Copenhagen Consensus

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The Copenhagen Consensus 2004 is a Danish project based at the Copenhagen Business School that tries to set priorities for the most important challenges facing humanity, such as hunger , AIDS , on the basis of economic cost-benefit analyzes . Water supply , access to sanitation, trade restrictions , corruption and global warming . The project uses the methods of welfare economics . It continued with the 2008 Copenhagen Consensus .

The idea for this came from Bjørn Lomborg and other members of the Institute for Environmental Assessment , a foundation of the Danish government and was co-financed by The Economist magazine .

All participants are economists who place emphasis on a list of priorities based on economic analysis. Despite the billions being spent on global challenges by the UN , wealthy governments, foundations, charities, and non-governmental organizations, the money being spent on problems like malnutrition or climate change is not enough. The World Bank estimates that the UN's Millennium Development Goals would cost an additional US $ 40–70 billion a year on top of the US $ 57 billion already spent annually.

A book summarizing the results, Global Crises, Global Solutions , edited by Lomborg, was published by Cambridge University Press in October 2004. Further project meetings were held in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012, and the project is now privately financed. In 2012, nutritional supplements were given the highest priority.

Experts |

The process as it was pursued is based to a large extent on the expertise of economists with a great reputation , such as four winners of the so-called Nobel Prize for Economics.

The participants were (marked winners of the Prize for Economics of the Swedish Reichsbank ):

Territories - challenges to humanity

The experts rated ten challenges and different possible solutions for each.

The team of experts was given the task of answering the question for these ten challenges: “What would be the best ways to improve the well-being of humanity, especially for the well-being of developing countries, assuming that an additional 50 billion dollars are available to governments? stand? "

A kind of cost-benefit analysis was used to determine how well these problems could be solved by various policy measures; they were classified into four categories: very good; Good, sufficient and poor.

  • Very good In
    this view, the fight against HIV and AIDS has the highest priority . The economists estimated that an investment of US $ 27 billion could prevent nearly 30 million cases of infection by 2010. Measures to combat malnutrition and hunger were seen as making the most sense. Means here are food supplements , especially against iron deficiency due to an unbalanced diet. This has an extremely high cost-benefit ratio. The expenditure was estimated at US $ 12 billion. The third point is trade liberalization . In contrast to the aforementioned issues, while there are no lives in danger, the experts agreed that there could be great benefits at low cost for both the world as a whole and developing countries. The fourth point concerns malaria . US $ 13 billion would add huge cost benefits, especially if spent on chemical mosquito control.
  • Good
    As point five, the consensus names stronger investments in new agricultural technologies, especially for developing countries. Three suggestions for improving sanitation and water quality for a billion of the poorest follow the list. (Placed in positions 6 to 8: simple water technology for households, community-organized water supply and sanitation and research for greater profitability of water in food production). The last point in this category was governance and how the costs of starting new businesses could be reduced.
  • Sufficient
    number 10 was a migration project whose goal was to loosen immigration barriers for skilled workers. 11 and 12 were malnutrition projects - improving infant and child nutrition and reducing common low birth weight . Number 12 was increasing basic medical supplies or fighting disease.
  • Poor
    Points 14–17 comprised migration projects ( guest worker programs for non-skilled workers), which were seen as an obstacle to integration , and climate change projects (carbon dioxide tax and the Kyoto Protocol ), which the forum found to be less cost-effective for the expected benefits.

Results 2008

In the 2008 Copenhagen Consensus, the solutions to global problems were ranked according to their cost / benefit ratio (here the first 20 out of a total of 30):

  1. Micronutrient supplements for children ( vitamin A and zinc ), against malnutrition
  2. The Doha Round of World Trade Organization
  3. Fortification of food ( iron and iodized salt )
  4. Expansion of vaccinations for children across the board
  5. Developing nutrient-rich plant foods
  6. Deworming and other school feeding programs
  7. School fee reduction
  8. Improving school education for girls
  9. Promotion of nutrition at the village level
  10. Supporting women with family planning and motherhood
  11. Acute treatment for myocardial infarction
  12. Malaria : prevention and treatment
  13. Tuberculosis : detection and treatment
  14. Research and development in technologies for CO 2 low-carbon energy
  15. Bio sand filter for water treatment in the household
  16. Rural water supply
  17. Financial support for households with school enrollment of children
  18. Peacekeeping in post-conflict situations
  19. Combined HIV - prevention
  20. Hygiene education (Total sanitation campaign)

criticism

Some critics, including economists such as Jeffrey Sachs , questioned the usefulness of a cost-benefit calculation even in highly complex and scientifically uncertain terrain, the use of certain discount rates to classify current and future values, and the forum's assumptions regarding the availability of resources. In this sense, the restriction of the consensus to the level of current development aid was also criticized. Instead of budgeting for the shortage, it is better to name sums with which all critical problems could be solved.

It was also criticized that the discussion participants were exclusively professional economists. The project's connection with Bjørn Lomborg , who takes controversial positions on environmental issues, also provoked skepticism. The other economists, selected by Lomborg, were also suspected of being too strongly committed to the ideas of the free market and correspondingly little sympathy for state intervention in environmental issues. Therefore, the consensus organized a parallel forum of non-experts that worked out its own list of recommendations (these essentially corresponded to those of the experts).

The actual proposals, however, provoked less opposition as their priorities number 1 and 2 (AIDS and malnutrition) are generally considered to be of the highest importance. However, the proposal on trade liberalization in point 3 (which would be unacceptable for globalization critics) and the low ranking of the recommendation on climate change were criticized .

According to more recent studies, however, opening up trade and climate protection can bring each other forward: Free trade can promote the spread of low-carbon technologies and give developing countries more opportunities to use these technologies; conversely, environmental criteria can be incorporated into trade agreements.

literature

  • Bjørn Lomborg (ed.): Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007. ISBN 978-0521715973
  • Bjørn Lomborg (ed.): How to Spend $ 50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006. ISBN 978-0521685719
  • Bjørn Lomborg (ed.): Global Crises, Global Solutions , Cambridge University Press, 2nd Edition, Cambridge 2009. ISBN 978-0-521-74122-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CC12 outcome . Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  2. ↑ 2008 Outcomes. Copenhagen Consensus Center, accessed March 10, 2016 .
  3. ↑ See Lomborg, Global Crises, Global Solutions , 2nd ed. 2009
  4. ↑ Jeffrey D. Sachs: Seeking a global solution . In: Nature , Vol. 430, 2004, pp. 725-726, doi : 10.1038 / 430725a
  5. ↑ Free trade against climate change? We climate savers, September 27, 2009
  6. ↑ Free trade can help combat global warming, finds UN report UN News Center, June 26, 2009