Global priorities bigger than climate change
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0:00 - 0:04What I'd like to talk about is really the biggest problems in the world.
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0:04 - 0:06I'm not going to talk about "The Skeptical Environmentalist" --
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0:06 - 0:08probably that's also a good choice.
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0:08 - 0:09(Laughter)
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0:09 - 0:12But I am going talk about: what are the big problems in the world?
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0:12 - 0:15And I must say, before I go on, I should ask every one of you
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0:15 - 0:17to try and get out pen and paper
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0:17 - 0:20because I'm actually going to ask you to help me to look at how we do that.
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0:20 - 0:22So get out your pen and paper.
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0:22 - 0:24Bottom line is, there is a lot of problems out there in the world.
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0:24 - 0:26I'm just going to list some of them.
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0:26 - 0:28There are 800 million people starving.
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0:28 - 0:30There's a billion people without clean drinking water.
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0:30 - 0:32Two billion people without sanitation.
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0:32 - 0:35There are several million people dying of HIV and AIDS.
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0:35 - 0:37The lists go on and on.
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0:37 - 0:42There's two billions of people who will be severely affected by climate change -- so on.
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0:42 - 0:44There are many, many problems out there.
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0:44 - 0:48In an ideal world, we would solve them all, but we don't.
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0:48 - 0:50We don't actually solve all problems.
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0:50 - 0:54And if we do not, the question I think we need to ask ourselves --
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0:54 - 0:57and that's why it's on the economy session -- is to say,
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0:57 - 1:00if we don't do all things, we really have to start asking ourselves,
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1:00 - 1:02which ones should we solve first?
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1:02 - 1:04And that's the question I'd like to ask you.
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1:04 - 1:09If we had say, 50 billion dollars over the next four years to spend
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1:09 - 1:12to do good in this world, where should we spend it?
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1:12 - 1:15We identified 10 of the biggest challenges in the world,
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1:15 - 1:17and I will just briefly read them:
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1:17 - 1:19climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education,
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1:19 - 1:21financial instability, governance and corruption,
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1:21 - 1:24malnutrition and hunger, population migration,
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1:24 - 1:27sanitation and water, and subsidies and trade barriers.
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1:27 - 1:29We believe that these in many ways
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1:29 - 1:31encompass the biggest problems in the world.
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1:31 - 1:33The obvious question would be to ask,
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1:33 - 1:35what do you think are the biggest things?
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1:35 - 1:38Where should we start on solving these problems?
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1:38 - 1:40But that's a wrong problem to ask.
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1:40 - 1:43That was actually the problem that was asked in Davos in January.
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1:43 - 1:46But of course, there's a problem in asking people to focus on problems.
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1:46 - 1:49Because we can't solve problems.
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1:49 - 1:52Surely the biggest problem we have in the world is that we all die.
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1:52 - 1:54But we don't have a technology to solve that, right?
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1:54 - 1:57So the point is not to prioritize problems,
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1:57 - 2:01but the point is to prioritize solutions to problems.
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2:01 - 2:04And that would be -- of course that gets a little more complicated.
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2:04 - 2:06To climate change that would be like Kyoto.
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2:06 - 2:09To communicable diseases, it might be health clinics or mosquito nets.
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2:09 - 2:12To conflicts, it would be U.N.'s peacekeeping forces, and so on.
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2:12 - 2:17The point that I would like to ask you to try to do,
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2:17 - 2:20is just in 30 seconds -- and I know this is in a sense
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2:20 - 2:22an impossible task -- write down what you think
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2:22 - 2:24is probably some of the top priorities.
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2:24 - 2:27And also -- and that's, of course, where economics gets evil --
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2:27 - 2:30to put down what are the things we should not do, first.
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2:30 - 2:32What should be at the bottom of the list?
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2:32 - 2:35Please, just take 30 seconds, perhaps talk to your neighbor,
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2:35 - 2:37and just figure out what should be the top priorities
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2:37 - 2:39and the bottom priorities of the solutions that we have
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2:39 - 2:41to the world's biggest issues.
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2:41 - 2:44The amazing part of this process -- and of course, I mean,
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2:44 - 2:46I would love to -- I only have 18 minutes,
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2:46 - 2:48I've already given you quite a substantial amount of my time, right?
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2:48 - 2:52I'd love to go into, and get you to think about this process,
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2:52 - 2:54and that's actually what we did.
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2:54 - 2:56And I also strongly encourage you,
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2:56 - 2:58and I'm sure we'll also have these discussions afterwards,
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2:58 - 3:00to think about, how do we actually prioritize?
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3:00 - 3:02Of course, you have to ask yourself,
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3:02 - 3:04why on Earth was such a list never done before?
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3:04 - 3:09And one reason is that prioritization is incredibly uncomfortable.
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3:09 - 3:11Nobody wants to do this.
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3:11 - 3:14Of course, every organization would love to be on the top of such a list.
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3:14 - 3:17But every organization would also hate to be not on the top of the list.
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3:17 - 3:21And since there are many more not-number-one spots on the list
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3:21 - 3:24than there is number ones, it makes perfect sense
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3:24 - 3:26not to want to do such a list.
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3:26 - 3:28We've had the U.N. for almost 60 years,
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3:28 - 3:31yet we've never actually made a fundamental list
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3:31 - 3:33of all the big things that we can do in the world,
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3:33 - 3:36and said, which of them should we do first?
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3:36 - 3:39So it doesn't mean that we are not prioritizing --
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3:39 - 3:43any decision is a prioritization, so of course we are still prioritizing,
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3:43 - 3:46if only implicitly -- and that's unlikely to be as good
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3:46 - 3:48as if we actually did the prioritization,
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3:48 - 3:50and went in and talked about it.
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3:50 - 3:52So what I'm proposing is really to say that we have,
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3:52 - 3:56for a very long time, had a situation when we've had a menu of choices.
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3:56 - 3:58There are many, many things we can do out there,
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3:58 - 4:01but we've not had the prices, nor the sizes.
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4:01 - 4:03We have not had an idea.
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4:03 - 4:06Imagine going into a restaurant and getting this big menu card,
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4:06 - 4:08but you have no idea what the price is.
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4:08 - 4:10You know, you have a pizza; you've no idea what the price is.
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4:10 - 4:12It could be at one dollar; it could be 1,000 dollars.
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4:12 - 4:14It could be a family-size pizza;
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4:14 - 4:16it could be a very individual-size pizza, right?
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4:16 - 4:18We'd like to know these things.
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4:18 - 4:20And that is what the Copenhagen Consensus is really trying to do --
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4:20 - 4:23to try to put prices on these issues.
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4:23 - 4:26And so basically, this has been the Copenhagen Consensus' process.
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4:26 - 4:30We got 30 of the world's best economists, three in each area.
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4:30 - 4:33So we have three of world's top economists write about climate change.
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4:33 - 4:36What can we do? What will be the cost
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4:36 - 4:37and what will be the benefit of that?
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4:37 - 4:39Likewise in communicable diseases.
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4:39 - 4:42Three of the world's top experts saying, what can we do?
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4:42 - 4:43What would be the price?
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4:43 - 4:46What should we do about it, and what will be the outcome?
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4:46 - 4:47And so on.
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4:47 - 4:49Then we had some of the world's top economists,
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4:49 - 4:53eight of the world's top economists, including three Nobel Laureates,
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4:53 - 4:56meet in Copenhagen in May 2004.
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4:56 - 4:58We called them the "dream team."
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4:58 - 5:01The Cambridge University prefects decided to call them
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5:01 - 5:03the Real Madrid of economics.
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5:03 - 5:05That works very well in Europe, but it doesn't really work over here.
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5:05 - 5:09And what they basically did was come out with a prioritized list.
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5:09 - 5:11And then you ask, why economists?
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5:11 - 5:13And of course, I'm very happy you asked that question -- (Laughter) --
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5:13 - 5:15because that's a very good question.
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5:15 - 5:18The point is, of course, if you want to know about malaria,
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5:18 - 5:20you ask a malaria expert.
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5:20 - 5:22If you want to know about climate, you ask a climatologist.
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5:22 - 5:25But if you want to know which of the two you should deal with first,
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5:25 - 5:28you can't ask either of them, because that's not what they do.
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5:28 - 5:30That is what economists do.
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5:30 - 5:31They prioritize.
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5:31 - 5:36They make that in some ways disgusting task of saying, which one should we do first,
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5:36 - 5:38and which one should we do afterwards?
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5:38 - 5:41So this is the list, and this is the one I'd like to share with you.
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5:41 - 5:43Of course, you can also see it on the website,
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5:43 - 5:46and we'll also talk about it more, I'm sure, as the day goes on.
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5:46 - 5:48They basically came up with a list where they said
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5:48 - 5:51there were bad projects -- basically, projects
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5:51 - 5:54where if you invest a dollar, you get less than a dollar back.
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5:54 - 5:58Then there's fair projects, good projects and very good projects.
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5:58 - 6:00And of course, it's the very good projects we should start doing.
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6:00 - 6:02I'm going to go from backwards
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6:02 - 6:04so that we end up with the best projects.
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6:04 - 6:06These were the bad projects.
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6:06 - 6:10As you might see the bottom of the list was climate change.
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6:10 - 6:14This offends a lot of people, and that's probably one of the things
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6:14 - 6:16where people will say I shouldn't come back, either.
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6:16 - 6:18And I'd like to talk about that, because that's really curious.
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6:18 - 6:20Why is it it came up?
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6:20 - 6:22And I'll actually also try to get back to this
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6:22 - 6:24because it's probably one of the things
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6:24 - 6:26that we'll disagree with on the list that you wrote down.
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6:26 - 6:29The reason why they came up with saying that Kyoto --
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6:29 - 6:31or doing something more than Kyoto -- is a bad deal
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6:31 - 6:33is simply because it's very inefficient.
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6:33 - 6:35It's not saying that global warming is not happening.
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6:35 - 6:37It's not saying that it's not a big problem.
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6:37 - 6:39But it's saying that what we can do about it
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6:39 - 6:42is very little, at a very high cost.
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6:42 - 6:46What they basically show us, the average of all macroeconomic models,
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6:46 - 6:51is that Kyoto, if everyone agreed, would cost about 150 billion dollars a year.
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6:51 - 6:53That's a substantial amount of money.
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6:53 - 6:55That's two to three times the global development aid
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6:55 - 6:57that we give the Third World every year.
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6:57 - 6:59Yet it would do very little good.
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6:59 - 7:03All models show it will postpone warming for about six years in 2100.
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7:03 - 7:07So the guy in Bangladesh who gets a flood in 2100 can wait until 2106.
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7:07 - 7:09Which is a little good, but not very much good.
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7:09 - 7:14So the idea here really is to say, well, we've spent a lot of money doing a little good.
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7:14 - 7:16And just to give you a sense of reference,
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7:16 - 7:18the U.N. actually estimate that for half that amount,
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7:18 - 7:20for about 75 billion dollars a year,
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7:20 - 7:23we could solve all major basic problems in the world.
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7:23 - 7:26We could give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare
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7:26 - 7:29and education to every single human being on the planet.
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7:29 - 7:33So we have to ask ourselves, do we want to spend twice the amount
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7:33 - 7:34on doing very little good?
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7:34 - 7:37Or half the amount on doing an amazing amount of good?
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7:37 - 7:40And that is really why it becomes a bad project.
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7:40 - 7:43It's not to say that if we had all the money in the world, we wouldn't want to do it.
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7:43 - 7:47But it's to say, when we don't, it's just simply not our first priority.
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7:47 - 7:50The fair projects -- notice I'm not going to comment on all these --
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7:50 - 7:54but communicable diseases, scale of basic health services -- just made it,
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7:54 - 7:57simply because, yes, scale of basic health services is a great thing.
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7:57 - 8:00It would do a lot of good, but it's also very, very costly.
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8:00 - 8:02Again, what it tells us is suddenly
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8:02 - 8:04we start thinking about both sides of the equation.
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8:04 - 8:08If you look at the good projects, a lot of sanitation and water projects came in.
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8:08 - 8:10Again, sanitation and water is incredibly important,
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8:10 - 8:13but it also costs a lot of infrastructure.
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8:13 - 8:15So I'd like to show you the top four priorities
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8:15 - 8:18which should be at least the first ones that we deal with
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8:18 - 8:21when we talk about how we should deal with the problems in the world.
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8:21 - 8:25The fourth best problem is malaria -- dealing with malaria.
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8:25 - 8:29The incidence of malaria is about a couple of [million] people get infected every year.
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8:29 - 8:33It might even cost up towards a percentage point of GDP
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8:33 - 8:35every year for affected nations.
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8:35 - 8:39If we invested about 13 billion dollars over the next four years,
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8:39 - 8:41we could bring that incidence down to half.
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8:41 - 8:44We could avoid about 500,000 people dying,
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8:44 - 8:47but perhaps more importantly, we could avoid about a [million] people
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8:47 - 8:48getting infected every year.
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8:48 - 8:50We would significantly increase their ability
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8:50 - 8:53to deal with many of the other problems that they have to deal with --
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8:53 - 8:56of course, in the long run, also to deal with global warming.
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8:57 - 9:00This third best one was free trade.
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9:00 - 9:03Basically, the model showed that if we could get free trade,
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9:03 - 9:06and especially cut subsidies in the U.S. and Europe,
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9:06 - 9:10we could basically enliven the global economy
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9:10 - 9:14to an astounding number of about 2,400 billion dollars a year,
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9:14 - 9:16half of which would accrue to the Third World.
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9:16 - 9:19Again, the point is to say that we could actually pull
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9:19 - 9:22two to three hundred million people out of poverty,
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9:22 - 9:25very radically fast, in about two to five years.
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9:25 - 9:27That would be the third best thing we could do.
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9:27 - 9:31The second best thing would be to focus on malnutrition.
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9:31 - 9:34Not just malnutrition in general, but there's a very cheap way
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9:34 - 9:37of dealing with malnutrition, namely, the lack of micronutrients.
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9:37 - 9:40Basically, about half of the world's population is lacking in
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9:40 - 9:42iron, zinc, iodine and vitamin A.
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9:42 - 9:44If we invest about 12 billion dollars,
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9:44 - 9:47we could make a severe inroad into that problem.
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9:47 - 9:50That would be the second best investment that we could do.
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9:50 - 9:55And the very best project would be to focus on HIV/AIDS.
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9:55 - 9:59Basically, if we invest 27 billion dollars over the next eight years,
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9:59 - 10:03we could avoid 28 new million cases of HIV/AIDS.
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10:03 - 10:07Again, what this does and what it focuses on is saying
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10:07 - 10:10there are two very different ways that we can deal with HIV/AIDS.
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10:10 - 10:13One is treatment; the other one is prevention.
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10:13 - 10:16And again, in an ideal world, we would do both.
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10:16 - 10:19But in a world where we don't do either, or don't do it very well,
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10:19 - 10:23we have to at least ask ourselves where should we invest first.
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10:23 - 10:26And treatment is much, much more expensive than prevention.
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10:26 - 10:30So basically, what this focuses on is saying, we can do a lot more
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10:30 - 10:32by investing in prevention.
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10:32 - 10:34Basically for the amount of money that we spend,
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10:34 - 10:37we can do X amount of good in treatment,
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10:37 - 10:40and 10 times as much good in prevention.
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10:40 - 10:43So again, what we focus on is prevention rather than treatment,
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10:43 - 10:44at first rate.
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10:44 - 10:48What this really does is that it makes us think about our priorities.
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10:48 - 10:52I'd like to have you look at your priority list and say,
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10:52 - 10:54did you get it right?
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10:54 - 10:56Or did you get close to what we came up with here?
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10:56 - 11:00Well, of course, one of the things is climate change again.
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11:00 - 11:03I find a lot of people find it very, very unlikely that we should do that.
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11:03 - 11:05We should also do climate change,
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11:05 - 11:08if for no other reason, simply because it's such a big problem.
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11:08 - 11:11But of course, we don't do all problems.
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11:11 - 11:13There are many problems out there in the world.
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11:13 - 11:17And what I want to make sure of is, if we actually focus on problems,
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11:17 - 11:19that we focus on the right ones.
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11:19 - 11:22The ones where we can do a lot of good rather than a little good.
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11:22 - 11:25And I think, actually -- Thomas Schelling,
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11:25 - 11:29one of the participants in the dream team, he put it very, very well.
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11:29 - 11:32One of things that people forget, is that in 100 years,
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11:32 - 11:35when we're talking about most of the climate change impacts will be,
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11:35 - 11:37people will be much, much richer.
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11:37 - 11:41Even the most pessimistic impact scenarios of the U.N.
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11:41 - 11:44estimate that the average person in the developing world in 2100
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11:44 - 11:46will be about as rich as we are today.
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11:46 - 11:50Much more likely, they will be two to four times richer than we are.
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11:50 - 11:52And of course, we'll be even richer than that.
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11:52 - 11:56But the point is to say, when we talk about saving people,
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11:56 - 11:59or helping people in Bangladesh in 2100,
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11:59 - 12:01we're not talking about a poor Bangladeshi.
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12:01 - 12:03We're actually talking about a fairly rich Dutch guy.
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12:03 - 12:05And so the real point, of course, is to say,
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12:05 - 12:09do we want to spend a lot of money helping a little,
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12:09 - 12:11100 years from now, a fairly rich Dutch guy?
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12:11 - 12:16Or do we want to help real poor people, right now, in Bangladesh,
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12:16 - 12:19who really need the help, and whom we can help very, very cheaply?
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12:19 - 12:24Or as Schelling put it, imagine if you were a rich -- as you will be --
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12:24 - 12:29a rich Chinese, a rich Bolivian, a rich Congolese, in 2100,
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12:29 - 12:35thinking back on 2005, and saying, "How odd that they cared so much
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12:35 - 12:39about helping me a little bit through climate change,
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12:39 - 12:43and cared so fairly little about helping my grandfather
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12:43 - 12:46and my great grandfather, whom they could have helped so much more,
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12:46 - 12:49and who needed the help so much more?"
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12:49 - 12:52So I think that really does tell us why it is
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12:52 - 12:54we need to get our priorities straight.
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12:54 - 12:57Even if it doesn't accord to the typical way we see this problem.
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12:57 - 13:02Of course, that's mainly because climate change has good pictures.
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13:02 - 13:05We have, you know, "The Day After Tomorrow" -- it looks great, right?
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13:05 - 13:08It's a good film in the sense that
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13:08 - 13:11I certainly want to see it, right, but don't expect Emmerich
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13:11 - 13:14to cast Brad Pitt in his next movie
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13:14 - 13:16digging latrines in Tanzania or something. (Laughter)
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13:16 - 13:18It just doesn't make for as much of a movie.
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13:18 - 13:20So in many ways, I think of the Copenhagen Consensus
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13:20 - 13:22and the whole discussion of priorities
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13:22 - 13:25as a defense for boring problems.
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13:25 - 13:29To make sure that we realize it's not about making us feel good.
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13:29 - 13:34It's not about making things that have the most media attention,
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13:34 - 13:37but it's about making places where we can actually do the most good.
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13:37 - 13:40The other objections, I think, that are important to say,
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13:40 - 13:44is that I'm somehow -- or we are somehow -- positing a false choice.
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13:44 - 13:46Of course, we should do all things,
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13:46 - 13:48in an ideal world -- I would certainly agree.
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13:48 - 13:50I think we should do all things, but we don't.
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13:50 - 13:54In 1970, the developed world decided we were going to spend
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13:54 - 14:00twice as much as we did, right now, than in 1970, on the developing world.
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14:00 - 14:02Since then our aid has halved.
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14:02 - 14:05So it doesn't look like we're actually on the path
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14:05 - 14:07of suddenly solving all big problems.
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14:07 - 14:10Likewise, people are also saying, but what about the Iraq war?
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14:10 - 14:12You know, we spend 100 billion dollars --
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14:12 - 14:14why don't we spend that on doing good in the world?
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14:14 - 14:15I'm all for that.
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14:15 - 14:17If any one of you guys can talk Bush into doing that, that's fine.
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14:17 - 14:19But the point, of course, is still to say,
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14:19 - 14:21if you get another 100 billion dollars,
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14:21 - 14:24we still want to spend that in the best possible way, don't we?
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14:24 - 14:26So the real issue here is to get ourselves back
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14:26 - 14:28and think about what are the right priorities.
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14:28 - 14:32I should just mention briefly, is this really the right list that we got out?
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14:32 - 14:35You know, when you ask the world's best economists,
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14:35 - 14:38you inevitably end up asking old, white American men.
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14:38 - 14:40And they're not necessarily, you know,
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14:40 - 14:44great ways of looking at the entire world.
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14:44 - 14:46So we actually invited 80 young people from all over the world
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14:46 - 14:48to come and solve the same problem.
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14:48 - 14:52The only two requirements were that they were studying at the university,
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14:52 - 14:54and they spoke English.
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14:54 - 14:57The majority of them were, first, from developing countries.
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14:57 - 14:59They had all the same material but they could go vastly
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14:59 - 15:02outside the scope of discussion, and they certainly did,
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15:02 - 15:04to come up with their own lists.
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15:04 - 15:06And the surprising thing was that the list was very similar --
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15:06 - 15:09with malnutrition and diseases at the top
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15:09 - 15:11and climate change at the bottom.
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15:11 - 15:12We've done this many other times.
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15:12 - 15:15There's been many other seminars and university students, and different things.
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15:15 - 15:18They all come out with very much the same list.
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15:18 - 15:22And that gives me great hope, really, in saying that I do believe
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15:22 - 15:27that there is a path ahead to get us to start thinking about priorities,
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15:27 - 15:29and saying, what is the important thing in the world?
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15:29 - 15:32Of course, in an ideal world, again we'd love to do everything.
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15:32 - 15:36But if we don't do it, then we can start thinking about where should we start?
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15:36 - 15:38I see the Copenhagen Consensus as a process.
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15:38 - 15:40We did it in 2004,
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15:40 - 15:41and we hope to assemble many more people,
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15:41 - 15:45getting much better information for 2008, 2012.
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15:45 - 15:47Map out the right path for the world --
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15:47 - 15:50but also to start thinking about political triage.
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15:50 - 15:52To start thinking about saying, "Let's do
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15:52 - 15:55not the things where we can do very little at a very high cost,
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15:55 - 15:57not the things that we don't know how to do,
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15:57 - 16:00but let's do the great things where we can do an enormous
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16:00 - 16:04amount of good, at very low cost, right now."
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16:04 - 16:06At the end of the day, you can disagree
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16:06 - 16:08with the discussion of how we actually prioritize these,
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16:08 - 16:11but we have to be honest and frank about saying,
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16:11 - 16:13if there's some things we do, there are other things we don't do.
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16:14 - 16:16If we worry too much about some things,
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16:16 - 16:18we end by not worrying about other things.
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16:18 - 16:20So I hope this will help us make better priorities,
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16:20 - 16:22and think about how we better work for the world.
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16:22 - 16:23Thank you.
- Title:
- Global priorities bigger than climate change
- Speaker:
- Bjorn Lomborg
- Description:
-
Given $50 billion to spend, which would you solve first, AIDS or global warming? Danish political scientist Bjorn Lomborg comes up with surprising answers.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 16:24
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