Setting Priorities

The Weekend Opinion Journal features a chat with Skeptical Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg on the subject of budgeting, cost/benefit analysis, the establishment of priorities, and, lest we forget, global warming.

In 2004, he invited eight of the world's top economists--including four Nobel Laureates--to 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 well-publicized results (and let it be said here that Mr. Lomborg is no slouch when it comes to promoting himself and his work) were stunning. While the economists were from varying political stripes, they largely agreed. The numbers were just so compelling: $1 spent preventing HIV/AIDS would result in about $40 of social benefits, so the economists put it at the top of the list (followed by malnutrition, free trade and malaria). In contrast, $1 spent to abate global warming would result in only about two cents to 25 cents worth of good; so that project dropped to the bottom.

Mr. Lomborg recently repeated that exercise with UN Ambassadors rather than economists.  But guess what?

His organization, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, held a new version of the exercise in Georgetown. In attendance were eight U.N. ambassadors, including John Bolton. (China and India signed on, though no Europeans.) They were presented with global projects, the merits of each of which were passionately argued by experts in those fields. Then they were asked: If you had an extra $50 billion, how would you prioritize your spending?

Mr. Lomborg grins and says that before the event he briefed the ambassadors: "Several of them looked down the list and said 'Wait, I want to put a No. 1 by each of these projects, they are all so important.' And I had to say, 'Yeah, uh, that's exactly the point of this exercise--to make you not do that.'" So rank they did. And perhaps no surprise, their final list looked very similar to that of the wise economists. At the top were better health care, cleaner water, more schools and improved nutrition. At the bottom was . . . global warming.

Here is a recent op-ed by Mr. Lomborg discussing this; the Economist magazine joined in (no prize for guessing whose side they backed).

Here is an old post with a link to the original Copenhagen Project.  And to show my support for recycling, let me recycle this suggested motto - "Bjorn Lomborg - Like Kryptonite to Kyoto".

Comments

[John]

Interesting. I would have thought a dollar preventing malaria (DDT mosquito nets) would be more effective than a dollar fighting AIDS (expensive drug cocktails).

[Rick Ballard]

The Lomberg Op-Ed at the Observer drew a nice flock of loons in comments but there is a very interesting post at July 5, 2006 05:39 AM by Skeptical that is worth a read.

In general Lomberg's method seems a reasonable approach. I really question the base information that suggests that the preponderance of money would be efficiently spent on AIDS/HIV. Oddly enough, that problem seems to be self rectifying in Africa. It's almost as if the remaining Africans have noticed that there are certain behaviors that are, if not causal, at least damaging. Amazing.

Second, the mosquito net idea is about 1/4 as effective as spraying the walls of a house with DDT. Again, it's killing mostly poor black and brown people so propitiating Gaia by not mentioning DDT is completely understandable.

I've thumbed through the Copenhagen Conference website but I don't see the information that was provided to the economists. If it's that important, I'm not sure why the underlying assumptions are not highlighted. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough.

[Rick Ballard]

Aha, the 'challenge' papers are here (under the '04 tab). Now all that's required is a few hours to read them.

[pdq332]

Of course it came out that way, but Tthe exercise was poorly conceived. Instead of a cost/benefit analysis, an analysis of cost to social control should have been done. In other words, for the least amount of cost, how do you gain the most control over peoples' lives through increased taxation, regulation, treaties, etc. Then global warming would have been right on top.

[John Anderson]

pdq332, I wish I thought you were wrong but, alas, I live here.
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The first sentence, "Bjorn Lomborg is a political scientist by training" almost got me to stop reading: isn't Mr. Lomborg a statistician, somewhat more rigorous?
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"... at that point, the real Al Gore would be slightly sidelined, since he's arguing for the most expensive cure that would do the least good."
Slightly? Well, only if you (like Congress' response to his Kyoto love) think he is a sideshow already. A smart man, but that does not mean he is not also a clown: Emmet Kelly was also a smart man.
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I originally used the option the Observer provides for test-only, but decided to follow Rick Ballard's tip and read a few of the comments. Yep, lots of lunatic junk. One intrigued me by pointing to the Wiki on the Copenhagen Consensus, saying it destroyed Lomberg. I hope a lot of people did, because the commenter apparently did not get past the first sentence which indirectly objected to "welfare economics", looking at the benefits to people rather than nations. Scroll down to "Climate Change" and we find the objection there is that the premise used by the panel exaggerated the costs of Global Warming! Then come the "Criticism" section - $50 billion was far too low a figure (but why does it make a difference if the sum was $0.20 or $900 billion?), and the panel was all economists (to which Lomberg retorted basically "That was the point!") from the committed [alas, not to mental hospitals] Kyoto believers.

[John Anderson]

"test-only"? Oops: "text-only"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_consensus