# *Global Crises, Global Solutions* (2004) Back to [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Books Overview|Books Overview]] · [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/BjornLomborg-x-profile|@BjornLomborg]] · Topic: [[Topics/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate|Climate Change Science and Policy Debate]] > **Reference outline for a reader who has read the book.** It is meant for recall and cross-referencing. The publication facts and contributor list come from Cambridge University Press's 2004 press sheet ("How would you spend $50 billion?", hosted by the Copenhagen Consensus Center). The ranking and the headline numbers come from the Copenhagen Consensus 2004 results release. Page numbers for three chapters come from the CUP front matter as indexed by search. Pairings of perspective papers to chapters follow the publisher's contributor order and are marked ⚠️. The CUP front matter PDF could not be downloaded this run. ## Publication facts - **Editor:** Bjørn Lomborg, then associate professor of statistics at the University of Aarhus and until 2004 director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute (per the press sheet). - **Publisher:** Cambridge University Press, published **Oct 28, 2004**. Hardback ISBN 0521844460 (£45.00); paperback ISBN 0521606144 (£19.99). About 650 pp. ⚠️ (Cline's chapter is pp. 13–43 and Rijsberman's pp. 498–527, so the ten challenges alone run past p. 600). - **Second edition:** *Global Crises, Global Solutions* (2nd ed., CUP, 2009), based on Copenhagen Consensus 2008 ⚠️ (ISBN 978-0-521-51721-8 per CUP's asset URL ⚠️). This note covers the 2004 first edition. - **Basis:** **Copenhagen Consensus 2004**, a five-day closed meeting at Eigtveds Pakhus, Copenhagen, ending late May 2004. It was organised by the Environmental Assessment Institute and co-sponsored by *The Economist*, whose deputy editor Clive Crook took part. - **Place in his work:** the first Copenhagen Consensus volume, and the start of the method behind [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Smart Solutions to Climate Change|*Smart Solutions to Climate Change*]] (2010), [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Prioritizing Development|*Prioritizing Development*]] (2018) and [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Best Things First|*Best Things First*]] (2023). It came three years after [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/The Skeptical Environmentalist|*The Skeptical Environmentalist*]]. The press sheet presents it as taking that book's economic-priorities argument "further". ## Thesis The world cannot fix every problem at once, so spending should be ranked by economic return. The organising question was: **if the world had an extra $50 billion to spend on improving the world, what should it do first?** (The press sheet frames this as $50 billion of development spending "in the next four years".) Ten global challenges each got a commissioned cost-benefit "challenge paper" and two critical "perspective papers". A panel of eight economists then ranked the proposed solutions. ## Chapter outline *Introduction* by Lomborg, then ten challenges. Each has a challenge paper, then two perspective papers (pairings ⚠️ inferred from the publisher's contributor order): 1. **Climate change**: William R. Cline (pp. 13–43). Perspectives: Robert Mendelsohn; Alan S. Manne. 2. **Communicable diseases**: Anne Mills & Sam Shillcutt. Perspectives: David B. Evans; Jacques van der Gaag. 3. **Conflicts**: Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler (pp. 129–156). Perspectives: Michael D. Intriligator; Tony Addison. 4. **Access to education**: Lant Pritchett. Perspectives: T. Paul Schultz; Ludger Wößmann. 5. **Financial instability**: Barry Eichengreen. Perspectives: Charles Wyplosz; Peter Blair Henry. 6. **Governance and corruption**: Susan Rose-Ackerman. Perspectives: Jens Christopher Andvig; Jean Cartier-Bresson. 7. **Malnutrition and hunger**: Jere R. Behrman, Harold Alderman & John Hoddinott. Perspectives: Peter Svedberg; Simon Appleton. 8. **Population and migration**: Philip Martin. Perspectives: Mark Rosenzweig; Roger Böhning. 9. **Sanitation and access to clean water**: Frank Rijsberman (pp. 498–527). Perspectives: John J. Boland; Henry Vaux, Jr. 10. **Subsidies and trade barriers**: Kym Anderson. Perspectives: Jan Pronk; Arvind Panagariya. - **Expert panel ranking**: Jagdish Bhagwati, Robert Fogel, Bruno Frey, Justin Yifu Lin, Douglass North, Thomas Schelling, Vernon Smith and Nancy Stokey. Fogel, North and Smith were Nobel laureates; Schelling won his Nobel in 2005. Panel members' individual rankings and the youth-forum results ⚠️: the press sheet says a youth parliament set "their own list of priorities", and the book "documents the results". ## The panel's ranking (Copenhagen Consensus 2004 results release) The panel discussed **38** possible solutions and ranked **17**, leaving out the rest for lack of information. | Band | Rank and solution | |---|---| | **Very good** | 1. Control of HIV/AIDS · 2. Providing micronutrients · 3. Trade liberalisation · 4. Control of malaria | | **Good** | 5. New agricultural technologies · 6. Small-scale water technology for livelihoods · 7. Community-managed water supply and sanitation · 8. Research on water productivity in food production · 9. Lowering the cost of starting a new business | | **Fair** | 10. Lowering migration barriers for skilled workers · 11. Improving infant and child nutrition · 12. Reducing low birth weight · 13. Scaled-up basic health services | | **Bad** | 14. Guest-worker programmes for the unskilled · 15. Optimal carbon tax · 16. The Kyoto Protocol · 17. Value-at-risk carbon tax | **The $50 billion allocation** (release): $27bn for HIV/AIDS, $12bn for malnutrition, $13bn for malaria, plus free trade "which will have very low costs". The release's figures add up to $52bn. ## Key claims to remember - **HIV/AIDS:** "About 28 million cases could be prevented by 2010. The cost would be $27 billion, with benefits almost forty times as high" (release). - **Micronutrients:** iron, zinc, iodine and vitamin A deficiencies have "an exceptionally high ratio of benefits to cost". Douglass North: "Today 3.5 billion people lack iron" (release). - **Trade:** benefits "up to $2400 billion a year" at very low cost. Robert Fogel: "Free trade will benefit both rich and poor countries" (release). - **Climate:** Cline's challenge paper argued for strong abatement, using a very low discount rate ⚠️ (paraphrase). Mendelsohn and Manne questioned his damages and discounting ⚠️. The panel ranked all three climate options last, as costs likely to exceed benefits at the time. This verdict became the core of Lomborg's later climate argument. ## How it has held up (as of 2026) - **HIV/AIDS:** large-scale treatment and prevention did come (PEPFAR, from 2003, and the Global Fund). Annual new HIV infections are well below their late-1990s peak ⚠️ (UNAIDS trend, not re-checked). The 28-million-by-2010 target itself was not met ⚠️. - **Micronutrients:** topped later rounds too (Copenhagen Consensus 2008 and 2012) and remains a *Best Things First* theme. This is the most durable result. - **Trade:** the Doha Round stalled, and since the late 2010s tariffs have risen. The panel's economics were widely shared, but its politics were not. - **Malaria:** deaths fell sharply from 2000 to ~2015 with bed nets and artemisinin drugs, then plateaued ⚠️ (WHO World Malaria Report trend). - **Climate:** carbon pricing spread anyway (EU ETS from 2005). Lomborg's own later rounds moved climate up by recommending **green R&D** rather than carbon cuts ([[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Smart Solutions to Climate Change|*Smart Solutions*]]). Critics' main objection, that a fixed $50bn budget favours cheap targeted programmes over large structural problems, still frames the debate. ## Reception - **Jeffrey Sachs**, "Seeking a global solution", *Nature* 430, 725 (Aug 2004) ([link](https://www.nature.com/articles/430725a)). He criticised the small, arbitrary $50bn frame, which favours low-cost interventions and undervalues climate action, along with the economists-only panel, the narrow evidence base and the short deliberation. - ***The Lancet*** editorial, "Solving global crises: economists alone are not enough" (2004) ([doi](https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(04)17567-3)). - A *Nature* correspondence, "Need for economists to set global priorities" (431, 17; 2004), defended the exercise ([link](https://www.nature.com/articles/431017c); author not checked ⚠️). - *The Economist* co-sponsored and publicised the results. CUP's press sheet carried the line "Required reading for anyone who wants to set the world to rights". ## Echoes on X (posts in this archive) - **Development first, climate as one problem among many:** [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Climate Change Is a Problem, Not the End of the World (2026-11-04)|Nov 4 FP op-ed analysis]]. - **Health and nutrition per dollar** (later rounds of the same method): [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Tobacco Taxes Returning $101 per Dollar (2026-07-05)|Jul 5 tobacco-tax analysis]] · [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Food Cheaper Since 1900 (2026-07-31)|Food Cheaper Since 1900]]. - **Trade:** the trade posts listed in the [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Topical List|Topical List]] (theme T7). ## Links to the climate hub - [[Topics/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate|Climate Change Science and Policy Debate]]: the 2004 "climate options rank last" result is where Lomborg's "smart climate policy" position begins. Compare Sachs's critique with the hub's notes on the social cost of carbon and discounting. - People: [[Topics/Climate Change Science and Policy Debate/People/Roger Pielke Jr|Roger Pielke Jr]] (later ally on disaster losses) · [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/People/Richard Tol|Richard Tol]] (author in later rounds). ## Checklist - [x] Publication facts (CUP press sheet) - [x] Thesis and structure (10 challenges × 3 papers, panel) - [x] The panel's 17-item ranking and $50bn allocation (results release) - [x] Reception (Sachs in *Nature*, the *Lancet* editorial) - [x] What has held up - [ ] Optional: Marshall to add each challenge paper's benefit-cost ratios and page numbers from his own copy (not available online ⚠️)