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Página de referencia: Copenhagen Consensus Center

Bjørn Lomborg – Bjørn Lomborg – Lomborg.com – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg.com/biograph.htm
«Bjørn Lomborg, born January 6 1965. M.A. in political science  … 1991. Ph.D. at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. 1994. Assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, 1994-1996. Associate professor same place, 1997-2005. Director of Denmark’s national Environmental Assessment Institute February 2002-July 2004. Organizer of the Copenhagen Consensus May 2004, prioritizing the best opportunities to the world’s big challenges. Adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School 2005-. Director for the Copenhagen Consensus Center 2006. «

The Copenhagen Consensus – The Economist, 15/04/2004 – http://www.economist.com/node/2592716?story_id=2592716
“The Copenhagen Consensus project, organised by Denmark’s Environmental Assessment Institute with the co-operation of The Economist, aims to consider and to establish priorities among a series of proposals for advancing global welfare.”

Copenhagen Consensus – Sourcewatch – 13/11/2010 – http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Copenhagen_Consensus
“Since the conference was first announced, five of the seven board members of the EAI have resigned: two for personal reasons, and three in protest at the conference, which they say goes far beyond the EAI’s original remit by considering subjects such as financial instability, corrupt governance and infectious diseases [refs]. The exercise has been strongly criticised by NGOs such as Oxfam for drawing attention away from the existing consensus built up over several years and codified in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. It has also attracted criticism for an approach which tries to define development goals without involving any representatives from developing countries.”

Copenhagen Consensus – Wikipedia, 11/04/2020 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus
“It was conceived[1] and organized by Bjørn Lomborg, the author of The Skeptical Environmentalist and the then director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute. The project is run by the Copenhagen Consensus Center,[2] which is directed by Lomborg and was part of the Copenhagen Business School, but it is now an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation registered in the USA. The project considers possible solutions to a wide range of problems, presented by experts in each field. These are evaluated and ranked by a panel of economists. The emphasis is on rational prioritization by economic analysis. The panel is given an arbitrary budget constraint and instructed to use cost–benefit analysis to focus on a bottom line approach in solving/ranking presented problems. The approach is justified as a corrective to standard practice in international development, where, it is alleged, media attention and the «court of public opinion» results in priorities that are often far from optimal. ”

Copenhagen Consensus – Wikipedia, 13/11/2010 – http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Copenhagen_Consensus
“In early March 2004, Lomborg held a media briefing in London announcing the conference. «The world faces a number of serious problems such as pollution, hunger and disease. Which problem should be addressed first? There are 800 million people starving, 2.5 billion people lacking sewerage, and billions affected by climate change. We all wish that there were money enough to solve all problems. But our means are limited. Therefore policy-makers prioritize every day, but not always on the best basis. Copenhagen Consensus will provide a framework to allow us to make better prioritizations,» Lomborg wrote in a media statement. On April 7, Lomborg, Jagdish Bhagwati, the Washington correspondent for The Economist, Dominic Ziegler, and the U.S. marketing director for Cambridge University Press, Sloane Lederer, held a U.S. launch at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. ”

Bjorn Lomborg – Wikipedia, 19/12/2010 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B8rn_Lomborg  
“Bjørn Lomborg (Danish: [bjɶɐ̯n ˈlʌmbɒːˀw]; born 6 January 1965) is a Danish author and visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School as well as President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. He is former director of the Danish government’s Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) in Copenhagen. He became internationally known for his best-selling and controversial book, The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001), in which he argues that many of the costly measures and actions adopted by scientists and policy makers to meet the challenges of global warming will ultimately have minimal impact on the world’s rising temperature.[1] In 2002, Lomborg and the Environmental Assessment Institute founded the Copenhagen Consensus, a project-based conference where prominent economists sought to establish priorities for advancing global welfare using methods based on the theory of welfare economics. In 2009, Business Insider cited Lomborg as one of «The 10 Most-Respected Global Warming Skeptics».[2] While Lomborg campaigned against the Kyoto Protocol and other measures to cut carbon emissions in the short-term, he argued for adaptation to short-term temperature rises, and for spending money on research and development for longer-term environmental solutions. His issue is not with the reality of climate change, but rather with the economic and political approaches being taken (or not taken) to meet the challenges of that climate change. He is a strong advocate for focusing attention and resources on what he perceives as far more pressing world problems, such as AIDS, malaria and malnutrition.[3][4] In his critique of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Lomborg stated: «Global warming is by no means our main environmental threat.»[5] In 2011 and 2012, Lomborg was named a Top 100 Global Thinker by Foreign Policy «for looking more right than ever on the politics of climate change».[6] ”

Richard Tol – Wikipedia, 09/06/2012 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Tol
“Bjørn Lomborg chose Tol to participate in his «Copenhagen Consensus» project in 2008. In 2008, Tol collaborated with Gary Yohe, Richard G. Richels and Geoffrey Blanford to prepare the «Challenge Paper» on global warming which examined three approaches devised by Lomborg for tackling the issue.[15] The 3 results were then compared with 27 similar investigations, 3 each relating to 9 other ‘challenges’ in the areas of health and environment. Of the 30 policy alternatives that resulted, Lomborg’s ranking procedure rated the 2 dealing with controlling emissions of greenhouse gases 29th and 30th in terms of cost effectiveness. Kåre Fog pointed out that the benefits of emissions reduction were discounted at a higher rate than for any of the other proposals,[16] stating «so there is an obvious reason why the climate issue always is ranked last» in Lomborg’s environmental studies. Tol accepted that emissions reduction was accounted for differently from the competing proposals it was ranked against.[17] Fog further criticised the study because, by using aggregate GDP to evaluate outcomes across regions of differing prosperity, it accorded people in wealthy countries more weight than those in poor countries purely because they are wealthier.”

Kåre Fog – The functioning of the Environmental Assessment Institute – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory15.htm
“The new National Environmental Assessment Institute (in Danish: IMV = Institut for MiljøVurdering) was due to start functioning during the spring of 2002. The number of members of the board of governors was to be raised to 7, and the staff increased to 10. By June 1st 2002, this had been accomplished.  Lomborg was not content with a staff of only 10, and in the late autumn of 2002 he tried to have the government increase the appropriations for 2003. According to newspaper articles, the Minister of the Environment was not at first willing to do this, but Lomborg contacted the prime minister, who overruled this decision and demanded that Lomborg have his way. This seems to demonstrate the close connection between Lomborg and the prime minister. By 2004, the staff at the Institute comprised the director (Lomborg), plus 15 graduates, 3 non-graduates, and 7 student assistants.     The Institute published its first reports in August 2002, and since then a series of reports have appeared. ”

Kåre Fog – Criticism of «Copenhagen Consensus 2008» – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/CopCons2008.htm
“As far as can be judged from the information given, the only important parameter on the minus side is the change in agricultural production. The global agricultural production is assumed to decrease only after the average temperature rise has surpassed 3° C. The negative effects on forests and wetlands are clearly underestimated in the analysis. It is based on a 1990 estimate giving an average loss of 10 million $ per km². The calculated benefit/cost ratios are therefore extremely uncertain. With fewer positive effects of climate change, the negative effects will be dominating, and the benefit from fighting global warming will be larger.”

Kåre Fog – Criticism of «Copenhagen Consensus 2008» – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/CopCons2008.htm
“Higher ranks are given to treatments of malaria (benefit/cost 20:1), child diseases (benefit/cost 20:1), and heart diseases (benefit/cost 25:1). However, in these cases, a discount rate of 3 % was used. If the same discount rate is used for research in low-carbon technologies, this would have a benefit/cost ratio of 28.5:1 and thus be more favourable than treatment of the diseases referred to. But by using another discount rate for global warming issues (4 %) than for other issues (3 %), Lomborg and his team just manage to avoid spending some of their imaginary sum on something related to global warming. That is to cheat.”

Kåre Fog – Criticism of «Copenhagen Consensus 2008» – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/CopCons2008.htm
“So, the high benefit/cost ratios for the many programmes in the fields of health, nutrition and diseases were calculated using a discount rate of 3 %. The only exception is in the field of global warming. Here, Yohe et al. use a discount rate of 5 %, gradually declining over 100 years to 4 %, whereas Green uses 4 %.”

Kåre Fog – Criticism of «Copenhagen Consensus 2008» – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/CopCons2008.htm
“Now, when all data for all items were summarized and compared, all other projects were represented by the benefit/cost ratios obtained wit a discount rate of 3 % (the results with a 6 % discount rate were not used in the final evaluation). Only the climate projects were represented with different discount rates. And these rates were higher than those used for other issues. Which is against the usual thinking that the longer the time perspective, the lower must the discount rate be. As the climate issue has the longest time perspective, it should have the lowest discount rate … So, like in 2004, it was predestined in advance that climate would end up as the lowest rank. This should not wonder. In all probability, the whole idea of the Copenhagen Consensus conferences is to «prove» that nothing should be done to mitigate climate change, at least not now.”

Kåre Fog – Criticism of «Copenhagen Consensus 2008» – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/CopCons2008.htm
“Incidentally, this is the same situation as in the Copenhagen Consensus 2004. There, the discount rate used for the climate issue was 5 %, whereas that used for HIV/AIDS was 3 %. So there is an obvious reason why the climate issue always is ranked last. It is systematically treated with a higher discount rate than the other issues.”

Kåre Fog – 2006 onwards: The Copenhagen Consensus Center – Lomborg errors, visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory18.htm
“The Copenhagen Consensus Center made preparations for Copenhagen Consensus 2008, and received for this purpose a grant of 4.5 million DKr. (0.6m Euro) from the Danish Ministry of Development. In addition, it has received funding from Danida (Danish International Development Agency). Since 2006, the staff has gradually increased, and in 2008 it numbered about 9 permanent positions and some temporary appointments. The second Copenhagen Consensus conference was held in Copenhagen during the last week of May 2008 … In November 2008, a majority in the Danish parliament decided to triple the appropriations for the Copenhagen Consensus Center in 2009. This happened on the initiative of the Danish People´s Party, which in its negotiations with the parties of the Danish government was able to set up this appropriation as one of its conditions for voting for the Budget. A spokesman from the Danish People´s Party said that they wanted Lomborg to make critical evaluations up to the UN global climate conference in Copenhagen 2009, in order that the government may keep its feet firmly planted on the ground, and avoid too much «hallelujah» in connection with the climate summit. Therefore, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which already has yearly grants of 2.5 million DKr. for each of the years 2007-2012, had its grant raised to 7.5 million DKr. (about 1 million €) for the year 2009 … In November 2009, Lomborg got even larger amounts from the Danish government, and that happened in the same way: the Danish People´s Party demanded that Lomborg and his institute should receive an additional amount of 18 million Dkr. (about 2.4m €), of which 2.5m Dkr. should be an extra appropriation for each of the years 2010-2013, and 8m Dkr. should be used for the Copenhagen Consensus conference in 2012. Because of the political situation in the Danish parliament, the government was once more forced to accept this … just before the global climate conference in Copenhagen in December, the Danish government sends a counter signal by gilding Lomborg … By the end of 2009, the total allotments to Lomborg – first to the Environmental Assesment Institute, and later to the Copenhagen Consensus Center – amount to a total of 138m DKr, or about 18.4m €.”

Kåre Fog – From 2012 onwards – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory20.htm
“At the election in September 2011, the right wing did no longer hold a majority in the Danish parliament, and a new left-wing government was in office from the start of October.         One of the new government´s first decisions was to stop state funding of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. That is, from the start of 2012, the center received no such funding anymore. Therefore, it had to close by the end of June. The Copenhagen Consensus Conference 2012 was held as planned in Copenhagen in May 2012. It was funded by various organisations/charities/think tanks (Lomborg does not reveal which) and some savings from the sister organisation Copenhagen Consensus Center USA.         In the summer of 2012, Lomborg´s luxurious apartment in Copenhagen was put up for sale, and he moved to Prague in the Czech Republic. However, he travels a lot, and he still spends several months a year in New York.          He will still organise prioritisation conferences through the organisation Copenhagen Consensus Center USA, located in Washington D.C. This is a non-profit institution under American law, with an American board. He will also continue to organise other types of prioritisation conferences. Among these is a health Consensus in cooperation with the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation. ”

Kåre Fog – Is there a hidden agenda? – Lomborg errors – Visitado el 10/10/2020 – http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/Hiddenagenda.htm
“In October 2010, he wrote several articles in major Danish newspapers urging the government to stop building wind turbine parks. His arguments are based on a report which was written partially by a person who has also been applied first at Lomborg´s Institute of Environmental Assessment and then at Lomborg´s Copenhagen Consensus Center, but who in this case was paid by the American Institute for Energy Research, IER, which is funded more or less by money from the oil industry. Actually the Danish report `disproving´ that 20 percent of the country´s electricity demand is in form wind energy, was ordered secretly by American interests. So here is really something hidden going on, very close to where Lomborg sits in Copenhagen.”

Mass exodus from Lomborg Institute – Copenhagen Post, 28/11/2003 – http://www.theenvironmentsite.org/forum/environmental-news-discussion-forum/71-mass-exodus-lomborg-institute.html
“»Sceptical environmentalist» Bjørn Lomborg’s national Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI) was left in disarray after five of the seven board members of the organisation resigned en masse in a row about the Copenhagen Consensus Conference to be held in the Danish capital from May 24-28. According to the Ritzau news agency, three of the board quit in protest because they disagreed with the institute’s hosting of the conference, seen as the flagship of the two-year-old environmental body, which is now seen weakened by the dispute. The other two board members left to take up other assignments.”

Bjørn Lomborg (2004) – Meeting the challenge of global warming: Copenhagen Consensus 2004 – En W.R. Cline (Ed.) (2004) – Global Crises Global Solutions – Cambridge University Press New York – Copenhagen Consensus Centre – autores

A modest undertaking – The Economist, 04/03/2004 – http://www.economist.com/node/2478902?story_id=2478902
“This week, Denmark’s Environmental Assessment Institute, together with The Economist, announced plans to ask some of the world’s leading economic thinkers a very awkward question. Policymakers face enormous demands on their aid budgets—and on their intellectual and political capital as well—when they try to confront the many daunting challenges of economic development and underdevelopment. Climate change, war, disease, financial instability and more all clamour for attention, and for remedies or palliatives that cost money. Given that resources are limited, the question is this: What should come first? Where, among all the projects that governments might undertake to make the world a better place, are the net returns to their efforts likely to be greatest?”

Robert Mendelsohn (2004) – Opponent Paper on Climate Change – Copenhagen Consensus – Yale University – http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Admin/Public/DWSDownload.aspx?File=Files%2fFiler%2fCC%2fPapers%2fOpponent+notes%2fOpponent_Note_-_Climate_Change_-_Mendelsohn.pdf
“Although it is important to examine the consequences of today’s actions far into the future, it is important not to confuse far future actions with what is done today. The impact of emissions that are made after 2100 has no bearing on what the world should do for the next 30 or even 100 years … The world community simply should not support such extreme measures when there are so many other pressing issues at hand. The optimal response to greenhouse gases is to start modestly.”

Sebastian Mallaby – Arts of Development – The Washington Post, 24/05/2004 – http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50669-2004May23.html
“Because of the law of diminishing returns, development priorities will shift at the global level. But they will also vary by country. Perhaps Brazil’s most urgent need right now is slum-upgrading projects, whereas Uganda needs transport and Indonesia needs to fight corruption; don’t forget that, if all three countries pursue these priorities diligently for a few years, the list will soon look different. A static global list of priorities won’t capture that variety. Which leads to the conclusion that despondent development theorists have reached before: The search for silver bullets is doomed. No amount of brilliant top-down analysis can solve the problems of world poverty. What can solve them? The answer is pragmatic leaders who wrestle with development challenges as they come up, paying less attention to the theoretically perfect solution than to effective implementation. So long as a country gets some basic things right — so long as it targets exports, protects private property and avoids ruinous inflation — the precise policy it chooses matters less than its ability to put it in place and then to adapt as circumstance demands, so that there’s constant learning by doing.”

John Bohannon (2004) – Economists Rate Greenhouse Gas Curbs a Poor Investment – Science 304:1429 doi:10.1126/science.304.5676.1429 – Writer based in Berlin
“John Holdren, an environmental policy expert at Harvard University, “One can’t help suspecting … that Lomborg has stacked both the participants list and the framing of the questions to achieve this result.” Lomborg rejects that charge, arguing that the workshop’s organization was “unbiased.” He acknowledges, though, that the panel was short on environmental expertise. “I invited other economists,” who declined to come, he says, dismissing his critics as “conspiracy theorists.” Lomborg plans to distribute the panel’s conclusions to governments and to the United Nations.”

The Copenhagen Consensus 2004. Final results – American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Joint Center 2004 – «Risk Science and Public Policy: Setting Social and Environmental Pilicies» – https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/2004copenhagen_consensus_result_final.pdf
“The panel looked at three proposals, including the Kyoto Protocol, for dealing with climate change by reducing emissions of carbon. The expert panel regarded all three proposals as having costs that were likely to exceed the benefits. The panel recognised that global warming must be addressed, but agreed that approaches based on too abrupt a shift toward lower emissions of carbon are needlessly expensive. The experts expressed an interest in an alternative, proposed in one of the opponent papers, that envisaged a carbon tax much lower in the first years of implementation than the figures called for in the challenge paper, rising gradually in later years. Such a proposal however was not examined in detail in the presentations put to the panel, and so was not ranked. The panel urged increased funding for research into more affordable carbon-abatement technologies.”

Rasmus Benestad – The Copenhagen Consensus – Real Climate. 24/06/2006 – Norwegian Meteorological Institute + Oslo Climate Group (OCG) – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/07/the-copenhagen-consensus/
“I personally find the name ‘The Copenhagen Consensus’ a misnomer because it does not reflect what it is all about – I think that ‘The Lomborg exercise’ would be a more appropriate name. The WSJ article and the Lomborg meeting do not involve much science in my opinion, but are mere political exercises. However, since the CC, Lomborg, and the WSJ editorial in my opinion employ rhetorical means for downplaying the importance of climate change, the story warrants a comment on the RC forum. I will try to expose the poorly hidden communication concerning the climate change. Thus, the focus of this post is on the communication concerning climate change as well as the logic behind the arguments.”

“The WSJ article does not explicitly say that climate change is unimportant, but reading between the lines, this is indeed the impression a reader gets from Lomborg’s statements. This is the main problem with the editorial – I don’t think it’s honest and up-front. For example, Lomborg says that the world needs more Al Gores, for HIV/AIDS, TB, clean water, poverty, etc. It is strange that Lomborg ranks climate change as the least important, but then proceeds devoting column space to exactly climate change and not communicable diseases (other than wishing for Al Gore clones with a stronger HIV/AIDS focus). Would it not be natural to move on to solutions for HIV/AIDS and how to combat poverty and provide clean water? It’s a bit strange that the Bill Clinton’s foundation and Bill Gates were not mentioned in the WSJ, nor the movie – ‘The Constant Gardner’ (if it is films such as The Inconvenient Truth that are important). Who’s making the greatest impact in their respective field is of course up to debate.”

Kevin Berger – Bjorn Lomborg feels a chill – Salon, 29/08/2007 – https://www.salon.com/2007/08/29/bjorn_lomborg/
“Lomborg, 42, rose to infamy by way of a Ph.D. in political science and a love affair with statistics. Today he is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School and the director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, where he strives to devise economic solutions to the world’s pressing problems.”

Gary Yohe (2008) – Climate change is real, compelling and urgent – The Guardian, 22/08/2008 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/climatechange.carbonemissions
“That is precisely why our analysis concluded – and Lomborg ignores – that climate change will cause immediate losses for developing countries and the planet’s most vulnerable, millions of whom are already facing challenges that climate change will exacerbate. Downplaying the threat of climate change allows Lomborg to focus on his claim that «unlike even moderate CO2 cuts, which cost more than they do good, we should focus on investing in finding cheaper low-carbon energy.» He attributes this finding to our analysis as well, but again he overlooks a key element of our work.”

Björn Lomborg and Gary Yohe (2009) – It’s not about us – The Guardian, 01/09/2008 – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/01/climatechange.scienceofclimatechange1
“We agree emphatically that there is no place for hyperbole or hysteria in discussions about climate policy; panic isn’t helpful for choosing the best policy responses. Moreover, we both see no place for mindless repetitions of the contrarian rhetoric that humans are not to blame every time climate policy is discussed; we are beyond that point. Perhaps the most important lesson that we already knew but should not have forgotten is even more fundamental and can be simply stated. The climate debate – and indeed the entire Copenhagen Consensus exercise – is not about us. It is about the future of the planet.”

Alan Robock (2009) – A biased economic analysis of geoengineering – Real Climate, 11/08/2009 – Rutgers University – http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/a-biased-economic-analysis-of-geoengineering/comment-page-5/
“Bjorn Lomborg’s Climate Consensus Center just released an un-refereed report on geoengineering, An Analysis of Climate Engineering as a Response to Global Warming, by J Eric Bickel and Lee Lane. The “consensus” in the title of Lomborg’s center is based on a meeting of 50 economists last year.”

Bjørn Lomborg – Smarter Thinking on Climate Change – Project Syndicate, 10/09/2010 – http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/smarter-thinking-on-climate-change
“At the same time, we convened a second, equally stellar group of economists, including three Nobel laureates, to examine all of the research and rank the proposals in order of desirability. Cambridge University Press is publishing their research and findings this month, under the title Smart Solutions to Climate Change. The book includes a chapter by prominent climate economist Richard Tol, who has been a contributing, lead, principal, and convening author for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In his chapter, Tol shows why grand promises of drastic, immediate carbon cuts are such a flawed strategy.”

Marc Lewis – World’s leading climate sceptic sees his funding melt away fast – The Independent, 28/09/2011 – http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/worlds-leading-climate-sceptic-sees-his-funding-melt-away-fast-2362056.html
“Ida Auken, who is widely tipped as the next Environment Minister in the new administration, told The Independent that Mr Lomborg could no longer expect government funding for his Copenhagen Consensus Centre. «The reason he received funding in the first place was ideological,» said Ms Auken, environment spokesman for SF, the junior partner in the incoming coalition. «We believe that it is wrong to give funding to specific ideological researchers.”

Rebecca Leber – House Committee Cancels Climate Denier Hearing — Because Of The Weather – Climate Progress, 06/03/2013 – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/06/1658451/snowquester-house-climate/
“One of those two witnesses, Judith Curry of Georgia Institute of Technology, is a conspiracy theorist who defends climate deniers like Anthony Watts and the Heartland Institute as being more credible than climate science advocates. The second witness, President of Copenhagen Consensus Center Bjørn Lomborg was a “friend” and “expert” of Heartland, until Lomborg left the discredited think tank over its unabomber billboard campaign. Lomborg has argued that inaction is the best course, despite the threat of climate change. So unless another well-timed storm strikes, expect ignorance on display at the rescheduled hearing.”

Judith Curry, William Chameides, Bjørn Lomborg – Subcommittee on Environment Hearing – Policy Relevant Climate Issues in Context – Committee on Science, Space and Technollgy – 25/04/2013 – https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113hhrg80563/html/CHRG-113hhrg80563.htm
“Our final witness today is Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, and adjunct professor at the Copenhagen business school. Dr. Lomborg is one of «Time» magazine’s 100 most influential people, and one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century, according to »Esquire» magazine. Dr. Lomborg received his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Copenhagen. As our witnesses should know, and I am sure that you do, spoken testimony is limited to five minutes each, after which the Members of the Committee will have five minutes each to ask you questions. I recognize now Dr. Curry for five minutes to present her testimony. ”

Dana Nuccitelli – More global warming will be worse for the economy, says Copenhagen Consensus Center – Skeptical Science, 24/01/2014 – http://www.skepticalscience.com/copenhagen-consensus-center-climate-change-costly.html
“The Copenhagen Consensus Center (oddly, located in Massachusetts) is a think tank headed by Bjorn Lomborg that advocates for what they consider «the best ways for governments and philanthropists to spend aid and development money.» The group recently released a report that attempts to quantify the economic damage caused by various global problems, including climate change. Regarding climate change and its costs, the group states, Climate change is real and man-made … After year 2070, global warming will become a net cost to the world, justifying cost-effective climate action.’ The climate change section was written by Richard Tol, who is one among several economists who have developed what are known as «integrated assessment models,» which combine climate and economic modeling to estimate the costs of climate change. The Copenhagen Consensus Center climate costs report focuses on the impacts to global gross domestic product (GDP), and the results from Tol’s FUND model are illustrated in the figure below (averages are the black curves).”

Dana Nuccitelli – More global warming will be worse for the economy, says the Copenhagen Consensus Center – The Guardian, 24/01/2014 – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/jan/24/more-global-warming-worse-economy
“The climate change section was written by Richard Tol, who is one among several economists who have developed what are known as «integrated assessment models,» which combine climate and economic modeling to estimate the costs of climate change. The Copenhagen Consensus Center climate costs report focuses on the impacts to global gross domestic product (GDP), and the results from Tol’s FUND model are illustrated in the figure below (averages are the black curves).”

Graham Readfearn – The Millions Behind Bjorn Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center US Think Tank – Desmogblog,- 24/06/2014 – https://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/25/millions-behind-bjorn-lomborg-copenhagen-consensus-center
“Big PR spending. A strapline at the bottom of a page on the Copenhagen Consensus Center’s website reads “Cutting out special interest groups and lobbyists”. But in 2006, when the CCC first started to look at gaining support for its efforts in the United States, the person they turned to was long-time Washington lobbyist and PR veteran James Harff. Harff had previously served as president of global public affairs at international PR firm Ruder Finn, where his clients included the republics of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia as well as the Kosovan opposition during the Bosnian war in the early 1990s. In March 2006, Harff declared to the US Department of Justice under its Foreign Agents Registration laws that he was acting on behalf of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Harff declared his company, Harff Communications, would offer Copenhagen Consensus Center “advice, counsel, media relations, logistical support and related tasks” and this work could include scheduling or attending meetings onCCC’s behalf. A further declaration made in June 2006 stated Harff was being paid $5000 a month by the CCC. As well as media relations, the document said Harff’s work would include identifying and arranging meetings with members of Congress, the Bush administration and policy makers. Harff and his PR company Global Communicators, a subsidiary of Harff Communications, continue to work with Copenhagen Consensus Center. In 2009 and 2010, the CCC paid another public relations company — 42West — more than $800,000. One of 42West’s tasks was to help spruik Lomborg’s 2010 film Cool It, based on his book of the same name.”

“When Lomborg told The Ecologist about his cash concerns, there was no mention that four years earlier his organisation had been quietly registered as a nonprofit think tank in Washington DC. Documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service show that by the end of 2011, some $2 million in donations had already hit CCC’s US bank account. Since registering as a US-based non-profit organisation in 2008, tax records show the Copenhagen Consensus Center has attracted $4.3 million in donations with almost half that coming in 2012, the most recent year where public records are available. Lomborg’s compensation for his CCC work that year was $775,000, according to the tax records.”

“Harff declared his company, Harff Communications, would offer Copenhagen Consensus Center “advice, counsel, media relations, logistical support and related tasks” and this work could include scheduling or attending meetings onCCC’s behalf. A further declaration made in June 2006 stated Harff was being paid $5000 a month by the CCC.”

“DeSmog’s analysis of the tax records of not-for-profit groups and foundations donating to CCC accounts for only $520,000 of the total $4.3 million income of the CCC since it was launched in the US. The center’s new website makes no mention of its funding. «

“Roland Mathiasson, executive vice president at CCC, told DeSmogBlog the think tank’s website was being modernised and some statements about funding had not yet been transitioned. He said where donors agreed, they would be identified on specific projects. Funding for the “Third Copenhagen Consensus” came from the Rush Foundation, he said, while a “Scorecard for Humanity” project was financed through legacy funding from the Danish Government. He said: “Some donors stipulate that we are not allowed to advertise the name of the foundation or donor. Donors routinely decide to be anonymous, for a variety of reasons. Given how some parts of the blogosphere vilify Dr. Lomborg and certain research from the Center, it is something donors can understandably live without. “We work with more than a hundred of the world’s top economists and seven Nobel Laureates. It is the work of these people that assure the public of the quality of the output of the Copenhagen Consensus.  “We do not take funding from fossil fuel industry and we are explicit that no funding will have any influence on our research. This statement should be on our website – we’ll add this to the new website.” ”

“The tax records of the Kansas-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation indicate it has given the CCC two $150,000 grants — one in 2011 and another in 2012. The foundation is the legacy of pharmaceutical entrepreneur Ewing Kauffman and currently holds $1.89 billion in assets. The only other known funder of Lomborg’s think tank is the Sevenbar Foundation — a group that gave Copenhagen Consensus Center $50,000 in 2009 but otherwise supports micro-finance initiatives to empower women using money raised from lingerie shows.”

“A further declaration made in June 2006 stated Harff was being paid $5000 a month by the CCC. As well as media relations, the document said Harff’s work would include identifying and arranging meetings with members of Congress, the Bush administration and policy makers. Harff and his PR company Global Communicators, a subsidiary of Harff Communications, continue to work with Copenhagen Consensus Center. ”

“The only income for the CCC in its first year in the US came in the form of a $120,000 grant from the New York-based Randolph Foundation. The foundation, seeded by money from the Richardson family’s sale of the Vick Chemical Company in 1985, gave CCC another $50,000 in 2012. The main trustee at Randolph is Heather Higgins, the president and CEO of Independent Women’s Voice and the chairman of its sister organisation Independent Women’s Forum. Higgins is the daughter of R. Randolph Richardson, a member of the family that sold Vick Chemical Company to Procter & Gamble for $1.2 billion.  ”

“He said where donors agreed, they would be identified on specific projects. Funding for the “Third Copenhagen Consensus” came from the Rush Foundation, he said, while a “Scorecard for Humanity” project was financed through legacy funding from the Danish Government. He said: “Some donors stipulate that we are not allowed to advertise the name of the foundation or donor. Donors routinely decide to be anonymous, for a variety of reasons. Given how some parts of the blogosphere vilify Dr. Lomborg and certain research from the Center, it is something donors can understandably live without. “We work with more than a hundred of the world’s top economists and seven Nobel Laureates. It is the work of these people that assure the public of the quality of the output of the Copenhagen Consensus.  “We do not take funding from fossil fuel industry and we are explicit that no funding will have any influence on our research. This statement should be on our website – we’ll add this to the new website.” ”

Bjorn Lomborg – Saving Lives with Fossil Fuels – The Gates Notes, 26/06/2014 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptTdEoHklmE#b06g30t20w14
“Bjorn Lomborg, President of Copenhagen Consensus Center, argues that before poor countries can move to clean energy, poor families need access to cheap electricity so they don’t have to burn dung, cardboard, or twigs for heating and cooking. These dirty fuels produce indoor air pollution that is terrible for health (especially for children). Learn more at http://www.gatesnotes.com.”

Robert Mendelsohn (2014) – Climate Change Perspective Paper – Copenhagen Consensus Center – 15/10/2014 – Yale University – http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/climate_change_perspective_-_mendelsohn.pdf
“The long delays to reach an effective international agreement to date have made the 2°C target a very expensive solution.”

Dana Nuccitelli – Economics supports immediate action on global warming – The Guardian – 08/01/2015 – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/08/economics-supports-immediate-action-on-global-warming
“According to the Climate Action Tracker, current international climate policies will result in a global surface warming of about 4°C. If we act on all conditional pledges, including those recently made by China and the USA, we’ll see about 3°C warming. This (3–4°C) is the range of global warming that the Copenhagen Consensus Center claims would be the most optimal for the global economy.”

Dana Nuccitelli – Economics supports immediate action on global warming – The Guardian – 08/01/2015 – http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/08/economics-supports-immediate-action-on-global-warming
“The good news is that these economists agree that immediate climate policies, such as carbon taxes, are needed. The latest report from the Copenhagen Consensus Center notes, ‘the stricter the cumulative target, the more urgent that mitigation begins immediately. Every delay in striking a target effectively causes the cumulative target to rise. ‘ The bad news is that as this report notes, limiting global warming to 2°C might be expensive because we’ve waited so long to make serious carbon pollution cuts.  The long delays to reach an effective international agreement to date have made the 2°C target a very expensive solution. As Cambridge climate economist Chris Hope similarly told me, It just seems so hard to reach a mean 2°C increase since pre-industrial times now.”

Graham Readfearn – Exclusive: Bjorn Lomborg Think Tank Funder Revealed As Billionaire Republican ‘Vulture Capitalist’ Paul Singer – Desmogblog, 09/02/2015 – http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/02/09/exclusive-bjorn-lomborg-think-tank-funder-revealed-billionaire-republican-vulture-capitalist-paul-singer
“A billionaire “vulture capitalist” and major backer of the US Republican Party is a major funder of the think tank of Danish climate science contrarian and fossil fuels advocateBjørn Lomborg, DeSmogBlog has found. New York-based hedge fund manager Paul Singer’s charitable foundation gave $200,000 to Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) in 2013, latest US tax disclosures reveal. The grant to Lomborg’s think tank is revealed in the tax form of the Paul E. Singer Foundation covering that foundation’s activities between December 2012 and November 2013. Singer, described as a “passionate defender of the 1%”, has emerged as a major force in the Republican party in recent years and was a key backer and influencer during Mitt Romney’s failed tilt at the Presidency. The $200,000 grant represented almost one third of the $621,057 in donations declared by the Copenhagen Consensus Center in 2013.”

Bjorn Lomborg – The Right Health Investments – Project Syndicate, 23/04/2015 – http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/global-health-investments-by-bj-rn-lomborg-2015-04
“The truth is that we lack the resources – both human and capital – to solve every problem the world faces, so we must focus on the areas where we can do the most good. That is what 193 national governments are currently attempting to do as they create a set of development objectives to be achieved by 2030. To help guide these efforts, my think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, has asked 60 teams of top economists to assess some of the key targets, and to make an economic case for which of them should be on the final list.”

Bjorn Lomborg – When is Fighting Corruption Worth It? – Project Syndicate, 15/02/2016 – Visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, is Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center – https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sustainable-development-goals-corruption-targets-by-bj-rn-lomborg-2016-02
“A study of 80 countries where the World Bank tried to reduce corruption revealed improvement in 39%, but deterioration in 25%. More disturbing is that all of the countries the World Bank didn’t help had similar success and failure rates – suggesting that the Bank’s programs made no difference. But the experts enlisted by the Copenhagen Consensus Center found one governance-related target that actually would do some good for each dollar spent: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.” That may seem like a very unambitious target compared to eliminating all corruption or creating transparent institutions everywhere. But in many developing countries, achieving the measurable target of universal legal identity would make a real difference.”

Julie Hare – Government funded Lomborg’s ‘vanity’ book: Senate Estimates – The Australian – 21/10/2016 – http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/govt-funded-lomborgs-vanity-book-senate-estimates/news-story/c910a37727718a081b303897238a3913
“Taxpayers contributed $640,000 to a book edited, written and published by Bjorn Lomborg and his Copenhagen Consensus Centre which was ridiculed in Senate Estimates on Thursday as “vanity publishing”. The book, The Nobel Laureates Guide to the Smartest Targets in the World, also came under attack for receiving special purpose funding without having to undergo normal peer review processes of Australian researchers. Labor’s Deborah O’Neill pushed departmental officials and Education Minister Simon Birmingham on what the $640,000 bought, but there was little clarity after thirty minutes of questioning.”

J. Eric Bickel and Lee Lane (2017) – An Analysis of Climate Engineering as a Response to Global Warming – Copenhagen Consensus Center, Copenhagen Business School – Graduate Program in Operations Research, The Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy, The University of Texas at Austin; *American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research – https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/ap_climate-engineering_bickel_lane_v.5.0.pdf
“This paper offers a preliminary and exploratory assessment of the potential benefits and costs of climate engineering (CE). We examine two families of CE technologies, solar radiation management (SRM) and air capture (AC), under three emissions control environments: no controls, optimal abatement, and limiting temperature change to 2°C. Our analysis suggests that SRM offers potentially large net benefits, but that many important uncertainties remain. The near-term net benefits of AC appear to be much lower than those of SRM. However, we argue that both deserve to be investigated further. In the case of SRM, we focus on two specific technologies: the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere and the increase of marine cloud albedo. We estimate direct benefit-cost (B/C) ratios of around 25 to 1 for aerosols and around 5000 to 1 for cloud albedo enhancement. Technological progress might significantly lower direct cost estimates of stratospheric aerosols and thus raise the expected benefits. Yet, large uncertainties remain about the science and engineering of actually deploying SRM. Only a substantial research program could resolve these uncertainties, but the very large potential net benefits of SRM offer strong prima facie evidence for including R&D on SRM as a part of any portfolio of climate policies during the next decade. Therefore, we suggest that the Copenhagen Consensus allocate an average of approximately 0.3% of its $250 billion annual climate-change budget ($750 million per year) to SRM and AC research over the next decade. SRM is the higher priority, owing to its larger and earlier net benefit potential. This research program should explicitly focus on identifying possible side effects, especially those which might imply non-trivial costs. We estimate that the benefit of a single watt per square meter of SRM results in almost a 35% decrease in climate damages and abatement costs (over $6 trillion) under an emissions control regime of optimal abatement. Furthermore, when considering only the impact on temperature, we show that a single watt per square meter of SRM has the same economic benefit as capturing and sequestering almost 65% of yearly CO2 emissions, which, in conjunction with AC’s significant costs, argues in favor of SRM in the near term.”

Robert Mendelsohn – DeSmogBlog, 28/12/2017 – https://www.desmogblog.com/robert-mendelsohn
“Robert O. Mendelsohn is an environmental economist and the Weyerhaeuser Davis Professor of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, Professor of Economics in Economics Department at Yale University, and Professor in the School of Management at Yale University. Mendelsohn was a contributor to the first Copenhagen Consensus report, organized by Bjorn Lomborg. The Copenhagen Conference came to the conclusion that «global warming must be addressed, but agreed that approaches based on too abrupt a shift toward lower emissions of carbon are needlessly expensive.» [2] … Mendelsohn’s profile at Yale describes him as having written over one hundred peer-reviewed articles and edited six books. The focus of his research has been the «valuation of the environment.» His most recent work values the impacts of greenhouse gases, including the effects of climate change on agriculture, forests, water resources, energy, and coasts. [4].”