Det jeg gerne vil tale om, er virkelig verdens største problemer. Jeg har ikke tænkt mig at tale om "Verdens sande tilstand" -- det er sandsynligvis også en god idé. (Latter)
What I'd like to talk about is really the biggest problems in the world. I'm not going to talk about "The Skeptical Environmentalist" -- probably that's also a good choice. (Laughter)
Men jeg har tænkt mig at tale om, hvad er verdens største problemer? Og jeg må sige, før jeg går videre, at jeg gerne vil have hver af jer til at prøve og tage blyant og papir frem, for jeg har faktisk tænkt mig at bede jer om at hjælpe mig med at se på, hvordan vi gør det. Så tag jeres blyant og papir frem. Sagens kerne er, at der er mange problemer derude i verden. Jeg vil bare remse nogle af dem op. Der er 800 millioner mennesker, der sulter. Der er en milliard mennesker uden rent drikkevand. To milliarder mennesker uden sanitet. Der er flere millioner mennesker, der dør af HIV og AIDS. Listen bliver ved og ved. Der er to milliarder mennesker, der vil blive alvorligt ramt af klimaforandringer -- og så videre. Der er mange, mange problemer derude.
But I am going talk about: what are the big problems in the world? And I must say, before I go on, I should ask every one of you to try and get out pen and paper because I'm actually going to ask you to help me to look at how we do that. So get out your pen and paper. Bottom line is, there is a lot of problems out there in the world. I'm just going to list some of them. There are 800 million people starving. There's a billion people without clean drinking water. Two billion people without sanitation. There are several million people dying of HIV and AIDS. The lists go on and on. There's two billions of people who will be severely affected by climate change -- so on. There are many, many problems out there.
I en ideel verden ville vi løse dem alle, men det gør vi ikke. Vi løser faktisk ikke alle problemer. Og hvis vi ikke gør det, er spørgsmålet, tror jeg, vi må stille os selv -- og det er derfor, det er på økonomisessionen -- er at sige, hvis vi ikke gør alle ting, må vi virkelig starte med at spørge os selv, hvilke burde vi løse først? Og det er spørgsmålet, jeg gerne vil stille jer. Hvis vi havde, lad os sige, 50 milliarder dollars til at bruge over de næste fire år på at gøre godt i denne verden, hvor skulle vi bruge dem? Vi identificerede 10 af verdens største udfordringer, og jeg vil bare kort læse dem op. Klimaforandringer, smitsomme sygdomme, konflikter, uddannelse, finansiel ustabilitet, regering og korruption, fejlernæring og hungersnød, befolkningsudvandring, sanitering og vand og pengehjælp og handelsbarrierer. Vi mener, at disse på mange måder indbefatter de største problemer i verden. Det indlysende spørgsmål ville være at spørge, hvad tror I, er de største ting? Hvor burde vi starte med at løse disse problemer? Men det er et forkert problem at stille. Det var faktisk det problem, der blev stillet i Davos i Januar.
In an ideal world, we would solve them all, but we don't. We don't actually solve all problems. And if we do not, the question I think we need to ask ourselves -- and that's why it's on the economy session -- is to say, if we don't do all things, we really have to start asking ourselves, which ones should we solve first? And that's the question I'd like to ask you. If we had say, 50 billion dollars over the next four years to spend to do good in this world, where should we spend it? We identified 10 of the biggest challenges in the world, and I will just briefly read them: climate change, communicable diseases, conflicts, education, financial instability, governance and corruption, malnutrition and hunger, population migration, sanitation and water, and subsidies and trade barriers. We believe that these in many ways encompass the biggest problems in the world. The obvious question would be to ask, what do you think are the biggest things? Where should we start on solving these problems? But that's a wrong problem to ask. That was actually the problem that was asked in Davos in January.
Men selvfølgelig er der et problem i at bede folk fokusere på problemer. For vi kan ikke løse problemer. Det største problem, vi har i verden, er vel, at vi alle dør. Men vi har ikke en teknologi til at løse det, vel? Så pointen er ikke at prioritere problemer, men pointen er at prioritere løsninger på problemer. Og det ville være -- selvfølgelig bliver det en smule kompliceret. På klimaforandringer ville det være noget som Kyoto. På smitsomme sygdomme kunne det være sundhedsklinikker eller moskitonet. På konflikter ville det være FN's fredsbevarende styrker og så videre. Pointen, jeg gerne vil bede jer forsøge at gøre, er på bare 30 sekunder -- og jeg ved, det her er på en måde en umulig opgave -- skrive ned, hvad I tror, der sandsynligvis er nogle af topprioriteterne. Og også -- og det er selvfølgelig, hvor økonomi bliver ondt -- at skrive ned, hvilke ting vi ikke burde gøre først. Hvad burde være i bunden af listen? Vær venlige, bare brug 30 sekunder, tal måske med jeres nabo, og bare find ud af, hvad burde være topprioriteterne og bundprioriteterne af løsningerne, som vi har på verdens største problemer.
But of course, there's a problem in asking people to focus on problems. Because we can't solve problems. Surely the biggest problem we have in the world is that we all die. But we don't have a technology to solve that, right? So the point is not to prioritize problems, but the point is to prioritize solutions to problems. And that would be -- of course that gets a little more complicated. To climate change that would be like Kyoto. To communicable diseases, it might be health clinics or mosquito nets. To conflicts, it would be U.N.'s peacekeeping forces, and so on. The point that I would like to ask you to try to do, is just in 30 seconds -- and I know this is in a sense an impossible task -- write down what you think is probably some of the top priorities. And also -- and that's, of course, where economics gets evil -- to put down what are the things we should not do, first. What should be at the bottom of the list? Please, just take 30 seconds, perhaps talk to your neighbor, and just figure out what should be the top priorities and the bottom priorities of the solutions that we have to the world's biggest issues.
Den fantastiske del af denne proces -- og selvfølgelig, jeg mener, jeg ville elske at -- jeg har kun 18 minutter, jeg har allerede givet jer en ret væsentlig mængde af min tid, ikke? Jeg ville elske at gå ind i og få jer til at overveje denne proces, og det er faktisk, hvad vi gjorde. Og jeg opmuntrer jer også stærkt, og jeg er sikker på, at vi også har disse diskussioner bagefter, til at overveje, hvordan prioriterer vi egentlig? Selvfølgelig er I nødt til at spørge jer selv, hvorfor i alverden er sådan en liste aldrig blevet lavet før? Og en grund er, at prioriteringen er utroligt ubehagelig. Ingen vil gøre det her. Selvfølgelig ville enhver organisation elske at være på toppen af sådan en liste. Men enhver organisation ville også hade ikke at være på toppen af listen. Og eftersom der er mange flere ikke-nummer-et-pladser på listen, end der er nummer ettere, giver det god mening ikke at ville lave sådan en liste. Vi har haft FN i næsten 60 år, men vi har faktisk aldrig lavet en fundamental liste over alle de store ting, som vi kan gøre i verden, og sagt, hvilke af dem burde vi gøre først? Så det betyder ikke, at vi ikke prioriterer -- enhver beslutning er en prioritering, så selvfølgelig prioriterer vi stadigvæk om end kun indirekte -- og det er usandsynligt, at det er lige så godt, som hvis vi faktisk prioriterede og gik ind i og talte om det.
The amazing part of this process -- and of course, I mean, I would love to -- I only have 18 minutes, I've already given you quite a substantial amount of my time, right? I'd love to go into, and get you to think about this process, and that's actually what we did. And I also strongly encourage you, and I'm sure we'll also have these discussions afterwards, to think about, how do we actually prioritize? Of course, you have to ask yourself, why on Earth was such a list never done before? And one reason is that prioritization is incredibly uncomfortable. Nobody wants to do this. Of course, every organization would love to be on the top of such a list. But every organization would also hate to be not on the top of the list. And since there are many more not-number-one spots on the list than there is number ones, it makes perfect sense not to want to do such a list. We've had the U.N. for almost 60 years, yet we've never actually made a fundamental list of all the big things that we can do in the world, and said, which of them should we do first? So it doesn't mean that we are not prioritizing -- any decision is a prioritization, so of course we are still prioritizing, if only implicitly -- and that's unlikely to be as good as if we actually did the prioritization, and went in and talked about it.
Så det, jeg foreslår, er egentligt at sige, at vi har i meget lang tid været i en situation, hvor vi har haft en menu af valg. Der er mange, mange ting, vi kan gøre derude, men vi har ikke haft priser eller størrelserne. Vi har ikke haft en anelse. Forestil jer at I går ind på en restaurant og får det her store menukort, men I har ingen anelse om, hvad prisen er. I ved, I har en pizza, I har ingen anelse om, hvad prisen er. Den kunne være på en dollar, den kunne være 1.000 dollars. Den kunne være en familie-størrelse pizza. Det kunne være en enkeltperson-størrelse pizza, ikke? Vi ville gerne vide disse ting.
So what I'm proposing is really to say that we have, for a very long time, had a situation when we've had a menu of choices. There are many, many things we can do out there, but we've not had the prices, nor the sizes. We have not had an idea. Imagine going into a restaurant and getting this big menu card, but you have no idea what the price is. You know, you have a pizza; you've no idea what the price is. It could be at one dollar; it could be 1,000 dollars. It could be a family-size pizza; it could be a very individual-size pizza, right? We'd like to know these things.
Og det er, hvad Copenhagen Consensus egentlig prøver at gøre -- at forsøge at sætte priser på disse problemer. Og helt grundlæggende har det været Copenhagen Consensus' arbejde. Vi fik 30 af verdens bedste økonomer, tre inden for hvert felt. Så vi har tre af verdens topøkonomer til at skrive om klimaforandringer. Hvad kan vi gøre? Hvad vil prisen være? Og hvad vil fordelene af det være? På samme måde med smitsomme sygdomme. Tre af verdens topeksperter, der siger, hvad kan vi gøre? Hvad ville prisen være? Hvad burde vi gøre ved det, og hvad vil udfaldet være? Og så videre.
And that is what the Copenhagen Consensus is really trying to do -- to try to put prices on these issues. And so basically, this has been the Copenhagen Consensus' process. We got 30 of the world's best economists, three in each area. So we have three of world's top economists write about climate change. What can we do? What will be the cost and what will be the benefit of that? Likewise in communicable diseases. Three of the world's top experts saying, what can we do? What would be the price? What should we do about it, and what will be the outcome? And so on.
Så vi fik nogle af verdens topøkonomer, otte af verdens topøkonomer, inklusive tre Nobelpristagere, til at mødes i København i maj 2004. Vi kaldte dem drømmeholdet. Cambridge Universitys præfekter besluttede sig for at kalde dem økonomiens Real Madrid. Det virker meget godt i Europa, men det virker ikke rigtigt herovre. Og det, de rent faktisk gjorde, var at lave en prioriteret liste. Og så spørger I, hvorfor økonomer? Og selvfølgelig er jeg meget glad for, at I stillede det spørgsmål -- (Latter) -- fordi det er et meget godt spørgsmål. Pointen er selvfølgelig, at hvis man vil vide noget om malaria, spørger man en malariaekspert. Hvis man vil vide noget om klimaet, spørger man en klimatolog. Men hvis man vil vide, hvilken af de to man skal håndtere først, kan man ikke spørge nogen af dem, for det er ikke, hvad de gør. Det er, hvad økonomer gør. De prioriterer. De gør det på nogen måder afskyelige stykke arbejde at sige, hvilken man burde håndtere først, og hvilken burde man håndtere bagefter?
Then we had some of the world's top economists, eight of the world's top economists, including three Nobel Laureates, meet in Copenhagen in May 2004. We called them the "dream team." The Cambridge University prefects decided to call them the Real Madrid of economics. That works very well in Europe, but it doesn't really work over here. And what they basically did was come out with a prioritized list. And then you ask, why economists? And of course, I'm very happy you asked that question -- (Laughter) -- because that's a very good question. The point is, of course, if you want to know about malaria, you ask a malaria expert. If you want to know about climate, you ask a climatologist. But if you want to know which of the two you should deal with first, you can't ask either of them, because that's not what they do. That is what economists do. They prioritize. They make that in some ways disgusting task of saying, which one should we do first, and which one should we do afterwards?
Så det her er listen, og det er den jeg gerne vil dele med jer. Selvfølgelig kan man også se den på hjemmesiden, og vi vil også tale mere om den, er jeg sikker på, som dagen skrider frem. De lavede simpelthen en liste, hvor de sagde, der var dårlige projekter -- simpelthen projekter, hvor hvis man investerer en dollar, får man mindre end en dollar tilbage. Så er der fair projekter, gode projekter og meget gode projekter. Og selvfølgelig er det de meget gode projekter, vi burde komme i gang med. Jeg vil gå fra nederst, så at vi ender med de bedste projekter.
So this is the list, and this is the one I'd like to share with you. Of course, you can also see it on the website, and we'll also talk about it more, I'm sure, as the day goes on. They basically came up with a list where they said there were bad projects -- basically, projects where if you invest a dollar, you get less than a dollar back. Then there's fair projects, good projects and very good projects. And of course, it's the very good projects we should start doing. I'm going to go from backwards so that we end up with the best projects.
Disse var de dårlige projekter. Som I måske kan se, var bunden af listen klimaforandringer. Dette fornærmer en masse, og det er sandsynligvis også en af de ting, hvor folk vil sige, jeg ikke bør komme tilbage. Og jeg vil gerne tale om det, for det er virkelig underligt. Hvorfor er det, det kom op? Og jeg vil faktisk også forsøge at komme tilbage til dette, for det er sandsynligvis en af de ting, som vi vil være uenige med på listen, som I skrev ned.
These were the bad projects. As you might see the bottom of the list was climate change. This offends a lot of people, and that's probably one of the things where people will say I shouldn't come back, either. And I'd like to talk about that, because that's really curious. Why is it it came up? And I'll actually also try to get back to this because it's probably one of the things that we'll disagree with on the list that you wrote down.
Grunden til, at de endte med at sige, at Kyoto -- eller at gøre noget større end Kyoto -- er en dårlig handel, er simpelthen fordi, det er meget ineffektivt. Det er ikke at sige, at global opvarmning ikke sker. Det er ikke at sige, at det ikke er et stort problem. Men det er at sige, at hvad vi kan gøre ved det, er meget lidt til en meget høj pris. Hvad de grundlæggende viser os, gennemsnittet af alle makroøkonomiske modeller, er, at Kyoto, hvis alle gik med til den, ville koste omkring 150 milliarder dollars om året. Det er en væsentlig mængde penge. Det er to til tre gange den globale udviklingsstøtte, som vi giver den Tredje Verden hvert år. Og alligevel ville den gøre meget lidt godt. Alle modeller viser, det vil udskyde opvarmning med omkring seks år i 2100. Så fyren i Bangladesh, der bliver offer for en oversvømmelse i 2100, kan vente til 2106. Hvilket er en lille smule godt, men ikke ret meget godt. Så idéen her er virkelig at sige, altså, vi har brugt en masse penge på at gøre lidt godt.
The reason why they came up with saying that Kyoto -- or doing something more than Kyoto -- is a bad deal is simply because it's very inefficient. It's not saying that global warming is not happening. It's not saying that it's not a big problem. But it's saying that what we can do about it is very little, at a very high cost. What they basically show us, the average of all macroeconomic models, is that Kyoto, if everyone agreed, would cost about 150 billion dollars a year. That's a substantial amount of money. That's two to three times the global development aid that we give the Third World every year. Yet it would do very little good. All models show it will postpone warming for about six years in 2100. So the guy in Bangladesh who gets a flood in 2100 can wait until 2106. Which is a little good, but not very much good. So the idea here really is to say, well, we've spent a lot of money doing a little good.
Og bare for at give jer et referencepunkt, estimerede FN faktisk, at for halvdelen af det beløb, for omkring 75 milliarder dollars om året, kunne vi løse alle større basale problemer i verden. Vi kunne give rent drikkevand, sanitering, basal sundhedspleje og uddannelse til hver eneste menneske på planeten. Så vi er nødt til at spørge os selv, vil vi bruge det dobbelte beløb på at gøre meget lidt godt? Eller halvdelen af beløbet på at gøre ufatteligt meget godt? Og det er egentlig derfor, det er et dårligt projekt. Det er ikke at sige, at hvis vi havde alle penge i verden, ville vi ikke gerne gøre det. Men det er at sige, når vi ikke har, er det simpelthen ikke vores førsteprioritet.
And just to give you a sense of reference, the U.N. actually estimate that for half that amount, for about 75 billion dollars a year, we could solve all major basic problems in the world. We could give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare and education to every single human being on the planet. So we have to ask ourselves, do we want to spend twice the amount on doing very little good? Or half the amount on doing an amazing amount of good? And that is really why it becomes a bad project. It's not to say that if we had all the money in the world, we wouldn't want to do it. But it's to say, when we don't, it's just simply not our first priority.
De fair projekter -- læg mærke til, at jeg ikke har tænkt mig at kommentere alle disse -- men smitsomme sygdomme, bedre basal sundhedspleje -- klarede den lige, simpelthen fordi, ja, bedre basal sundhedspleje er en god ting. Det ville gøre en masse godt, men det er også meget, meget dyrt. Igen, hvad det fortæller os er, at pludselig begynder vi at tænke over begge sider af ligningen. Hvis I ser på de gode projekter, kom en masse saniterings- og vandprojekter ind. Igen, sanitering og vand er utroligt vigtigt, men det koster også en masse infrastruktur. Så jeg vil gerne vise jer top fire prioriteterne, der skulle være i det mindste de første, som vi håndterer, når vi taler om, hvordan vi burde håndtere verdens problemer.
The fair projects -- notice I'm not going to comment on all these -- but communicable diseases, scale of basic health services -- just made it, simply because, yes, scale of basic health services is a great thing. It would do a lot of good, but it's also very, very costly. Again, what it tells us is suddenly we start thinking about both sides of the equation. If you look at the good projects, a lot of sanitation and water projects came in. Again, sanitation and water is incredibly important, but it also costs a lot of infrastructure. So I'd like to show you the top four priorities which should be at least the first ones that we deal with when we talk about how we should deal with the problems in the world.
Det fjerdebedste problem er malaria -- at håndtere malaria. Hyppigheden af malaria er, at omkring et par [millioner] mennesker bliver smittet hvert år. Det kan endda koste op imod et procentpoint af BNP hvert år for påvirkede lande. Hvis vi investerede omkring 13 milliarder dollars over de næste fire år, kunne vi bringe den hyppighed ned til det halve. Vi kunne undgå, at omkring 500.000 mennesker dør, men måske vigtigere kunne vi undgå, at omkring en milliard mennesker bliver smittet hvert år. Vi ville væsentligt forbedre deres evne til at håndtere mange af de andre problemer, som de er nødt til at håndtere. Selvfølgelig, i det lange løb også håndtere global opvarmning.
The fourth best problem is malaria -- dealing with malaria. The incidence of malaria is about a couple of [million] people get infected every year. It might even cost up towards a percentage point of GDP every year for affected nations. If we invested about 13 billion dollars over the next four years, we could bring that incidence down to half. We could avoid about 500,000 people dying, but perhaps more importantly, we could avoid about a [million] people getting infected every year. We would significantly increase their ability to deal with many of the other problems that they have to deal with -- of course, in the long run, also to deal with global warming.
Denne tredjebedste var fri handel. Dybest set viste modellen, at hvis vi kunne få fri handel og især skære pengestøtte i USA og Europa fra, kunne vi rent faktisk oplive den globale økonomi til en forbløffende størrelse af omkring 2.400 milliarder dollars om året, hvoraf halvdelen ville tilfalde den Tredje Verden. Igen er pointen at sige, at vi kunne faktisk trække to til tre hundrede millioner mennesker ud af fattigdom meget radikalt hurtigt på omkring to til fem år. Det ville være den tredjebedste ting, vi kunne gøre.
This third best one was free trade. Basically, the model showed that if we could get free trade, and especially cut subsidies in the U.S. and Europe, we could basically enliven the global economy to an astounding number of about 2,400 billion dollars a year, half of which would accrue to the Third World. Again, the point is to say that we could actually pull two to three hundred million people out of poverty, very radically fast, in about two to five years. That would be the third best thing we could do.
Den næstbedste ting ville være at fokusere på fejlernæring. Ikke bare fejlernæring generelt, men der er en meget billig måde at håndtere fejlernæring på, især mangel på mikronæringsstoffer. Dybest set er omkring halvdelen af verdens befolkning i underskud af jern, zink, jod og A-vitamin. Hvis vi investerer omkring 12 milliarder dollars, kunne vi lave et seriøst indhug i det problem. Det ville være den næstbedste investering, vi kunne foretage.
The second best thing would be to focus on malnutrition. Not just malnutrition in general, but there's a very cheap way of dealing with malnutrition, namely, the lack of micronutrients. Basically, about half of the world's population is lacking in iron, zinc, iodine and vitamin A. If we invest about 12 billion dollars, we could make a severe inroad into that problem. That would be the second best investment that we could do.
Og det allerbedste projekt ville være at fokusere på HIV/AIDS. Dybest set, hvis vi investerer 27 milliarder dollars over de næste otte år, kunne vi undgå 28 nye millioner tilfælde af HIV/AIDS. Igen, hvad det her gør, og hvad det fokuserer på, er at sige, der er to meget forskellige måder, vi kan håndtere HIV/AIDS. Den ene er behandling, den anden er forebyggelse. Og igen i en ideel verden ville vi gøre begge dele. Men i en verden, hvor vi ikke gør nogen af dem, eller ikke gør det særlig godt, er vi nødt til i det mindste at spørge os selv, hvor vi burde investere først. Og behandling er meget, meget dyrere end forebyggelse. Så det, det dybest set fokuserer på, er at sige, at vi kan gøre meget mere ved at investere i forebyggelse. Grundlæggende for de penge, vi bruger, kan vi gøre X mængde godt ved behandling og 10 gange så meget godt ved forebyggelse. Så igen, det, vi fokuserer på, er forebyggelse frem for behandling i første omgang.
And the very best project would be to focus on HIV/AIDS. Basically, if we invest 27 billion dollars over the next eight years, we could avoid 28 new million cases of HIV/AIDS. Again, what this does and what it focuses on is saying there are two very different ways that we can deal with HIV/AIDS. One is treatment; the other one is prevention. And again, in an ideal world, we would do both. But in a world where we don't do either, or don't do it very well, we have to at least ask ourselves where should we invest first. And treatment is much, much more expensive than prevention. So basically, what this focuses on is saying, we can do a lot more by investing in prevention. Basically for the amount of money that we spend, we can do X amount of good in treatment, and 10 times as much good in prevention. So again, what we focus on is prevention rather than treatment, at first rate.
Det, det virkelig gør, er, at det får os til at tænke over vores prioriteter. Jeg vil gerne have jer til at se på jeres prioriteringsliste og sige, fik I det rigtige? Eller kom I tæt på, hvad vi kom frem til her? Altså selvfølgelig er klimaforandringer et af emnerne igen. Jeg møder mange mennesker, der finder det meget, meget usandsynligt, at vi skulle gøre det.
What this really does is that it makes us think about our priorities. I'd like to have you look at your priority list and say, did you get it right? Or did you get close to what we came up with here? Well, of course, one of the things is climate change again. I find a lot of people find it very, very unlikely that we should do that.
Vi burde også håndtere klimaforandringer, om ikke andet så simpelthen fordi det er så stort et problem. Men selvfølgelig håndterer vi ikke alle problemer. Der er mange problemer derude i verden. Og det, jeg gerne vil gøre sikre, er, at hvis vi faktisk fokuserer på problemer, så fokuserer vi på de rigtige. Dem, hvor vi kan gøre meget godt frem for lidt godt. Og jeg tror egentlig -- Thomas Schelling, en af deltagerne på drømmeholdet, han sagde det meget, meget godt. En af tingene, folk glemmer, er, at om 100 år, hvor vi snakker om, de fleste af klimaforandringernes indvirkninger vil være, vil folk være meget, meget rigere. Selv de mest pessimistiske af FN's indvirkningsscenarier vurderer, at den gennemsnitlige person i den udviklede del af verden i 2100 vil være nogenlunde så rig, som vi er i dag. Meget mere sandsynligt er det, at de vil være to til fire gange så rige som os. Og selvfølgelig vil vi være endnu rigere end det.
We should also do climate change, if for no other reason, simply because it's such a big problem. But of course, we don't do all problems. There are many problems out there in the world. And what I want to make sure of is, if we actually focus on problems, that we focus on the right ones. The ones where we can do a lot of good rather than a little good. And I think, actually -- Thomas Schelling, one of the participants in the dream team, he put it very, very well. One of things that people forget, is that in 100 years, when we're talking about most of the climate change impacts will be, people will be much, much richer. Even the most pessimistic impact scenarios of the U.N. estimate that the average person in the developing world in 2100 will be about as rich as we are today. Much more likely, they will be two to four times richer than we are. And of course, we'll be even richer than that.
Men pointen er at sige, når vi snakker om at redde mennesker eller redde folk i Bangladesh i 2100, snakker vi ikke om en fattig bangladesher. Vi snakker faktisk om en ret rig hollandsk fyr. Og derfor er den rigtige pointe selvfølgelig at sige, vil vi bruge en masse penge på at hjælpe om 100 år fra nu en ret rig hollandsk fyr? Eller vil vi gerne hjælpe rigtigt fattige lige nu i Bangladesh, der virkelig har brug for hjælp, og som vi kan hjælpe meget, meget billigt? Eller som Schelling sagde det, forestil jer, at I var en rig -- som I vil blive -- en rig kineser, en rig boliver, en rig congoleser i 2100, der tænkte tilbage på 2005 og sagde, "Hvor underligt, at de bekymrede sig så meget om at hjælpe mig en smule gennem klimaforandringer og bekymrede sig så lidt om at hjælpe min bedstefar og min oldefar, som de kunne have hjulpet så meget mere, og som behøvede hjælpen så meget mere?"
But the point is to say, when we talk about saving people, or helping people in Bangladesh in 2100, we're not talking about a poor Bangladeshi. We're actually talking about a fairly rich Dutch guy. And so the real point, of course, is to say, do we want to spend a lot of money helping a little, 100 years from now, a fairly rich Dutch guy? Or do we want to help real poor people, right now, in Bangladesh, who really need the help, and whom we can help very, very cheaply? Or as Schelling put it, imagine if you were a rich -- as you will be -- a rich Chinese, a rich Bolivian, a rich Congolese, in 2100, thinking back on 2005, and saying, "How odd that they cared so much about helping me a little bit through climate change, and cared so fairly little about helping my grandfather and my great grandfather, whom they could have helped so much more, and who needed the help so much more?"
Så jeg synes, det virkelig fortæller os, hvorfor det er, vi har brug for at få vores prioriteter på plads. Selv hvis det ikke stemmer overens med den sædvanlige måde vi anser dette problem. Selvfølgelig er det hovedsagligt, fordi klimaforandringer har så gode billeder. Vi har, I ved, "The Day After Tomorrow" -- den ser godt ud, ikke? Det er en god film på den måde, at jeg bestemt har lyst til at se den, okay, men forvent ikke, at Emmerich giver Brad Pitt rollen i sin næste film, hvor han graver efter latriner i Tanzania eller noget. (Latter) Det lægger bare ikke op til så god en film. Så på mange måder anser jeg Copenhagen Consensus og hele diskussionen omkring prioriteter som et forsvar for kedelige problemer. At sikre, at vi indser, det ikke handler om at få os til at have det godt, det handler ikke om at lave de ting, der har mest medieopmærksomhed, men at det er om at finde steder, hvor vi faktisk kan gøre mest godt.
So I think that really does tell us why it is we need to get our priorities straight. Even if it doesn't accord to the typical way we see this problem. Of course, that's mainly because climate change has good pictures. We have, you know, "The Day After Tomorrow" -- it looks great, right? It's a good film in the sense that I certainly want to see it, right, but don't expect Emmerich to cast Brad Pitt in his next movie digging latrines in Tanzania or something. (Laughter) It just doesn't make for as much of a movie. So in many ways, I think of the Copenhagen Consensus and the whole discussion of priorities as a defense for boring problems. To make sure that we realize it's not about making us feel good. It's not about making things that have the most media attention, but it's about making places where we can actually do the most good.
De andre indvendinger, tror jeg, der er vigtige at sige, er, at jeg på en eller anden måde -- eller vi -- opstiller et falsk valg. Selvfølgelig burde vi gøre alle ting i en ideel verden -- jeg ville i den grad være enig. Jeg synes, vi burde gøre alting, men det gør vi ikke. I 1970 besluttede den udviklede verden, at vi skal bruge dobbelt så meget, som vi gjorde, lige nu i forhold til 1970 på udviklingslandene. Siden da er vores støtte blevet halveret. Så det ser ikke ud som om, vi egentlig er på vej til pludseligt at løse alle store problemer.
The other objections, I think, that are important to say, is that I'm somehow -- or we are somehow -- positing a false choice. Of course, we should do all things, in an ideal world -- I would certainly agree. I think we should do all things, but we don't. In 1970, the developed world decided we were going to spend twice as much as we did, right now, than in 1970, on the developing world. Since then our aid has halved. So it doesn't look like we're actually on the path of suddenly solving all big problems.
På samme måde siger folk, men hvad med Irak-krigen? Ved I hvad, vi bruger 100 milliarder dollars. Hvorfor bruger vi ikke dem på at gøre godt i verden? Det er jeg helt for. Hvis en af jer kan overtale Bush til at gøre det, er det fint. Men pointen er selvfølgelig at sige, hvis man får 100 milliarder dollars mere, vil man stadig ønske at bruge dem på bedst mulig vis, ikke? Så det egentlige problem her er at få os selv tilbage og tænke over, hvad er de rigtige prioriteter. Jeg burde måske nævne kort, er det virkelig den rigtige liste, vi kom frem til? I ved, når man spørger verdens bedste økonomer, ender man uundgåeligt med at spørge gamle, hvide amerikanske mænd. Og de er ikke nødvendigvis, I ved, den bedste måde at anskue hele verden.
Likewise, people are also saying, but what about the Iraq war? You know, we spend 100 billion dollars -- why don't we spend that on doing good in the world? I'm all for that. If any one of you guys can talk Bush into doing that, that's fine. But the point, of course, is still to say, if you get another 100 billion dollars, we still want to spend that in the best possible way, don't we? So the real issue here is to get ourselves back and think about what are the right priorities. I should just mention briefly, is this really the right list that we got out? You know, when you ask the world's best economists, you inevitably end up asking old, white American men. And they're not necessarily, you know, great ways of looking at the entire world.
Så vi inviterede faktisk 80 unge fra hele verden til at komme og løse det samme problem. Det eneste krav var, at de studerede på et universitet, og at de talte engelsk. Størstedelen af dem var, først fra udviklingslande. De havde alle det samme materiale, men de kunne gå meget uden for diskussionens rammer, og det gjorde de i den grad, for at komme frem til deres egne lister. Og det overraskende var, at listen var meget lig -- med fejlernæring og sygdomme i toppen og klimaforandringer i bunden. Vi har gjort det her mange andre gange. Der har været mange andre øvelser og universitetsstuderende og forskellige ting. De kommer alle frem til stort set den samme liste. Og det giver mig stort håb, virkelig, når jeg siger, at jeg tror på, at der er en vej foran til at få os til at begynde at tænke over vores prioriteter. Og at sige, hvad er den vigtigste ting i verden? Selvfølgelig i en ideel verden ville vi elske at gøre alting. Men hvis vi ikke gør det, kan vi begynde at tænke over, hvor burde vi starte?
So we actually invited 80 young people from all over the world to come and solve the same problem. The only two requirements were that they were studying at the university, and they spoke English. The majority of them were, first, from developing countries. They had all the same material but they could go vastly outside the scope of discussion, and they certainly did, to come up with their own lists. And the surprising thing was that the list was very similar -- with malnutrition and diseases at the top and climate change at the bottom. We've done this many other times. There's been many other seminars and university students, and different things. They all come out with very much the same list. And that gives me great hope, really, in saying that I do believe that there is a path ahead to get us to start thinking about priorities, and saying, what is the important thing in the world? Of course, in an ideal world, again we'd love to do everything. But if we don't do it, then we can start thinking about where should we start?
Jeg ser Copenhagen Consensus som en proces. Vi gjorde det i 2004, og vi håber at samle mange flere folk, at få meget bedre information til 2008, 2012. Skitsere den rigtige vej for verden. Men også at begynde at tænke over politisk visitation. At begynde at tænke over at sige, "Lad os gøre ikke de ting, hvor vi kan gøre meget lidt til en meget høj pris, ikke de ting, som vi ikke ved, hvordan vi skal gøre, men lad os gøre gode ting, hvor vi kan gøre en enorm mængde godt til en meget lav pris lige nu.
I see the Copenhagen Consensus as a process. We did it in 2004, and we hope to assemble many more people, getting much better information for 2008, 2012. Map out the right path for the world -- but also to start thinking about political triage. To start thinking about saying, "Let's do not the things where we can do very little at a very high cost, not the things that we don't know how to do, but let's do the great things where we can do an enormous amount of good, at very low cost, right now."
Til syvende og sidst kan I være uenige i diskussionen om, hvordan vi faktisk prioriterer disse, men vi er nødt til at være ærlige og oprigtige ved at sige, hvis der er nogle ting vi gør, er der andre ting vi ikke gør. Hvis vi bekymrer os for meget om nogle ting, ender vi med ikke at bekymre os om andre ting. Så jeg håber dette vil hjælpe os med at prioritere bedre og tænke over, hvordan vi bedre kan arbejde for verden. Tak.
At the end of the day, you can disagree with the discussion of how we actually prioritize these, but we have to be honest and frank about saying, if there's some things we do, there are other things we don't do. If we worry too much about some things, we end by not worrying about other things. So I hope this will help us make better priorities, and think about how we better work for the world. Thank you.