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THE LOMBORG STORY
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2006
onwards: The Copenhagen Consensus Center
From 1st Jan. 2006, Lomborg´s position at the
Copenhagen Business School improved. From then, he had a part-time
position as a director of a new "Copenhagen Consensus Center", with two
academic employees and one employee paid at student rate. The official
web site of the Copenhagen Consensus Center is
www.copenhagenconsensus.com.
In September 2007 Lomborg published a new book on climate
change, "Cool it!", in two versions, one edited in USA and one in UK.
See more about the book on www.Lomborg-errors.dk/coolit.htm. As before,
the book was highly praised by anti-environmentalists and heavily
criticised by environmentalists. It has since then be translated into 9
other languages, and more translations are underway.
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. See more about the
conference here.
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. For this money, the center must "throw light on benefits and
costs associated with various possible solution models in relation to
an international climate agreement."
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. It is
not readily understood why the Danish People´s Party supports
Lomborg so strongly. According to a poll from October 2009, only 18% of
the party´s voters support the idea of doubling the amount of
money allotted to Lomborg, whereas 55% of the party´s voters are
against. But the leaders of the party think differently from most of
their voters. The result is that 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 €.
However, even though Lomborg gets special money
grants from the Danish government, Lomborg complains that the
government has practically stopped listening to him after 2004 when
Connie Hedegaard became minister, first the minister of environment,
and since 2007 minister for climate issues. And in a poll, the majority
of the Danish people who have an opinion on the matter are against
these grants to Lomborg´s institute.
Since July 2008, Lomborg has been a regular
contributor to the web site "Project Syndicate", which
is produced by an association of newspapers around the world. Lomborg
produces one commentary every month, and these commentaries are
regularly brought in certain newspapers, especially The Guardian in UK,
but also others, such as Politiken in Denmark. As an example,
Lomborg´s February 2009 contribution to Project Syndicate says
inter alia:
"Some environmental campaigners argue that, given the effects of global
warming, every nation must act. But if one takes a closer look at
China, this argument disintegrates. Climate models show that for at
least the rest of this century, China will actually benefit from global
warming. Warmer temperatures will boost agricultural production and
improve health. The number of lives lost in heat waves will increase,
but the number of deaths saved in winter will grow much more rapidly:
warming will have a more dramatic effect on minimum temperatures in
winter than on maximum temperatures in summer. There are few arguments
for China and India to commit to carbon caps – and compelling reasons
for them to resist pressure to do so. " See also this page on Lomborg-errors.
Lomborg has had a couple of meetings with Bill Gates
in Seattle, inter alia in the beginning of March 2009, to discuss how
money from "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation" and from the
Warren Buffets foundation can best be used. These foundations own in
the size order of 100 billion dollars in total. The discussions have
centered around the Copenhagen Consensus method to prioritise
allotments and to find out where the money can do most good. Lomborg
has told Bill Gates that grants to supply children in The Third World
with vitamin A is one of the most efficient methods to improve the
state of the world. Bill Gates has accepted to use Copenhagen Consensus
as a guideline for how to spend more than 3 billion dollars every year.
The networking agency MarketNetwork in Denmark will
in the autumn of 2009 arrange a climate conference with Lomborg.
In 2010, Lomborg will make a film on the true state
of
the world with Hollywood-producers Terry Botwick and Ralph Winther. It
will be a "slightly Al Gore like film", just with a different message.
The film is expected to be ready by September 2010, in time for the
Toronto international film festival (link).
Next page
To Lomborg-errors´ page on Cool it!
To Lomborg-errors´ page on Copenhagen
Consensus 2008