Groovy23
Environmentalist
Reged: 09/08/06
Posts: 1203
Loc: Central London, UK.
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An introduction to the Copenhagen Consensus 2008
Imagine that you are Bill Gates. Not to daydream about what to buy with a $58 billion fortune, but to consider how, like the Microsoft entrepreneur, you might give much of it away.
There are dozens of global challenges that could benefit from your philanthropy, but large as your financial resources are, they are not limitless. What would be your priorities? This week The Times is asking readers for their answers — while the Copenhagen Consensus project invites eminent economists to do the same.
Would your $50 billion be best spent on preventing the three great plagues of the modern era — malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, which claim tens of millions of lives each year?
Or might it be better to fund nutrition in developing countries, where almost 150 million children are underweight for their age and 200 million are chronically malnourished?
What about climate change, which many scientists consider to be the gravest threat of all? Should you invest in improving renewable energy technologies, to reduce reliance on fossil fuels?
Your choice would obviously be influenced by your social and political outlook, and by your perceptions of which challenges matter the most. But you might also want to be confident of getting a decent bang for your buck.
Is it possible to establish which of these challenges can be solved most cost-effectively, so that your generosity does the greatest good for the greatest number?
That is the question that a panel of eight economists, including five Nobel laureates, will attempt to answer next week, as the Copenhagen Consensus deliberates in the Danish capital.
Over the coming days, they will hear presentations from 30 specialists in particular global problems, each of whom will make the case for a menu of solutions in their fields.
Ten topics have been chosen for debate: terrorism; conflict; malnutrition and hunger; education; the role of women; air pollution; subsidies and trade barriers; disease; sanitation and water; and global warming. The panel will decide on a league table, to guide investments by philanthropists, charities and governments. The exercise is the brainchild of Bjørn Lomborg, the controversial Danish statistician whose 2001 book The Skeptical Environmentalist upset many scientists and green activists with a revisionist view of ecological issues.
Scientists, politicians and economists are split on how best to solve the great challenges of our time
The outcome of the first Copenhagen Consensus, held in 2004, proved equally contentious, not because of HIV’s place at the head of the list, but because of what was at the bottom.
Climate change is a reality, the panel argued, but the Kyoto Protocol was not a cost-effective way of addressing it. Limiting greenhouse-gas emissions would postpone the problem only slightly, and at unacceptable cost.
Some commentators considered this to be a thought-provoking injection of rationalism to an emotional debate. Others dismissed it as the consensus of a “random group” of economists lined up to endorse Dr Lomborg’s well-known scepticism about Kyoto.
Further criticism has been directed at the merit of considering these issues purely in terms of cost and benefit. Factors such as social justice, ecological stewardship and political acceptability are also important, but are exceptionally difficult to price.
Other development economists, such as Jeffrey Sachs, of Columbia University, think it misleading to present action on global warming, hunger and malaria as “either-or” options, when all these need to be addressed.
Dr Lomborg recognises these concerns, but argues that his initiative remains useful. “Clearly, there are other issues that matter as well as cost-benefit analysis,” he said. “But unless you put prices and values on things, it is difficult to make informed choices.
“What we’re doing is pricing up the menu. That doesn’t mean you have to pick the cheapest dish, or even the one that’s best value, but you want to know what they cost. Of course, it’s hard to compare carbon footprints with deaths from infectious diseases, but we often compare apples with oranges in everyday life. The challenge to these economists is to compare unlike with unlike as best they can.
“Too often, it’s the most photogenic and PR-friendly options that get priority. We want to step back and ask what’s actually most worthwhile.”
A sample of the solutions offered to five of the challenges are presented here. You can view a full list and choose your own priorities on our interactive table. We also want alternative answers, and your views about the process. Is it really useful to judge these problems in terms of cost and benefit? What other factors need to be taken into account?
The best contributions will be published next Saturday — alongside the economists’ prescriptions for the great challenges of our time.
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Copenhagen Consensus:
Conflict
Fallout from the conflict in Iraq may have disuaded governments from future intervention
The Challenge
The food crisis is increasing global political instability at a time when the risk of new civil wars is already rising. Many recently-negotiated peace settlements have left nations fragile, while the commodity boom and discovery of mineral resources in countries with weak governments have sown seeds for discord.
Since the Iraq war, the developed world has lost faith in using military force to reduce conflict. However, Iraq may be a misleading guide to the effectiveness of intervention.
Unlike the vast majority of conflicts, its civil war was sparked by an international war. The far more typical scenario is a relapse of political violence within a small, low-income, low-growth nation already troubled by fighting. This is the real security challenge that developed nations must deal with this decade.
Option One: Aid
Post-conflict aid designed to stop violence recurring is much more politically acceptable than the use of force. If it proves just as cost-effective - or more so - than military intervention, then it would clearly be a more attractive option.
The numbers
In a nation recovering from violence, each additional percentage point of national growth lowers the risk of conflict re-emerging by around 1.5 percentage points. This typically requires annual aid of $400m: it is very expensive.
This investment does not just reduce the risk of civil war, but also boosts growth. The overall benefits are worth nearly three times more than the costs.
Post-conflict aid therefore looks to be a good use for aid money, but not so spectacular that it would trump most other calls on scarce international public resources.
Option Two: Military intervention
Four new civil wars are expected to break out in the next decade in low-income nations.
The real problem with most peacekeeping interventions is that they are too short — the risk of renewed civil war in post-conflict situations declines slowly with time. The degree of risk reduction depends on the scale of deployment.
The numbers
Spending $850m on a peacekeeping initiative reduces the ten-year risk of conflict re-emerging from around 38 per cent to 7 per cent. A smaller military intervention would reduce the risk by a smaller amount.
Because of war’s horrendous and lasting costs, each percentage point of risk reduction is worth around $2.5bn to the world.
The economic benefits to the world from spending $1bn each year to reduce the risk of conflict add up to $12.6bn: each dollar achieves $12.60 of good.
Other Options
Conditional Aid: Linking aid to limits on military spending, to improve its cost-benefit ratio
Over-the-Horizon Guarantees: Providing (and delivering if necessary) a promise to intervene when a democratically-elected government is threatened by violence
Combined Peacekeeping and Over-the-Horizon Guarantees: Five-year peacekeeping operations, followed by over-the-horizon guarantees
Global warming
Global warming threatens the polar bear’s natural habitat
The Challenge
There is unequivocal evidence that humans are changing the planet’s climate. We are already committed to average temperature increases of about 0.6°C, even without further rises in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.
The world has focused on mitigation — reducing carbon emissions — a close look at the costs and benefits suggests that relying on this alone is a poor approach.
Option One: Continuing focus on mitigation
Even if mitigation — economic measures like taxes or trading systems — succeeded in capping emissions at 2010 levels, then the world would pump out 55 billion tonnes of carbon emissions in 2100, instead of 67 billion tonnes.
It is a difference of 18 per cent: the benefits would remain smaller than 0.5 per cent of the world’s GDP for more than 200 years. These benefits simply are not large enough to make the investment worthwhile.
The Numbers
Spending $800 billion over 100 years solely on mitigating emissions would lose money overall.
When you add up the benefits of that spending — from the slightly lower temperatures that would result — the returns are only $685 billion. For each dollar spent, we would get 90 cents of ‘good’ back. Mitigation alone will clearly not 'solve' the climate problem.
Option Two: Combining mitigation with other policies
In addition to mitigation, policy-makers must ensure that we adapt to climate change. Adaptation can mean doing things like growing drought tolerant crops, spending more on irrigation, developing rainwater storage systems, or proactively preventing the health issues that climate change poses.
But to make a real difference, the world needs to increase its research and development into carbon saving and sequestering technology.
The Numbers
Instead of spending $800 billion (in total present-day terms) solely on mitigation, we could keep the investment the same size but direct a small amount to adaptation policies, and $50bn each year to research into greener technology.
This research spend would add up to about 0.1 per cent of global GDP.
As the gap between the cost of carbon-free and carbon-emitting technology decreases, any tax on emissions should become smaller. This allows the research and development essentially to pay for itself.
With research and development in the mix, the total benefits from this $800bn investment would add up to more than $2,129bn. That is a more respectable $2.70 return on each dollar spent.
Other Options
Mitigation plus Research & Development: Investing immediately in R&D to make low-carbon energy options available more quickly, and to increase the effectiveness of mitigation in the longer term
Research & Development Only: Focusing investment on research and development to stimulate the shift to low-cost, low-carbon energy technologies
Disease
The majority of malaria fatalities come in children under five
The Challenge
Life expectancy is decreasing in some parts of the world. Ten million children will die this year in poor nations. This figure would be just one million if child mortality rates were the same as in rich countries.
The hurdle is not just poverty, — some poor nations have reasonably good health conditions — but getting cheap treatment and prevention methods to the Third World.
Some health problems receive a lot of publicity. But in areas that we hear less about, we could invest wisely to make a big difference
Option One: Tackling Malaria
In poor countries, malaria will claim more than one million lives this year - most of them among children under 5.
Measures to reduce its transmission are simple. We need to expand the coverage of insecticide-treated bed nets. We need to get more preventive treatment to pregnant women so they don’t transmit malaria to their children. And we need to ensure there is more indoor spraying with the much-maligned pesticide DDT.
Treating malaria is becoming harder than it was because of growing resistance of the malaria parasite to the cheapest, most common anti-malarial drugs. Some poor nations cannot afford the new artimisinin combination therapies that work best, and need financial support.
The numbers
It makes sense to combine prevention options like bed-nets with subsidies on the new treatments for poor nations. Spending $500 million would save 500,000 lives a year - most of them children.
Hunger
Malnourishment in children causes a number of related difficulties including subnormal educational achievement
The Challenge
The food crisis has reminded rich nations of the hunger and malnutrition that is a daily reality for many in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Malnutrition in mothers and their young children will claim 3.5 million lives this year. Global food stocks are at historic lows. Progress is distressingly slow on the United Nations goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015.
Tragedy on an individual scale adds up to hardship on a national level. Shortened lives mean less economic output and income. Hunger leaves people more susceptible to disease so that more money has to be spent on healthcare.
Those who survive the effects of malnutrition are less productive. Physical and mental impairment means children benefit less from education.
Option One: Micronutrient supplements
Improving the quality of developing nation diets is as important as improving the quantity of food.
More than a hundred million children are deficient in Vitamin A, which causes eyesight and immunity problems.
It is estimated that a fifth of the world’s population is at risk of zinc deficiency, which can stunt growth among young children.
The numbers
Providing Vitamin A capsules to one person for a year costs just 20 cents. Zinc supplements cost a dollar.
Reaching 80 per cent of all children aged under-two in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia would require annual spending of $2.4 million for Vitamin A, and $58 million for Zinc.
The economic benefits from improved future earnings and reduced healthcare spending would add up to $240 million each year. In other words, every dollar spent would generate economic benefits worth $17.
Option Two: Nutritional education
Another tack to consider is to encourage developing nation households to change their food practices, to create lasting dietary improvements.
Education would be more expensive than any of the shorter-term interventions like micronutrient supplements, but could create enduring improvements among the world’s poorest billion people.
Pregnancy and post-pregnancy are an opportune time to provide nutritional education to mothers, and can lead to a reduction in the probability of underweight babies and an increase in growth-rates for infants.
The numbers
Creating community-based, volunteer-managed education campaigns to cover 80 per cent of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa for one year would cost $798 million.
This would reach eight out of ten children aged under 2. The annual benefits from a reduced burden on the healthcare system and healthier population would equal $10 billion: the benefits are twelve times higher than the costs.
Other Options
Micronutrient fortification: Adding iron to basic food items like flour, to prevent anaemia, and iodising salt, to eliminate goitre
Biofortification: Breeding plants with a higher micronutrient content
Deworming: Providing two de-worming treatments annually for 80 per of children between ages 1 and 3, in Africa and South East Asia
Terrorism
In the years after the September 11 attacks billions of dollars have been spent on counter terror measures
The Challenge
Harsh security measures at airports make us feel safer, but what we see as a visible reassurance is a display of billions of dollars poorly invested.
Trans-national terrorists take, on average, just 420 lives each year and cause relatively little economic damage.
An extra $70 billion worldwide has been spent annually on homeland security since 2001. Although there has been a 34 per cent drop in trans-national terrorist attacks, there have been 67 more deaths, on average, each year.
This is entirely predictable. Terrorists have responded rationally to the higher risks imposed by tougher security measures and shifted to fewer attacks that create more carnage.
Hardening targets is a poor way to save lives. Policy-makers who want to reduce the terrorists’ toll have stark options.
Option One: Greater international cooperation
While many terrorist groups share knowledge, governments jealously guard their autonomy over police and security matters.
If political obstacles could be overcome, nations could work together more coherently to clamp down on the charitable contributions, drug trafficking, counterfeit goods and illicit activities that fund terrorist attacks.
This would be ineffectual at reducing small events such as ‘routine’ bombings or political assassinations, but would significantly hamper spectacular attacks requiring a lot of planning and serious resources.
The numbers
Doubling the Interpol budget and allocating one-tenth of the International Monetary Fund’s yearly financial monitoring and capacity-building budget to tracing terrorist funds would cost about $128 million annually. Stopping one catastrophic terrorist event would save the world at least $1 billion. Under these assumptions, this would mean a return of about $9 on each dollar spent.
Option Two: Increased proactive response
To see what extra money on proactive measures would achieve, we can look at the effects of Operation Enduring Freedom, an offensive campaign that included the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the two years after 2001 (when there was the greatest proactive anti-terrorism campaign, and before other countries started to pull out), there was a 13 per cent reduction in international terrorist attacks - but 159 more annual deaths and 916 more injuries, on average, than in the ten years before. The exercise may have meant terrorists chose different targets.
The numbers
Policymakers undaunted by the extra bloodshed might pause when they consider the economics. In monetary terms, each dollar of the Operation’s $35.5 billion cost over this time achieved around ten cents worth of good.
Other Options
Business as Usual: Continuing with current levels of counter-terrorism spending and the world’s present focus on counter-terrorism options
Augmented Defence: Nations likely to be victims of trans-national terrorism focus on making key targets harder to attack
Sensitive Foreign Policy: The United States makes a significant change in foreign policy, designed to present a positive image and negate terrorist propaganda, including a significant increase in aid that is made without strings attached
Times Online
Copenhagen Consensus
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JavaGAR
Explorer
Reged: 10/07/06
Posts: 478
Loc: New York State
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Groovy:
It was an excellent idea to feature the Copenhagen Consensus 2008 in a post to the Google Earth Community forums. TimesOnline has offered the public a good service by presenting this information to them, although perhaps the invitation to rank the pre-selected list of problems may give the impression that these are all separate, discrete issues, when not all of us hold that view. In addition, the 300-character limit for responses just barely allows a sound bite. I hope the committee can accomplish something effective toward the solution of important problems, although the process may be skewed too much by the political agenda of one person.
But, in the Google Earth Community, we have a collection of many intelligent people who are also thinking about these problems, and a great forum for discussing them. Our group is self-selected rather than hand-picked by one person or a small group of people. Why not have our own parallel discussion about these issues in a thread established for that purpose? Someone could let TimesOnline know that we are doing this.
Does anyone think this is a good idea? If so, perhaps one of the moderators or Groovy could initiate a free-form discussion (no pre-selected menus of problems or multiple choice questions) in one of the moderated forums. But in order to keep the discussion going, it would be necessary to evaluate and approve incoming posts frequently. Of course, our posts would need to avoid endorsing political candidates, other blatant politicking, or statements likely to cause offense.
A title such as "Copenhagen Consensus Discussion" might work, along with a link to this thread, and a short description of the task at hand (If we had $50 billion to use toward solving the world's most significant problems, how should we spend it?). We can each respond as many times as we want. The goal would not be for us to achieve a consensus, but rather to get our diverse ideas out on the table.
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JavaGAR
Explorer
Reged: 10/07/06
Posts: 478
Loc: New York State
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Need Ideas from the Google Earth Community
It would be interesting to learn what other members of the Google Earth Community are thinking, regarding the "great challenges of our time" that are the focus of the Copenhagen Consensus. In order to get the discussion going, I'll put the following plan on the table for using the specified 50 billion dollars in funding.
An International Non-Governmental Organization with Local Partnerships
If, during a moment of clarity, those who have the power to do so would provide sufficient resources to enable a group of creative, sincere, hardworking people to put self-interest aside as they devote themselves full-time to the mitigation of these problems, perhaps some progress could be made. The aim would be to initiate an effort with a strong sustainable home base and an active global scope of operation. The group's primary mode of operation would entail leveraging of effort though collaborations with other groups.
The funds would be used to finance the establishment and operation of a new non-governmental organization (NGO) that would function both as an academic and community service organization on a global and local basis. Academic activities would include university level courses and degree granting programs on an undergraduate and graduate level. While fundamental math, science, social science, and arts courses would be part of the program, the major emphasis in most courses would be the cultivation of an integrated Earth System perspective that would combine multiple disciplines to focus on natural systems, human society, and the interactions between both. The academic facet of the organization would also include outreach to schools, governments, businesses, and corporations on a worldwide basis. For schools, the organization, sometimes in collaboration with national and international organizations, would train teachers to implement programs that promote geographic awareness and systems thinking, beginning on a simple basis, in the earliest grades. This would include discussions and hands-on activities related to current events and fundamental challenges that we face as a society. For governments and corporations, there would be workshops at their offices and headquarters designed to promote thinking about the specifics of the interconnectedness between their operations and the needs of the larger world.
To perform its service operations, the organization would form alliances with existing governments and NGOs in all parts of the world, including the local neighborhood surrounding the organization’s campus. These alliances would involve, in part, internships for students and faculty that would enable them to work for the allied organizations at the sites of their operations. The alliances would also include research collaborations designed to advance knowledge, techniques, and technology that the allied organizations and governments need to perform their work. After their internships, the students and faculty would return to the on-campus classrooms and research laboratories where they would be encouraged to enrich the ambient knowledge base with their experiences. The campus would also have space and resources devoted to an NGO incubator.
Concerning prioritization, $50 billion is not sufficient to solve all the world’s fundamental problems at once, although many of them are interrelated, and must be addressed together. Therefore, the organization would continually need to decide where to emphasize its efforts. These decisions would be made by a board, in consultation with the research and teaching faculty and students, and could be done on a case-by-case basis as opportunities arise, or could be guided by predetermined general principles.
One of the many tricky parts of this project will be governing the organization. A broad spectrum of cultural and political views need to be represented in order to provide a good set of ideas with which to work. This is likely to present challenges regarding identification of a set of mutually-agreed-upon guiding principles. But that challenge mirrors the problem of dealing with the world as it is, which is the raw material that forms the basis of the problem at hand.
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diane9247
Humanitarian
Reged: 01/15/07
Posts: 1857
Loc: Californian in Oregon
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Groovy -
I keep checking this thread to see what people have come up with. I keep being surprised there aren't more replies. But, today I thought it must be such a daunting question to answer, that if I can't think of a plan, maybe others can't, either!  The only thing I know for sure is that I wouldn't be giving any money to any government schemes in any country.
I'll think more about this...
Diane
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Women for Women International - For the special needs of women surviving war.
Kiva - Small loans changing lives around the world.
Bukavu Foundation - For the Panzi Women's Shelter & other programs in Eastern Congo.
Room to Read - Change begins with educated children.
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gloryplastic
First Post
Reged: 06/01/08
Posts: 1
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Terrible, we need to do our best to protect our earth. 
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JavaGAR
Explorer
Reged: 10/07/06
Posts: 478
Loc: New York State
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Who can coordinate this type of effort?
An effort of this magnitude requires a great deal of coordination since it is so complex, and requires the involvement of a huge number of people. A group of people would be needed to provide that coordination. But what type of group could accomplish this?
Governments?
Quoting Diane:
Quote:
I wouldn't be giving any money to any government schemes in any country.
For the most part, I agree with that. Despite the fact that governments try to justify themselves by citing high ideals, they cannot be trusted to be in charge of this type of project for more than a short period, at best. In democracies (chosen by the people! - my favorite form of government, actually), the people in power are those who are skilled at getting themselves elected. Some have a great deal of integrity, but many of them are social climbers who are skilled at posturing and being in the right place at the right time. As for other forms of government, monarchs are usually self-serving, and wield a great deal of power. Even if one of them is a good leader, the next one in line may not be. There's not much accountability there. Theocracies expect entire populations of nations to devote their lives to serving strictly defined ideals, often ignoring the complexity of actual human needs. Certainly, there are other forms of government not mentioned here. Perhaps someone can think one that could accomplish the task at hand on a sustained basis, but I was unable to do that. Although governments should not be in change of this project, they would need to be involved in some manner, perhaps as part of a partnership, wherein they contribute some resources and help ascend some logistical hurdles.
Corporations?
What is more effectively guided by the will of the people, who vote with their hard-earned money, than the invisible hand of the marketplace? ... or so the ideal goes. Corporations are structured to make money, generally for a group of shareholders. They cannot take this role lightly, since many people's finances depend upon their shares, and this includes those who have retired and are on pensions. There is usually a small group among the shareholders who tries to steer the corporation toward socially responsible practices, but they nearly always represent a minority of the stock holdings. On the marketplace side of the system, companies make money by providing people with what they think they want and need. But people can only make informed decisions to the extent that they are provided with all of the pertinent information. Does the product or service do what is claimed? What are the unintended consequences of using this product? Is it produced or delivered using sound social practices? These are questions people might ask, but the answers are at least partially obscured, deliberately or unintentionally.
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs)?
These are controlled by a select group of people, perhaps a board, employees, and volunteers, and may receive funds of varying amounts from changing sets of donors. Therefore, the accountability mechanism is not as balanced and dynamic as with democracies or corporations that involve large portions of the general population in their activities. But the right group of people can accomplish a great deal during the time that they remain in change. Due to the restricted accountability mechanism, however, the focus of an NGO may drift in a counterproductive direction over time, unless the people in charge are savvy about what is needed to keep it on course.
$50b to help save the world:how will you spend it?
I believe the best strategy would be to choose, very carefully, an NGO that is managed by trustworthy people, or to establish a new one. There can be no guarantee that it can be kept aligned in a productive direction indefinitely, but the right group can accomplish a great deal over a time scale of decades, through carefully-planned partnerships with governments, corporations and other NGOs.
So, what might serve as a concrete example of a possible partnership that the NGO would manage in addition to many others with varied goals that it would conduct simultaneously? Perhaps a project designed to supply drinking water to an impoverished village in an arid part of the world would be appropriate. The NGO might work with geologists and the people in the village to study the local geology. A byproduct of this would be education programs in the village school that would teach math, science and economics related to the project. Some corporation may make financial or equipment donations to help support it. Another NGO might institute an agricultural project to run in parallel with the water project. Colleges in other parts of the world could have their students become involved as part of internships. Governments would work with the NGO to arrange for visas, and might also contribute some funds. But the NGO would remain in control of the project. The goal would be for the village to wind up with a water supply infrastructure that they would have the skills to sustain, and for the remainder of the world to become educated by the experience as a case study.
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