Twelve Ways to Help Fix the World

At the U.N., a Free-for-All on Setting Global Goals

MAY 6, 2014

by Eduardo Porter

"There are, of course, better and worse ideas. Bjorn Lomborg of the Copenhagen Consensus, who achieved renown by arguing that current efforts to cut carbon emissions to slow climate change cost too much and deliver too little, argues that many of the new targets also fail the test. He has been making the rounds among diplomats, showing them the results of cost-benefit analyses of some of the ideas on the table..."

The global goals are a phenomenal idea. They’re what happened when the United Nations came together and said: “Here are the world’s biggest problems, and here is how we’re going to measure progress on them.” The 17 goals include promises to end extreme poverty and hunger, fix climate change and education, and reduce inequality and corruption.

We endlessly hear the flawed assertion that because climate change is real, we should “follow the science” and end fossil fuel use.