Wenn die Vereinten Nationen ihre Entwicklungshilfe auf wenige Ziele, dafür aber genauer ausrichten würden, könnten sie erheblich mehr bewirken als mit ihren bisherigen Plänen. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Gruppe von Wissenschaftlern des Projektes „Kopenhagener Konsens“.nn die Vereinten Nationen ihre Entwicklungshilfe auf wenige Ziele, dafür aber genauer ausrichten würden, könnten sie erheblich mehr bewirken als mit ihren bisherigen Plänen. Zu diesem Ergebnis kommt eine Gruppe von Wissenschaftlern des Projektes „Kopenhagener Konsens“.

COPENHAGEN — Focusing on a few global U.N. targets for 2030, such as cutting child malnutrition or phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, will give better value for money than a scattergun list, an expert panel said on Thursday.

Bjorn Lomborg first grabbed world attention in 1998 as 'the sceptical environmentalist', questioning global action on climate change. He's currently in Australia for his fourth visit, this time to talk about global poverty and development, more so than climate issues. In recent years, he's been an advocate for using cheap fossil fuels to alleviate poverty. But he now says abolishing $548 billion of global fossil fuel subsidies would be a 'smart' sustainable development goal for the United Nations to adopt later this year.

Biodiversity - the species we share our planet with - is under pressure. Post-2015 Consensus research finds that a global target to prevent the loss of coral reefs will gives at least $24 of environmental benefits per dollar spent. Likewise, reducing the current loss of forests by half would likely do about $10 of good for each dollar spent. However, increasing protected areas, because it is very costly but only somewhat helpful, is likely to do less than $1 of good per dollar spent.

bdnews24.com recently met Lomborg, whose maverick 'cost benefit analysis’ indicates it is a long way before those wind turbines on the coast start producing power. On the sidelines of the ‘Post 2015 Consensus Journalist Seminar’ held in Dhaka on Mar 9, he cautioned Bangladesh about what he saw as the pitfalls of global climate politics.

Bjorn Lomberg (BL): The UN, with its 2015-2030 process, is going to set the global goals for the next 15 years in September, following the success of the Millennium Development Goals. Since these could end up determining a large part of the period's $2.5 trillion development aid, it is important we pick targets more effectively. The Copenhagen Consensus has engaged in a project to determine which targets will deliver the most good per dollar spent.

In rich countries, the biggest killers are strokes, heart attacks and cancer, accounting for more than two-thirds of all deaths. But for the poorer world, people often assume that infectious diseases like diarrhea, tuberculosis, Aids, malaria, measles and tetanus are the biggest killers. That is no longer true. While they are still substantial threats, broader availability of medication and vaccines along with higher living standards has caused such communicable diseases to drop dramatically to below 9 million deaths each year. 

What targets should the world set for water and sanitation? 2.5 billion people – almost half the developing world – lack a basic latrine and 1 billion have to resort to what is politely known as open defecation. In India, almost 600 million have to defecate in the open. This large problem was also addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who, in his last Independence Day speech, stated the government was targeting sanitation for all in 10 years.

FN:s klimattoppmöte i Lima åstadkom inte särskilt mycket, i likhet med alla tidigare möten de senaste 20 åren. Som Albert Einstein sade: ”galenskap är att upprepa samma sak om och om igen och förvänta sig olika resultat”.