COPENHAGEN – At the start of the twenty-first century, the international community made some smart and simple promises with the so-called Millennium Development Goals. The world would halve the proportion of people suffering from hunger and living in extreme poverty, achieve universal primary education, and dramatically reduce child mortality by 2015. There have been many successes, though not all of the MDGs’ targets will be achieved. 

There's a large number of proposals on how to address poverty in the post-2015 development agenda -- from more social inclusion to full employment, more happiness, increased resilience and more. A new paper argues to continue focusing on reducing extreme poverty and drop the rest, as Lomborg writes for Huffington Post.

If you could come up with goals for the world to aspire to over the next 15 years, what would they be? What should we focus on? - See more at: http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2014/12/18/next-millennium-development-goals/#sthash.fBhpCHyM.dpuf

The UN Climate Summit in Lima achieved little, just like the previous meetings for more than 20 years. As the saying goes, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

Klima og energi er for alvor kommet på dagsordenen igen under FNs nyligt afsluttede klimakonferencen i Lima. Sideløbende foregår FNs årelange samtale om nye globale udviklingsmål. Mange mål vil, med rette, gå på fattigdom, mad, vand og miljø. Mål for energi burde være langt højere oppe på listen.

There was a time when we worried about a “population explosion,” with ever more people fighting over ever fewer resources. Yet, the population growth has decreased since the late 1960s and resources have not run out.

¿Dónde debería enfocar su atención la comunidad mundial en los próximos 15 años? Salud, nutrición y educación pueden parecer prioridades fundamentales obvias pero, sorprendentemente, también hay una buena razón para considerar el acceso a la banda ancha.

In a world where there are so many worthwhile targets demanding our attention, we need to focus on those for which we have the best chance of doing the most good. How about saving more than 14 million newborns by 2030? That’s a pretty eye-catching figure, but one which the author of a new analysis for the Copenhagen Consensus believes is not only achievable, but also highly cost-effective.

In the context of the UN Climate Summit in Lima, Lomborg was interviewed by Peruvian newspaper El Comercio on climate change and the best responses to it.

In a world prone to fickle media attention to short-term crises, we often neglect to consider a long-term game plan for humanity. But right now the world’s 193 governments are gearing up to set our priorities for the next decade and a half at the United Nations’ annual meeting in September 2015. This is a debate worth having, but almost no one has heard anything about it.