tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/australian-consensus-centre-16974/articlesAustralian Consensus Centre – The Conversation2015-10-06T00:53:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/485862015-10-06T00:53:55Z2015-10-06T00:53:55ZAcademic freedom isn’t the issue with Lomborg’s consensus centre<p>Controversial campaigner for climate change trivialisation Bjorn Lomborg is getting closer to learning whether an Australian university will host him. A campaign to stop Lomborg finding a home at Flinders University is being played out on <a href="https://twitter.com/StopBjornFU">social media</a> and within the university. </p>
<p>An <a href="http://www.aycc.org.au/bjorn_free">open letter</a> objecting to Lomborg’s proposed Australian Consensus Centre has attracted more than 7000 signatures. I <a href="https://theconversation.com/still-no-consensus-for-bjorn-lomborg-the-climate-change-refugee-45423">reported in July</a> that opposition to Lomborg had been solid among university staff. However, deputy vice-chancellor (DVC) Andrew Parkin is leading a proposal to take in Lomborg. </p>
<p>So far, no school has agreed to host Lomborg. Parkin identified the School of Social and Policy Studies as one of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/28/bjrn-lomborgs-4m-centre-rejected-by-flinders-university-academics">most suitable</a>. This school is the one to which Parkin is attached, and he will be returning there at the conclusion of his tenure as DVC.</p>
<p>But apart from Parkin, it is very hard to find anyone at Flinders – or any other Australian university – who is open to accepting Lomborg. A document introduced to <a href="http://www.flinders.edu.au/about_flinders_files/Documents/Council_Membership.pdf">Flinders Council</a> at its August meeting, based on research by the National Tertiary Education Union, claims that 14 of 42 universities in Australia have rejected Lomborg’s centre. </p>
<p>These universities are: Australian Catholic University, Australian National University, Central Queensland University, Macquarie University, Monash University, University of Adelaide, University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, University of South Australia, University of Sydney, University of Western Australia (UWA) and La Trobe University.</p>
<p>One potential reason for the rejections is the way Lomborg had planned to spend his funding. According to FOI documents <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/04/bjrn-lomborg-consensus-centre-was-to-have-800000-in-public-funds-for-marketing">released to The Guardian</a>, Lomborg wanted to spend up to A$800,000 of a proposed A$4 million budget on promotion and marketing.</p>
<h2>Attempts to distance the centre from climate won’t be believed</h2>
<p>In defence of Lomborg, he had pledged at University of Western Australia that his centre would deal with poverty, health and food security, which are areas he has prioritised in the past. It would be restricted to looking at economic modelling of the most cost-effective way to spend money on the developing world.</p>
<p>The proposed Australian Consensus Centre at UWA was to be modelled on his Copenhagen Consensus Centre in the US. But it is difficult to separate Lomborg’s views on climate with those on development. His standard technique is to use the latter to belittle the former.</p>
<p>Lomborg’s <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/uwa-think-tank-is-not-a-climate-consensus-centre-lomborg/story-e6frg6xf-1227319435405">has claimed</a> that the proposed Australian centre would not be making regular commentary on climate change. Given his track record commenting on climate at the US-based Copenhagen Consensus Centre – much to the delight of the fossil-fuel lobby in the US – this is difficult to believe. </p>
<p>As an occasional columnist for The Australian, Lomborg wrote a piece in 2013 – <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/the-world-is-warming-but-theres-no-need-to-panic/story-fni1hfs5-1226731120767?sv=f5101d1c55bd99c1ce741a5835184b54">“The world is warming but there’s no need to panic”</a> – in which he referred to the “Copenhagen Consensus for Climate”.</p>
<p>Readers should be under no illusion, then, that the Australian Consensus Centre will refrain from promoting inaction on climate change.</p>
<h2>It’s not about academic freedom</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, at Flinders, select members of senior management have been looking for a way to justify the proposed $4 million centre. Many staff are concerned that what Flinders will lose in research prestige will make the dalliance with Lomborg a mistake.</p>
<p>Vice-chancellor Colin Stirling is in a difficult position, wedged between two opposing power blocs. In one corner have been two successive federal education ministers from South Australia, and a DVC. In the other corner are Flinders University graduate, former staff member and Greens senator <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SenatorRobertSimms/videos/1635605883389632/">Rob Simms</a>, the <a href="https://twitter.com/StopBjornFU">Stop Lomborg</a> campaign, a 7000-strong petition, and worldwide condemnation of Lomborg as one of the most dangerous climate contrarians on the planet.</p>
<p>So, it is understandable that Stirling has sought to appeal to academics with an argument that pretty much defines the essence of academic identity – academic freedom.</p>
<p>This argument has been put to staff on the <a href="http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/flinders-news/2015/08/17/vice-chancellor-reflects-on-research-consultation/#sthash.hUx9Pohf.dpuf">university website</a>, but also at council in August. In the midst of the issue raging on ABC local radio Adelaide on Thursday, with Tim Flannery and <a href="https://soundcloud.com/891-abc-adelaide/bjorn-lomborg">Lomborg himself</a> phoning in from New York, the discussion of Lomborg was held over at last week’s Flinders Council meeting.</p>
<p>Stirling demonstrated that he has consulted widely on the Lomborg affair, but will not block any academic wanting to collaborate with Lomborg.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The world, and indeed academia, is replete with outspoken contrarians and controversial figures. We can each form our own views of such individuals but must respect the rights of our colleagues to decide with whom they choose to collaborate. So, while preventing colleagues from collaborating with Bjorn Lomborg might prove popular with some, it would be wrong. Which other controversial thinker would be next to be added to the prohibited list? This is not how the academy works. The role of the academy is not to suppress or evade controversial issues; rather we must tackle them directly through critical analysis, rigorous debate and thought leadership.</p>
<p>These issues cut to the heart of the principle of academic freedom that is fundamental to the very nature of the academy and to what it means to be a university.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interestingly, Stirling’s argument was <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/bjorn-lomborg-centre-a-matter-ofprinciple/story-e6frgcjx-1227552946446">echoed by</a> new Education Minister Simon Birmingham. Asked whether he wanted Lomborg’s centre in South Australia, Birmingham said he stands for “academic freedom and autonomy of universities”.</p>
<p>The principles advanced by Stirling and Birmingham are compelling, but they’re not really at issue here. No-one is questioning whether academics at Flinders or any Australian university ought to be able to collaborate with Lomborg. Who cares? No-one would have any objection to this. The issue is whether Lomborg should receive $4 million of taxpayers’ money.</p>
<p>A second and related issue is a question of process: why should an individual who is not already an academic at an Australian university be handed $4 million to conduct “research” when every other academic has to submit themselves to a gruelling research funding process?</p>
<p>Finally, the question of academic freedom is not simply about collaboration with one individual but the privilege of setting up a centre that has the backing of a university’s crest and authority.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/reverse-the-closing-of-the-australian-mind/story-e6frg6zo-1227552873739">Some</a> have sought to characterise the rejection of Lomborg as an instance of closed-mindedness, conformism to a majority viewpoint, even as a kind of religious intolerance.</p>
<p>Such commentators fail to recognise the difference between science and political opinion. Climate change has become so politicised in Australia that many have forgotten that it is actually based on science and evidence. Stirling, whose own prize-winning background is microbiology and genetics, should understand this distinction well. </p>
<p>Calls for “balance” and “freedom” are appropriate for politics, where even the most extreme or unorthodox opinions can be put forward. But if this logic is applied to science, when that science is settled, only a <a href="https://theconversation.com/politicised-media-false-balance-and-the-pseudo-climate-debate-18851">false balance</a> will result.</p>
<h2>There are already restrictions on who academics can work with</h2>
<p>The easiest way to show this is to imagine that Lomborg was being offered $4 million to tell us that smoking was mildly concerning but, compared to other social problems, not really something to worry about – and that people may as well keep smoking, even though the science is settled in showing us how smoking causes lung cancer.</p>
<p>To agree with the science isn’t to be “conformist” or intolerant of “alternative views”. It is about having some basic empathy for human suffering today, and the suffering of future generations.</p>
<p>To return to the academic freedom question, Flinders already restricts the freedom of collaboration of its staff. A <a href="http://www.flinders.edu.au/ppmanual/research/tobacco-industry-fund.cfm">standing resolution</a> from 1997 says the university will not accept research or consultancy funding from the tobacco industry. The Lomborg case is not that different.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This article has been amended since publication to correct a quote from Bjorn Lomborg’s October 2013 article in The Australian.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48586/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Controversial campaigner for climate change trivialisation Bjorn Lomborg is getting closer to learning his fate in Australia.David Holmes, Senior Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/419792015-05-21T04:51:18Z2015-05-21T04:51:18ZWe need real consensus, not Bjorn Lomborg’s illusion of it<p>The Australian government’s intent to create a “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/may/08/climate-contrarian-bjrn-lomborgs-centre-dropped-by-wa-university">Consensus Centre</a>” to work on the big issues facing the nation signals a welcome revival in interest in using research to inform policy, if it can be taken at face value. But it needs to be done right, and if it is, universities can readily help. </p>
<p>The University of Western Australia’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-08/bjorn-lomborg-uwa-consensus-centre-contract-cancelled/6456708">recent decision</a> to decline the A$4 million offered by the Abbott government, having originally agreed to host Bjorn Lomborg’s proposed “Australian Consensus Centre”, came after an outcry from faculty and students who were concerned that Lomborg’s views on climate change and other environmental issues were not based on the level of objective analysis expected of universities. </p>
<p>Lomborg is well known as a cornucopian, in the tradition of the US economist <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/12/business/julian-simon-65-optimistic-economist-dies.htmlhttp://example.com/">Julian Simon</a>. Both have argued that environmental problems are not especially serious, and that the conventional economic growth model can continue indefinitely, even on a planet that is clearly finite. </p>
<p>Lomborg is not active as an academic (with a relatively low <a href="http://conservationbytes.com/2015/04/24/lomborg-a-detailed-citation-analysis">h-index of 3</a>) and has forged his reputation largely by publishing non-peer-reviewed books, with environmental verdicts that have been eagerly embraced by many at the conservative end of the political spectrum. </p>
<p>Of course, there is nothing wrong with bringing a point of view to an issue and sparking debate. But what is problematic about the proposed Australian Consensus Centre (and the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/">original one in Copenhagen</a>) is the blatant misuse of the term “consensus”. </p>
<p>What Lomborg means by “consensus” is getting a small group of big-name economists into a room for a week to independently rank hypothetical spending – for example on foreign aid – against a list of predetermined problems. But the approach ignores the interdependencies between problems, dismisses everything that is not highly ranked, and then labels the average rankings as the “consensus”. One of us (Jotzo) participated in one of these exercises and can attest to the fact that the discussions were limited, and public communication of the results ignored the complexities and the alternative perspectives.</p>
<p>In reality, the desirable course of action for most complex problems involves a mix of many options. Dealing with climate change, for example, requires reducing emissions now, investing in research and development for the future, and preparing to adapt to the impacts. It’s not a matter of choosing one of these and ditching the others. This is true for just about any complex problem, and serious analyses invariably reflect this. </p>
<h2>We need real consensus</h2>
<p>The reality is that we desperately need to build real consensus in both the scientific community and the general public if we are to solve the complex and interconnected set of environmental, social and economic problems we currently face. Building this real consensus requires deep involvement, and genuinely open dialogue and discussion with a broad range of stakeholders, with reference to the best available scientific evidence. This is, at heart, what the scientific enterprise is all about. </p>
<p>For example, the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> has been painstakingly building consensus about climate change over several decades. Creating real consensus on complex issues takes more than a week-long workshop with 20 participants and the trumpeting of priority lists.</p>
<p>Why then, has the real consensus on climate change been ignored by some? Part of the reason is that we are embedded in what sociolinguist Deborah Tannen calls “<a href="http://faculty.georgetown.edu/tannend/book_argument_culture.html">the argument culture</a>”, in which even the most complex problems are cast as a duel between polar opposites. Much of the media, the law, politics, and academia are caught in this trap of viewing all discussion as a competition between two extremes, with no common ground, with one side right and the other wrong. </p>
<p>The argument culture has a pervasive influence on our lives, and the climate “debate” is a perfect example. Sections of the media still <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/10/10/study-media-sowed-doubt-in-coverage-of-un-clima/196387">habitually pit scientists against deniers</a>, and as a result many citizens see themselves as either “believers” or “non-believers” in the science of climate change. To scientists this is like asking people whether they “believe” in gravity. </p>
<p>The argument culture extends deep into questions of policy, to the extent that choosing an economic instrument becomes an exercise in ideology. For example, years of acrimonious political debate have created pervasive negative images around a “carbon tax”, even though the <a href="https://theconversation.com/carbon-pricing-is-still-the-best-way-to-cut-emissions-if-we-get-it-right-29894">economics of it are compelling</a>.</p>
<h2>A complex world needs a complex approach</h2>
<p>The complex problems that the world and Australia face require a multifaceted, complex approach – one that encourages real dialogue, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/bjorn-lomborgs-consensus-approach-is-blind-to-inequality-41789">embraces social and ethical considerations as well as economic analysis</a>, and that does not cast every discussion as a zero-sum, win-lose, either-or, you-or-me dichotomy. </p>
<p>To get beyond the argument culture and build real consensus is going to take creativity, diligence, openness, and honest and ongoing engagement with both the facts and the full range of stakeholders. </p>
<p>Australia’s universities are well placed to help society and governments work towards genuine consensus in this way. Most academics love nothing more than engagement in a broad public discussion about the big issues that face the nation and the world. It happens every day, including here on The Conversation, in journals like <a href="http://www.thesolutionsjournal.org">Solutions</a>, in the policy forum of the <a href="http://www.policyforum.net/">Asia Pacific Policy Society</a>, and in specialist centres such as the <a href="http://devpolicy.org">Development Policy Centre</a> that provides in-depth analysis on aid effectiveness – not to mention the countless workshops, conferences, papers and direct interactions between researchers and the policy community. The <a href="https://www.science.org.au/publications/australia-2050">Australian Academy of Science</a> recently ran a two-day workshop at which around 50 leading Australians were encouraged to listen to and understand one another’s thoughts about alternative futures rather than rush to conclusions and decisions.</p>
<p>If governments want so see progress towards real consensus on specific, important questions that face the nation, then universities can readily help. But Lomborg’s illusion of consensus only feeds the argument culture. Instead, governments that focus on making it easier for academics to participate meaningfully in these processes – and which actually listen to the findings – will find they get much more bang for their buck.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41979/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Jotzo receives research funding from the Australian government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Cork receives funding from the Australian Academy of Science. He is affiliated with Australia21.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Costanza does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is a way for governments to find out the consensus on global issues such as climate change. But it involves painstaking, complex work, and an end to the adversarial clash of competing ideologies.Robert Costanza, Professor and Chair in Public Policy at Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityFrank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate Economics and Policy, Australian National UniversitySteven Cork, Adjunct Professor/ Strategy/ Foresighting/ Ecosystem Services, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/417892015-05-15T02:48:34Z2015-05-15T02:48:34ZBjorn Lomborg’s consensus approach is blind to inequality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81770/original/image-20150514-28586-1dodzvs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C40%2C814%2C543&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bjorn Lomborg's cost-benefit approach isn't necessarily the best way to look at problems with a global scope.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABjorn_lomborg_cop15.jpg">Simon Wedege/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bjorn Lomborg is, undoubtedly, seriously concerned with poverty and inequality. Both in the work of the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com">Copenhagen Consensus Center</a> (CCC) and in his popular writings, this is a common theme. He has championed some very progressive ideas, including <a href="http://time.com/3387764/how-to-make-the-worlds-poor-500-billion-richer/">eradicating barriers to international migration</a>. Unfortunately, he has also used rather distorted arguments and evidence about inequality to attack some of his favourite bugbears, such as <a href="https://grahamkbrown.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/the-answer-is-blowing-in-the-wind-lomborg-on-renewable-electricity-subsidies/">subsidies for renewable energy</a>.</p>
<p>The problem is that the central methodology of Lomborg and the CCC is at best blind to inequality and, in its application, could actually increase it. Moreover, there are good arguments to suggest that if we take a broader view of inequality to include intergenerational equality, the CCC methodology is not even equality-blind; it is <em>equality-averse</em>.</p>
<h2>Simple analysis, simplistic outcomes</h2>
<p>The basic idea, that of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), is straightforward and, indeed, literally high school-level economics. You work out the economic cost of a particular investment (or policy) and estimate its economic benefits (including estimates of indirect costs and benefits such as health). The idea of the CCC is that, with expert advice, policy interventions in climate change, international development, or other global challenges can be prioritised in terms of their benefit-cost ratio.</p>
<p>The methodology is, in itself, blind to inequality. This is because it is based on a Benthamite assumption that the objective is utility maximization irrespective of the distribution of that utility. Put simply, an investment of $100 that returns $1,000 accruing to an already rich person is, in these terms, better than an investment with the same cost that generates $800 return that accrues to a poor person.</p>
<p>As Duke University’s <a href="https://law.duke.edu/fac/adler/">Matthew Adler</a> has consistently argued, the CBA methodology can be adjusted relatively easily to incorporate “aversion” to inequality by simply weighting the calculation according to who pays, and whom it benefits. In a simplistic scenario in which the world is divided into “poor” and “rich”, we might for instance weight benefits accruing to “poor” people twice as highly as benefits accruing to “rich” people. Applying this weighting to our previous example would reverse the ranking of the investments.</p>
<p>I should stress that this is <em>technically</em> easy in the sense that it is quite a simple calculation, even in more realistic situations where you have gradations of wealth and poverty. But it is ethically more difficult. How much inequality aversion should we build in? This will necessarily be a somewhat arbitrary decision and subject to contested views, and indeed societies will expect to be free to <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272700001717">make different value judgements</a> about tolerable levels of inequality for different issues.</p>
<h2>Cost-benefit and international development</h2>
<p>Lomborg might assert that this doesn’t really matter because his centre is set up to look primarily at problems affecting the poor, so policies that benefit the rich are automatically ruled out. But this is insufficient defence because the world is not just divided into “rich” and “poor”. There are gradations of poverty, and while many individuals and families move in and out of poverty throughout their lives (in a process termed churning), there are many others who live in situations of “<a href="http://www.chronicpoverty.org">chronic poverty</a>”, and it is these who are often <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.com/handle/10986/13693">missed or under-serviced</a> by international development assistance.</p>
<p>It is my contention that a CBA approach to international development would simply exacerbate this problem, contributing to a widening divide between middle- and low-income countries and groups on the one hand, and those countries and groups trapped in chronic poverty on the other hand.</p>
<p>Let’s take the example of immunization against infectious diseases. CCC analyses of public health often return very sizeable benefit-cost ratios for such policies, and not surprisingly so: few international development experts would dispute that immunization is, in principle, a very cheap and effective way of improving livelihoods. </p>
<p>Such analyses, including the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/infectious-disease">CCC papers on infectious diseases</a>, are based on an estimated economic benefit expressed in terms of “disability-adjusted life years” (DALYs) – basically the monetary value on one year of healthy living for one individual. The CCC papers typically take a value of between US$1,000 and US$5,000 for a DALY.</p>
<p>Now suppose we agree with the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/outcome_document_updated_1105.pdf">2012 CCC outcome</a> that of a hypothetical budget of US$75 billion over four years, we would invest US$1 billion per year in child immunization. Where, geographically, would we invest it? Inevitably cost-benefit analysis would lead us to invest in relatively wealthy countries, because DALYs are necessarily worth more money in a place with higher economic standing.</p>
<p>Likewise, the costs for administering immunizations would probably be higher in poor countries, which typically have worse infrastructure, a comparative lack of trained health professionals, and are often bedeviled by insecurity and conflict.</p>
<p>Lomborg and his advocates might argue that their approach was never intended to be applied at this level of implementation (and, indeed, the CCC paper on infectious diseases argues for a single DALY for precisely this reason). But my example nevertheless shows how a cost-benefit approach without inequality aversion will almost inevitably prioritise marginal poverty rather than entrenched disadvantage. The consequences are clear: the poorest of the poor would still be left out and we would end up exacerbating inequality in the developing world.</p>
<h2>Intergenerational inequality?</h2>
<p>The picture is complicated even more when considering issues where the benefits are deferred – such as taking action on climate change.</p>
<p>Cost-benefit calculations typically deal with this by using “discount rates”. Typically, humans are not good at deferred gratification; we would much rather have $100 today than next year, so discount rates place a lower value on returns the further they are in the future.</p>
<p>This approach is contentious, particularly in <a href="http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-resource-100913-012516">environmental economics</a>, where the benefits of our investments accrue to future generations rather than ourselves. Do we have the ethical right to discount the value of the lives and livelihoods of future generations against our own shorter-term financial benefit?</p>
<p>In climate economics, the time horizons are so long that even a relatively low discount rate can generate apparently absurd conclusions. More generally, any discount rate can be interpreted as a preference for intergenerational inequality: it systematically values the welfare of future generations at a lower level than our own.</p>
<h2>Cost-benefit analysis on the world stage</h2>
<p>As we have seen, where cost-benefit analysis is applied to decisions that affect a diverse, disparate population (such as the global population), it is liable to entrench inequality unless we ask <em>who</em> benefits, rather than just how much.</p>
<p>Remember that cost-benefit analysis was originally developed to evaluate decisions that affect the same group that makes the decision. This might be a firm deciding how much to invest in R&D; a government choosing what infrastructure to build on behalf of the society it represents; or, at the extreme end, a person’s individual financial decisions that affect only themself.</p>
<p>But now imagine deciding on a major infrastructure investment in a developing country, and having to choose between road or rail. In this situation it would seem remiss not consider who benefits. Roads might generate a better overall economic return, but might also disadvantage those who are too poor to have a car.</p>
<p>The larger the scale of the decision-making, the more important these distributional considerations become. It is therefore crucial that the people affected by the decisions are represented in the decision-making process. But at the CCC, where the evaluation and ranking of priorities is made by an “expert panel” (however undoubtedly eminent in their fields), this is demonstrably not the case. </p>
<p>Thus the global aspirations of the CCC project are its Achilles’ heel. By calculating benefit-cost ratios at the global level, without the participation of those affected by the proposals, it risks favouring policies that will exacerbate, rather than overcome, global inequality.</p>
<p><em>This is an edited version of a blog post that originally appeared <a href="https://grahamkbrown.wordpress.com/2015/05/12/consenting-to-inequality-the-distributional-consequences-of-copenhagen-consensus-approach/">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41789/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Graham K. Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bjorn Lomborg’s “consensus” approach involves ranking global development policies by their ratio of benefit to cost. But this hard-headed economic rationale can actually end up entrenching inequality.Graham K. Brown, Professor of International Development, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.