Trisuli, a remote village in the hilly Nepal countryside. Their search for a better life has proved elusive. She and her husband and two sons live in a small, two-room house with her brother-in-law’s family, near the bank of a small stream that has been converted into an open sewer. “The life of the poor is more miserable here [than in the countryside],” Maya told a Copenhagen Consensus researcher in June. “Our kids are suffering.” The family cannot afford to send their children to a good school. One of the visible signs of this family’s hardship is the lack of basic amenities. Their hut has electricity, but rolling blackouts mean there is no power for as much as 16 hours of a day. Even during the wet season, Maya must line up with other local residents to collect water handed out every six days by government officials. Due to a long drought, the price of vegetables and food has soared. The lack of water in the shadow of the Himalayas may seem like a strong argument for drastic, short-term reductions in carbon emissions. Indeed, the plight of people like the Bishwokarmas has been used by Al Gore and other campaigners to argue for just such cuts. Climate activists argue that there is a link between melting glaciers in the Himalayas and water shortages elsewhere. On the surface, this makes sense. But when we dig deeper, we find that the Himalaya glaciers are difficult even for scientists to understand. Most suggestions of rapid melting are based on observations of a small handful of India’s 10,000 or so Himalayan glaciers. A comprehensive report in November by senior glaciologist Vijay Kumar Raina, released by the Indian government, looked more broadly and found that many of these glaciers are stable or have even advanced and that the rate of retreat for many others has slowed recently. In Science Magazine, Jeffrey S. Kargel, a glaciologist at the University of Arizona declared that these “extremely provocative” findings were “consistent with what I have learned independently,” while Kenneth Hewitt, a glaciologist at Wilfrid Laurier University agreed that “there is no evidence” to support the suggestion that the glaciers are disappearing quickly.
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Maya Bishwokarma and her son, Kathmandu, Nepal
First on our everyday problems, then on global warming.
When glaciers thicken and expand, the summer runoff into rivers decreases. In other words, when climate change does increase glacial melting, the flow of water to poor people like the Bishwokarmas will increase for several decades. This does not mean that we should cheer on climate change, which will affect the planet in a myriad of complex and challenging ways. It does cast new light on one argument for drastic, short-term carbon cuts. It is important, after all, that we base our response to global warming on the most solid scientific expectations that we can. What did Maya Bishwokarma have to say about such questions? Several times, she asked the Copenhagen Consensus researcher to explain what “climate change” was. When it was explained, she agreed that it was a concern. But she added that the government of Nepal and others should spend money “first on our everyday problems, then on global warming.” It is a prescription that makes a lot of sense.
Mulegata Tesfaye and Konget Mekonen and their children, Akakey, Ethiopia
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Mainly, we need a hospital and more money. We also need food. We are aware that our children do not eat enough.
Rescued But Still in Need Mulegata Tesfaye & Konget Mekonen, Ethiopia Researcher: Joana Socies
Mulegata Tesfaye and Konget Mekonen laugh when they are asked what would improve their standard of living. “We need everything,” Konget says. “Mainly, we need a hospital and more money. We also need food. We are aware that our children do not eat enough.” The couple lives in Akakey, an industrial area on the edge of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and have four children of their own. Two weeks before a Copenhagen Consensus Center researcher interviewed them in June, they took in their sixyear-old orphaned nephew, Garsum. They found him lying on the dirt floor of his grandmother’s house in a rural village. He was unable to stand. “He was living like a dog,” his uncle said. The small boy does not speak. He coughs constantly and suffers from spells of vomiting and diarrhea. His adoptive parents took him to a basic health center because they could not afford a hospital. There they learned he is HIV positive and suffering from malnutrition. They can only afford a treatment for his cough. “We do not have money, but we know he is very sick,” Konget said. Garsum is too ill to attend school. Konget and Mulegata earn around $70 a month working at a state-owned factory. Each day when they go to work and their own children leave for school, they lock their nephew into their tiny threeroom house, alone, so that he won’t wander into the streets.
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We do not have money, but we know he is very sick.
Poor families in Ethiopia struggle to survive, and global warming will make it tougher for them. In some of the poorest areas on earth, global warming is expected to increase hunger in the future. Mulegata has heard talk of global warming but, he said, “it does not affect our lives.” What does affect his life is high food prices. His family can afford to eat meat just once a month. Global food aid is at a 20-year low. Prices soared in 2008, partly because rich countries’ biofuel mandates—designed to fight global warming—have meant that land once used to grow crops to feed people is now being used to grow crops to feed cars. Investing in malnutrition assistance helps countries like Ethiopia because it reduces the burden that malnourished people place on health systems. Spending money on HIV prevention and treatment is a highly effective use of aid money. In economic terms, these investments have benefits that far outstrip their costs.
Garsum Tesfaye, 6, Akakey, Ethiopia
Malnutrition should not be neglected as developed countries concentrate on global warming. Oxfam has warned that at least 4.5 million children could die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment if rich countries divert aid to help poor countries tackle climate change instead of malnutrition as part of an agreement to be negotiated in Copenhagen next month. Oxfam argued that developed countries should both increase aid and spend more to pay off countries that will suffer the worst of global warming. But the harsh truth is that resources are limited. Money spent on global-warming policies is likely to reduce the funds available for food aid. It is therefore immoral to focus resources on doing a small amount of good in the distant future. Six-year-old Garsum is lucky to have been rescued by his uncle and aunt. As his uncle told the Consensus researcher, “In the villages, there is nothing. He is 10 times better here.� But Garsum is still facing a tough life. Only an immediate focus on malnutrition interventions and HIV treatment will provide him with a chance at a better life.
The Real Test for Aid Susan Wangiku, Kenya
Researcher: Joana Socies
Intestinal parasites have robbed five year-old Susan Wangiku of her appetite. They are stripping iron from her guts. When she eats, her stomach hurts afterward. Her eyes are swollen, yellow, and itchy, a sign of infection. Susan plays, unattended, amid the trash and waste of Kangaware slum in Kenya. The slum is next-door to Lavington, a rich estate with the most prestigious schools in Nairobi. She goes down paths strewn with garbage to her 10-square meter house, where she lives with her family of five. There is no toilet here – the family must share a latrine with 20 families. The slum has no running water. A neighbor recently told Susan’s mother, Margaret, that the children need to be de-wormed. But Margaret’s focus is getting food on the table. She says Susan must just have a cold. In any case, there is little chance she will take her to the hospital: “There are no public hospitals close by,” says Margaret. “If you want to be attended you must go to the hospital very early. Sometimes, by 1pm, the doctor has not even checked you.” Susan’s father is the family breadwinner, working as a public transport conductor for sixteen hours every day of the week, for 200KSH ($3) a day. He and Margaret cannot afford to give the children lunch. Susan plays with two cousins who also live in the slum. Both boys have large, distended stomachs. They have had worms for a long time. Their mother, Damaris, knows that – but says she does not believe that the worms have any negative effect on her children. She lost twins, aged two, in 2006. She never discovered what illness claimed their lives.
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We need everything. Do you not see the conditions we live under?
Margaret Wangiku and daughter Susan, 5, Kangaware, Nairobi, Kenya
Susan Wangiku, 5, playing in Kangaware, Nairobi, Kenya
In 2005, eighteen lobby groups launched a campaign to convince aid donors to look at all of the problems of developing African countries like Kenya through the prism of climate change. They said that each and every project should pass the test: “Are you increasing or decreasing people’s vulnerability to the climate?” Surely the best test of aid is how its impact measures up to its cost. De-worming 53 million suffering preschool-aged children like Susan would cost just fifty cents a child, for a total outlay of $26.5 million. One 50 cent investment would mean that when Susan reaches school next year, she will be able to concentrate on lessons. When her parents give her the one daily meal that they can afford, she – and not the worms – will benefit from the nutrition.
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There is no toilet here — the family must share a latrine with 20 families. The slum has no running water.
In economic terms – calculating the value of longer, healthier, more productive lives – researchers say that the benefits of a de-worming investment are at least six-times more than the cost. In contrast, spending thousands of times more money on carbon emission reductions would reduce temperatures by only a tiny amount in 100 years. It is so ineffective that even when researchers add up all the environmental and human benefits from lower temperatures, they are still only a fraction of the cost. How can we best help Susan? By investing in de-worming interventions. And that is just the beginning. As Susan’s mother says, “We need everything. Do you not see the conditions we live under?” But de-worming children is undoubtedly an excellent place to start. The goal of aid should always be to achieve the most good possible. That is the test which investment decisions should pass. Spending billions of dollars on carbon regulations will help Susan a tiny amount in many years’ time. In contrast, a dramatically smaller investment today in de-worming could open up new opportunities that would, indeed, transform her life.
Over the summer of 2009, the Copenhagen Consensus Center interviewed more than 50 people, all around the world. Our goal was to ask them about their priorities and concerns
John Mwila and his family, Lusaka, Zambia