Skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg visits the EEA

With the aptly titled lecture "If we can't do it all, where should we start?", associate professor Bjorn Lomborg kicked off an afternoon of lively debate at the EEA Friday 29 April. The author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and now "Global Crises, Global Solutions" was himself met with some stiff questioning by the Agency staff. Lomborg has made international headlines with his views on environmental policy and was the man behind the Copenhagen Consensus project last year - also the subject of his lecture.

In this project, eight of the world's leading economists, with input from other experts, assessed how 50 billion dollars of extra money could be spent most cost-efficiently on major global challenges. On top of the resulting priority list of actions came fighting HIV/AIDS, providing food supplements and liberalizing trade - whereas actions aimed at limiting climate change came at the very bottom.

During the discussion following his lecture, Lomborg was challenged on several points by EEA staff. The project was criticized for not taking synergy effects into account. The need to supplement the strictly economic perspective with other views when deciding what problems to address was also stressed. Even so, an informal poll by the end of the session indicated that around 30 % of those present in the packed auditorium thought it would be interesting to test the Copenhagen Consensus methodology on European environmental policy.

Further reading:

• On climate change http://themes.eea.eu.int/Environmental_issues/climate
• On Copenhagen Consensus http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/
• BBC World Service debate on climate change from 12 February featuring among others Associate professor Bjorn Lomborg and EEA Executive director Professor Jacqueline McGlade http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsa/n5ctrl/events05/specials/worlddebate.ram