# *Global Problems, Smart Solutions: Costs and Benefits* (2013) 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.** Full title: ***Global Problems, Smart Solutions: Costs and Benefits***. This is the academic Cambridge University Press volume of **Copenhagen Consensus 2012** (CC12). I did not have the typeset CUP book this run ⚠️. Facts below come from the CUP Core catalogue (table of contents, ISBNs, page ranges, and the chapter abstracts I opened), the Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) project, research and outcome pages, the official outcome PDF, and the already-read popular counterpart [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place|*How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place*]] (CCC 2013 PDF). Anything not opened is marked ⚠️. ## Publication facts - **Editor:** Bjørn Lomborg (Copenhagen Consensus Center). - **Publisher:** Cambridge University Press. Print publication **14 November 2013**; the Cambridge Core digital edition is dated **5 June 2014**. CUP metadata also gives the imprint month as November 2013. - **ISBN:** hardback **978-1-107-03959-9**; paperback **978-1-107-61221-1**; eISBN / book DOI **978-1-139-60048-4**, doi:[10.1017/CBO9781139600484](https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139600484). - **Extent:** the body and index run to **p. 736**; the list of contributors is pp. **xviii–xxii** and acknowledgments are p. **xxiii**, which is consistent with library listings of about **760** pages. CUP lists **110** black-and-white illustrations and **172** tables; format 246 × 189 mm. - **Relationship to the short book:** *How to Spend $75 Billion…* is the non-technical summary of the same May 2012 panel (ranking, budget, short paper summaries, and the laureates' individual commentaries). This CUP volume is the full set of assessment, perspective and working papers, plus the official "Expert Panel Ranking" chapter (pp. 701–716) and a two-page close, "Making Your Own Prioritization" (pp. 717–718). - **Project:** the third global Copenhagen Consensus, after 2004 ([[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Global Crises, Global Solutions|*Global Crises, Global Solutions*]]) and 2008. The expert panel met in **Copenhagen in May 2012**. CCC says 32 new research papers were written for the project (ten challenge areas, typically an assessment plus two perspectives, plus working papers on corruption and trade). The CUP blurb says "more than 50 experts." ## Thesis The Copenhagen Consensus question, in Lomborg's introduction (pp. 1–18, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139600484.001): if you had an additional **$75 billion over four years** "to do good for humanity and the environment, where would you spend it first?" Rank proposals by costs and benefits instead of by how prominent the problem looks in the media. The panel's answer, same as in the short book: fund **child nutrition and cheap infectious-disease control** first, then agricultural R&D, disaster early warning and a handful of cheap chronic-disease steps. Climate gets **research money** (geoengineering and green-energy R&D), not a large carbon tax. Armed conflict, corruption and trade barriers are discussed in the volume but were **not ranked**, because the barriers are political rather than a lack of funds. ## The experiment - **Question put to the panel** (outcome PDF; also the short book, p. 77): "What are the best ways of advancing global welfare, and particularly the welfare of developing countries, illustrated by supposing that an additional $75 billion of resources were at their disposal over a 4-year initial period?" - **Expert panel:** **Finn E. Kydland** (UC Santa Barbara), **Robert Mundell** (Columbia), **Thomas Schelling** (Maryland), **Vernon Smith** (Chapman) — all Nobel laureates — and **Nancy Stokey** (Chicago). - **Inputs:** 10 challenge papers setting out **39 proposals**, plus **14 perspective papers**. Corruption and trade were commissioned as working papers and were excluded from the ranking in advance. The panel's published ranking is the **median of the five individual rankings**. Those individual lists and the laureates' commentaries are in the short book (pp. 81 ff.) and, in this volume, in the "Expert Panel Ranking" chapter (pp. 701–716), which I did not open ⚠️. - **Method:** the outcome PDF says the panel was "guided predominantly by consideration of economic costs and benefits," treated cost-benefit analysis as "an indispensable organizing method," and also weighed "institutional preconditions for success" and "ethical or humanitarian urgency." Proposals with too little information were left out. The short book (pp. 8–9) states the working conventions: DALYs valued at **$1,000 and $5,000**, discount rates of **6%** (baseline) and **3%**. ## Chapter outline (CUP Core) **Front matter:** contents; list of figures; list of tables; list of contributors (pp. xviii–xxii); acknowledgments (p. xxiii); selected abbreviations and acronyms. **Introduction** (Lomborg), pp. 1–18, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139600484.001. **Part I, The Solutions**, pp. 19–20. | Ch. | Title (CUP) | Pages | Assessment (and working-paper) authors | Perspective authors (CCC research page) | |---:|---|---|---|---| | 1 | Armed Conflicts | 21–71 | J. Paul Dunne | Anke Hoeffler; Andrew Mack | | 2 | Ecosystems and Biodiversity | 72–136 | S. S. Hussain, A. Markandya, L. Brander, A. McVittie, R. de Groot, O. Vardakoulias, A. Wagtendonk and P. Verburg | John Whitehead and Paul Chambers; Juha Siikamäki | | 3 | Chronic Disease | 137–185 | Prabhat Jha, Rachel Nugent, Stéphane Verguet, David Bloom and Ryan Hum | Julia Fox-Rushby; Marc Suhrcke | | 4 | Climate Change | 186–272 | Four papers, updating the 2010 [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/Smart Solutions to Climate Change|*Smart Solutions to Climate Change*]] set: Richard S. J. Tol (emission abatement); Isabel Galiana and Christopher Green (technology-led policy); J. Eric Bickel and Lee Lane (climate engineering); Francesco Bosello, Carlo Carraro and Enrica De Cian (market and policy-driven adaptation) | Samuel Fankhauser; Anil Markandya (CCC lists these two as the climate perspectives) | | 5 | Education | 273–331 | Peter F. Orazem | George Psacharopoulos; Lant Pritchett | | 6 | Hunger and Malnutrition | 332–389 | John Hoddinott, Mark Rosegrant and Maximo Torero | Beatrice Rogers; Anil Deolalikar | | 7 | Infectious Disease, Injury, and Reproductive Health | 390–438 | Dean Jamison, Prabhat Jha, Ramanan Laxminarayan and Toby Ord | David Canning; Till Bärnighausen, David Bloom and Salal Humair | | 8 | Natural Disasters | 439–509 | Howard Kunreuther and Erwann Michel-Kerjan | Ilan Noy; Stéphane Hallegatte | | 9 | Population Growth | 510–596 | Hans-Peter Kohler | David Lam; Oded Galor | | 10 | Water and Sanitation | 597–631 | Frank Rijsberman and Alix Peterson Zwane | W. Michael Hanemann; Guy Hutton | | 11 | Corruption and Policy Reform | 632–672 | Susan Rose-Ackerman and Rory Truex | — (working paper; not ranked) | | 12 | Trade Barriers and Subsidies | 673–698 | Kym Anderson | — (working paper; not ranked) | **Part II, Ranking the Opportunities**, pp. 699–700. **Expert Panel Ranking**, pp. 701–716, doi:10.1017/CBO9781139600484.016. **Conclusion: Making Your Own Prioritization** (Lomborg), pp. 717–718. **Index**, pp. 719–736. Chapter abstracts I opened: Introduction; ch. 1 (Dunne: major armed conflicts fell in the 2000s, but wars last longer and civilians bear more of the cost); ch. 4 (the climate package is four updated 2010 papers; Tol's opener argues that zeroing CO₂ emissions is a complete overhaul of the energy sector and sits awkwardly inside a fixed $75bn budget); ch. 7 (updates the 2008 disease-control paper and the 2011 [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Books/RethinkHIV|*RethinkHIV*]] vaccine paper; "essential surgery" is one of six investment areas and covers injury and complications of childbirth as well as infection); ch. 11 (Rose-Ackerman and Truex: policy designs fail where corruption and weak institutions redirect them); ch. 12 (Anderson: completing the WTO Doha round is the largest opportunity; if that stays blocked he also examines sub-global deals, including the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership). I did not open the remaining chapter abstracts or any typeset chapter body ⚠️. ## The ranking and budget (outcome PDF) The official CCC outcome document and the short book (pp. 79–80) print the same median ranking and the same $75 billion / four-year budget ($18.75 billion a year). Ranks 1–16 were funded; 17–30 were ranked but not funded. Conflict prevention, intervention and reconstruction, fertilizer-market competition, a high carbon tax, and the corruption and trade papers were left off the list. | Rank | Solution (challenge) | $bn/yr | |---:|---|---:| | 1 | Bundled interventions to reduce undernutrition in pre-schoolers (hunger & education) | 3.0 | | 2 | Subsidy for malaria combination treatment (infectious disease) | 0.3 | | 3 | Expanded childhood immunization coverage | 1.0 | | 4 | Deworming of schoolchildren | 0.3 | | 5 | Expanding tuberculosis treatment | 1.5 | | 6 | R&D to increase yield enhancements (hunger, biodiversity, climate) | 2.0 | | 7 | Investing in effective early warning systems (natural disasters) | 1.0 | | 8 | Strengthening surgical capacity | 3.0 | | 9 | Hepatitis B immunization | 0.12 | | 10 | Acute heart attack low-cost drugs | 0.2 | | 11 | Salt reduction campaign | 1.0 | | 12 | Geo-engineering R&D (solar radiation management) | 1.0 | | 13 | Conditional cash transfers for school attendance | 1.0* | | 14 | Accelerated HIV vaccine R&D | 0.1 | | 15 | Information campaign on benefits from schooling | 1.34* | | 16 | Borehole and public hand pump intervention | 1.89 | | | **Total funded** | **18.75** (×4 years = $75bn) | \*Estimate in the outcome PDF. Ranked 17–30, unfunded: green-energy R&D; family planning; the generic heart-attack "risk pill"; Community-Led Total Sanitation; Sanitation as a Business; tobacco taxation; community flood walls; the Reinvented Toilet; protecting all forests; school retrofits; crop-advisory texts; extension of protected areas; strengthening structures against storms; elevating homes. **Panel notes from the outcome PDF worth keeping with the academic volume.** The nutrition bundle (about $100 a child: micronutrients, complementary foods, deworming, diarrhoea treatment, behaviour change) is merged with the similar school-health proposal from the education paper; even on conservative assumptions the panel wrote that each dollar has "at least a $30 payoff," and that chronic undernutrition could be cut by **36%**. Agricultural R&D was merged across hunger, biodiversity and climate. $300 million a year for the Global Fund's Affordable Medicines Facility–malaria: about **300,000** child deaths prevented, benefits **35** times costs. $1 billion a year on childhood immunization: about **1 million** child deaths, **20** times costs. TB's benefits are "lower than in the Copenhagen Consensus 2008" but still "very worthwhile." Protecting all dense forests was marked down because the panel doubted it was politically viable for 30 years. Family planning was recognized as important but ranked 18th, with a note to reach easier-to-serve households first. On trade, the outcome document repeats Anderson's range: the net present value of a Doha agreement **$12–64 trillion**, costs under **$400 billion**, "mostly private rather than government costs." ## How the claims have held up This is the same research program as *How to Spend $75 Billion…*; the longer discussion, and the ⚠️ items carried from memory, are in that note. The short version: - **Malaria subsidy (rank 2).** AMFm was not renewed as a stand-alone facility; the Global Fund board decided in November 2012 to fold it into regular country grants ⚠️ (from memory; not re-opened). - **Deworming (rank 4).** Still contested after the 2015 "worm wars"; later long-run follow-ups report income gains ⚠️ (not re-opened). - **Nutrition, immunization, TB, early warning.** Nutrition and TB stayed in *Best Things First* (2023); immunization and early warning are still in his 2026 posts (see the short-book note for the post-analysis links). - **Geoengineering R&D (rank 12).** Still not deployed; outdoor experiments remain contested (Harvard's SCoPEx was cancelled in 2024 ⚠️, from memory). - **Trade.** "Political, not financial" here; by 2023 *Best Things First* ranks trade among its 12 best buys. The Doha round was not completed. Anderson's other 2012 options included regional deals such as TPP, which later took a different path ⚠️ (not pursued here). - **No DCSD connection.** The Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty episode concerns *The Skeptical Environmentalist* (2001) and does not apply to this book. ## Reception - CUP's own review blurbs (on the Core book page) praise the 2004–2013 Copenhagen Consensus as a "point of departure for discussion" while noting that "climate change tends to rank lower than many stakeholders would like," and they quote the International Zinc Association on the 2008 micronutrient ranking as a driver of its "Zinc Saves Kids" work with UNICEF. I did not locate a dedicated scholarly review of this 2013 volume ⚠️. - The usual criticisms of the method apply: the ranking depends on the DALY values and discount rates the organiser set, and the panel can leave out political topics (conflict, corruption, trade) that may matter most. The short book states those DALY and discount-rate choices (pp. 8–9); the outcome PDF states the "political rather than financial" reason for dropping corruption and trade. ## Links to his X posts The research line is the same as in the short-book note: - [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Free Trade Benefits Dwarfing Costs (2026-02-01)|free trade (Feb 1)]], [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Chronic Disease Policies Saving 1.5 Million Lives (2026-02-12)|chronic diseases 1.5m lives (Feb 12)]], [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Tobacco Taxes Returning $101 per Dollar (2026-07-05)|tobacco $101 per dollar (Jul 5)]]. - Hunger and agriculture: [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Agricultural R&D $5.5bn Saving 133 Million from Hunger (2026-05-17)|ag R&D $5.5bn (May 17)]] and [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Agricultural R&D and Hunger (2026-08-23)|ag R&D and hunger (Aug 23)]]. - Malaria: [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Malaria as a 48x Investment (2026-05-03)|malaria 48x (May 3)]]. - The method: [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on Best Things First $35 Billion and 4.2 Million Lives (2026-03-02)|Best Things First $35bn (Mar 2)]]; climate framing: [[Authors/@BjornLomborg/Post Analyses/Post Analysis - BjornLomborg on NetZeroCostBenefit and EU Net Zero for 0.0268 Degrees (2026-11-10)|NetZeroCostBenefit (Nov 10)]].