tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/bjorn-lomborg-16339/articlesBjorn Lomborg – The Conversation2021-03-02T13:54:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1557322021-03-02T13:54:48Z2021-03-02T13:54:48ZThree possible futures for global climate scepticism<p>Climate change scepticism has been present in politics for as long as climate change itself. Part of a wider outlook of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13569317.2019.1633101">environmental scepticism</a>, it encompasses a range of views from outright denial that the world is warming through to attempts to downplay or sideline the risks stemming from a changing climate.</p>
<p>For most of its history, climate scepticism was a niche political tendency, and where it did exist the more vocal forms tended to be the minority. But an increasingly globalised world and a proliferation of climate-sceptical leaders have made it a global force. </p>
<p>This was best exemplified by Donald Trump’s candidacy and presidency. Trump described climate change <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15726472/trump-tweets-global-warming-paris-climate-agreement">as a “hoax”</a> and withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement. He shepherded into the mainstream a more overtly right-wing populist variation of environmental scepticism in which environmentalists are framed as part of the “corrupt elite” acting <a href="https://amc.sas.upenn.edu/cas-mudde-populism-twenty-first-century">against the interests of the “pure” people</a>.</p>
<p>But with Trump’s presidency giving way to Joe Biden’s, what are the future prospects for environmental scepticism? There are three broad scenarios:</p>
<h2>1: Retreat</h2>
<p>In the first possible scenario, global climate scepticism will fade into obscurity and return to its previous niche position, its influence limited to true believers. This is the most appealing scenario for anyone hoping to address the climate emergency. However, given that climate change denial and other manifestations of environmental scepticism existed and <a href="https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/GLEP_a_00105">had political influence</a> before Trump, it is likely that they will not disappear quietly. </p>
<p>In countries which are not currently led by deniers, it may be possible to sideline the more extreme ideas in the mainstream media. In the UK, media regulator Ofcom’s <a href="https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/195621/Loveworld-Sanction.pdf">use of sanctions</a> to deal with coronavirus misinformation could provide a framework for doing this. Of course, this in itself could have the unfortunate side effect of creating a backlash against perceived censorship.</p>
<h2>2: Re-liberalisation</h2>
<p>The second possible future involves a retreat from right-wing populist scepticism and outright climate denial, and a movement back towards the more “<a href="https://www.ideology-theory-practice.org/blog/the-rise-and-possible-fall-of-environmental-scepticism">liberal humanitarian</a>” varieties.</p>
<p>The most prominent example of this strand is the political scientist Bjorn Lomborg, whose book <a href="https://www.lomborg.com/skeptical-environmentalist">The Skeptical Environmentalist</a> set the tone for climate scepticism in Europe from the early 21st century. Global warming is happening, in his view, but its threat has been exaggerated. Lomborg makes a resource-based argument for reducing the priority given to climate change: we do not, he argues, have the money to address every threat, so we should focus our efforts on solving problems posing a greater immediate threat to human life, such as <a href="https://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/cc08_results_final_0.pdf">malnutrition or disease</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Offshore wind farm from above." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/387230/original/file-20210302-17-191vhrd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lomborg says solar and wind power are inefficient uses of our resources.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">fokke baarssen / shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Arguments like this fit neatly with the current concerns of UK chancellor Rishi Sunak, who has made <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/15/boris-johnson-rishi-sunak-treasury-clash-green-agenda-environment-spending">similar objections</a> to prime minister Boris Johnson’s plans for a “green industrial revolution”, and more generally with the complexities of incorporating green elements into pandemic relief efforts. </p>
<p>It is likely that the more moderate and scientifically-aware climate scepticism of Lomborg and newcomers to the scene such as “ecomodernist” and nuclear energy advocate <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/04/the-environmentalists-apology-how-michael-shellenberger-unsettled-some-of-his-prominent-supporters">Michael Shellenberger</a> will grow in influence if the Trumpian variety fades.</p>
<h2>3: Business as usual</h2>
<p>While the US is no longer led by a climate change denier, the populist strain of global climate scepticism is still well represented around the world. As such, it is possible to imagine climate scepticism continuing in a similar manner as before, albeit with a temporary reduction of geopolitical power. </p>
<p>Poland’s recently re-elected president Andrzej Duda is a case in point, tying a defence of his country’s coal industry into a <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/duda-climate-emissions-poland/">nationalist critique of EU decarbonisation policies</a>. Australia’s prime minister Scott Morrison could rival Duda in his <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australia-wildfires-climate-change-scott-morrison-coal-industry-a9258811.html">protectiveness of the coal industry</a>, while Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro has even <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-environment-fires-idUSKCN2572WB">denied the existence</a> of widespread forest fires in the Amazon. Taken individually, none of these leaders rivals a US president’s impact on the global political scene. However, collectively, they have the potential to form the nucleus of a global anti-environmentalist bloc.</p>
<p>And what of the US and the UK in this scenario? The low-key but persistent <a href="https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2020/05/Constable-Covid-GreenDeal.pdf">backlash</a> against the pro-environmental policies of Joe Biden and Boris Johnson suggest a holding pattern is in place. For climate sceptics in both countries, the likely aim will be to delay policies coming into effect or knock the more effective edges off them before they can be enacted, rather than halting them altogether.</p>
<p>This list is of course highly speculative, based on early indications. It is likely that the scenarios I’ve just listed will each pan out in some form, with some blurring at the edges between them. For example, re-liberalisation could occur in countries where it would gain the most sympathy, with business as usual in countries led by vocal climate sceptics. A partial retreat could also be combined with re-liberalisation in some cases. </p>
<p>The least likely scenario, however, is the one in which climate scepticism ceases to be a force to be reckoned with.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note on correction: This article has been amended to remove reference to Zion Lights, who was incorrectly identified as a climate sceptic. Zion Lights tells us, which we accept, that they have never questioned the science on climate change and have in fact been active in the movement for effective action on global warming</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eloise Harding 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>Retreat, re-liberalisation, or business as usual.Eloise Harding, Teaching Fellow in Politics, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/495402015-10-22T00:21:09Z2015-10-22T00:21:09ZFarewell to Lomborg – what did the episode teach us?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99251/original/image-20151021-15440-11dpxkx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mat McDermott</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Bjorn Lomborg’s bid to find an Australian home has come to an abrupt end. The Turnbull government has <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-21/govt-withdraws-funding-from-lomborg-centre/6873238">withdrawn</a> the promised A$4 million in funding that the former Abbott government committed to Lomborg’s proposed Australia Consensus Centre after Lomborg was unable to find an Australian university to host him.</p>
<p>Writing in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/dont-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-story/story-fni1hfs5-1227566545598?sv=f7101b3c78153ff33bff71c0aac906b">The Australian</a> two weeks ago, in a second defence of his proposed centre this year, Lomborg took issue with my <a href="https://theconversation.com/academic-freedom-isnt-the-issue-with-lomborgs-consensus-centre-48586">previous article</a> in The Conversation. In it, I pointed to an NTEU document introduced at a Flinders University Council meeting in August that alleged 14 out of 42 Australian universities had rejected hosting the controversial climate change inactivist. The most distinctive feature of Lomborg’s opinion piece is that he did not deny the fact that so many Australian universities had rejected his centre.</p>
<p>At Flinders, though, one deputy vice-chancellor had <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/28/bjrn-lomborgs-4m-centre-rejected-by-flinders-university-academics">sought to keep the door open</a> to Lomborg – right up to the last minute, by all accounts.</p>
<p>In Canberra, meanwhile, it is difficult to believe that former education minister Christopher Pyne had supposedly decided to pull the funding in the wake of Malcolm Turnbull’s ascension to the prime ministership, but left new minister Simon Birmingham to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2015/oct/21/joe-hockey-delivers-his-final-speech-to-parliament-politics-live#block-5626f6d6e4b0f19fd8d1bf3f">announce it</a> during a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday. Flinders’ vice-chancellor, Colin Stirling, only found out from Birmingham on Wednesday morning.</p>
<p>Stirling subsequently posted a statement on Flinders’ <a href="http://blogs.flinders.edu.au/flinders-news/2015/10/21/research-funding-withdrawal/">website</a>. The statement said he was:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… disappointed that the federal government has chosen to withdraw funding for a possible high-level research collaboration with the Copenhagen Consensus Centre.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Reasserting that he was pleased with the principled stance that Flinders had taken, Stirling declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Universities should be places for contesting controversial issues without fear or favour – and Flinders has shown itself to be a champion of this notion, displaying fortitude, vision, and independence. We will continue to seek research opportunities that invite the robust, critical thinking for which we’re renowned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Doubtless, Stirling and others at Flinders may have been impressed by the credentials that Lomborg promised to offer to an Australian university. While Lomborg has not operated a centre at a university for many years, he has offered the services of Nobel Prize-winning economists. As journalist Graham Readfearn has <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2015/05/26/seven-nobel-laureates-behind-climate-contrarian-bjorn-lomborg">noted</a>, practically every story penned about Lomborg’s proposed Australian centre has stressed how Lomborg works with “seven Nobel Laureates”. This includes Lomborg’s October 13 <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/dont-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way-of-a-good-story/story-fni1hfs5-1227566545598?sv=f7101b3c78153ff33bff71c0aac906b">article</a> in The Australian.</p>
<p>At least one of these laureates, Vernon Smith, has been <a href="http://eagle.gmu.edu/newsroom/625/">funded</a> by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elliott-negin/unreliable-sources-how-th_b_3255192.html?ir=Australia">climate sceptic billionaires</a> the Koch brothers. Only two have reportedly worked with Lomborg in recent times on “expert panels”. But there is one of these laureates that Flinders would never have been able to work with: Robert Fogel, who died more than two years ago.</p>
<p>Whether or not the Turnbull government had re-examined Lomborg’s past operations before pulling the funding is not known. But it is likely that the highly successful <a href="https://twitter.com/StopBjornFU">social media</a> campaign against both Lomborg and Flinders management played a key role in the decision. The <a href="http://www.aycc.org.au/bjorn_free">Australian Youth Climate Coalition</a> had gathered more than 7000 signatures against the funding. Lomborg had also rapidly attracted a large amount of negative press in both mainstream and open web news sites.</p>
<p>While Liberal senator Cory Bernardi <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/bjorn-lomborg-climate-centre-dropped-by-turnbull-government-simon-birmingham-20151021-gkek0s.html#ixzz3pCeJm23H">took to Twitter</a> to condemn the decision as “a pathetic sop to leftist bullying”, the new Turnbull ministry is likely heeding the power of social media in a way that the Abbott government never did. Tony Abbott infamously referred to social media as “electronic graffiti”.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"656685133773144064"}"></div></p>
<p>Turnbull, a successful Twitter user, understands the difference between a genuine community campaign conducted on social media and the operation of trolls who serve quite narrow interests on both the left and right of politics.</p>
<p>The community campaign was set to grow, too. Flinders students were using <a href="https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/31829-stop-lomborg-at-flinders-uni">Thunderclap</a> to amplify their reach and support for the Stop Lomborg campaign.</p>
<p>But the translation of what is essentially a single issue into a social movement would not have happened had Lomborg himself not represented something that draws such angry responses from people concerned about climate change. </p>
<p>Part of the problem for Lomborg is that he has become a victim of his own PR and an easy target for those feeling disempowered by climate change. When they hear Lomborg <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU-LTKOJY9M">tell audiences</a> that the net impact of global warming from 1900 to 2050 will be a positive one, without any regard for committing the next 2000 years to hell on earth, people get angry. </p>
<p>The abstractness and intangibility of the climate crisis, and the difficulty of knowing what actions can make a difference, is part of what makes climate change the greatest social problem of our time. For those who accept the science, now is the time to take action.</p>
<p>When Lomborg encourages us to “feel good” about <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/the-world-is-warming-but-theres-no-need-to-panic/story-fni1hfs5-1226731120767">delaying action</a> on climate change, such as replacing today’s spending on renewable energy with renewable research, he is not going to win over those who have truly confronted the scale and immediacy of the climate crisis – which so many Australians now have.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49540/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Bjorn Lomborg’s bid to find an Australian home has come to an abrupt end. The Turnbull government has withdrawn the promised A$4 million in funding that the former Abbott government committed to Lomborg’s…David Holmes, Senior Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag: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/454232015-07-30T01:37:08Z2015-07-30T01:37:08ZStill no consensus for Bjorn Lomborg, the climate change refugee<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90233/original/image-20150730-10358-uj4dp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With much-cited <a href="http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/migration_and_environment.pdf">forecasts</a> that the year 2050 will see 200 million climate change refugees around the world, climate inactivist Bjorn Lomborg may qualify as Australia’s first climate asylum seeker. Yet it is not scorching temperatures or sea level rise he is seeking refuge from, but the political heat he attracts worldwide for his contrarian views on climate.</p>
<p>The second rejection of a Bjorn-again “Consensus Centre” by an Australian university this week raises questions as to whether any university would ever go near Lomborg, even if the federal government is putting up A$4 million to host him. These millions were allocated to Lomborg in the 2015 budget. </p>
<p>The University of Western Australia backflipped on a decision to host the centre in May. And now <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/28/bjrn-lomborgs-4m-centre-rejected-by-flinders-university-academics">Flinders University</a> has solidly refused to establish an Australia Consensus Centre for Lomborg.</p>
<p>Lomborg has been rendered virtually “stateless” as a political actor on climate since being defunded by the Danish government in 2012. He then moved his focus to the United States where he was able to attract considerable private funding for an operation known as the Copenhagen Consensus Centre (CCC), based in Massachusetts.</p>
<p>An image of the so-called centre, which was actually operating from a parcel service in Lowell, Massachusetts, was doing the rounds on Twitter last year as part of the campaign against Lomborg’s presence on US soil.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"493862304321372161"}"></div></p>
<p>While the “centre” was operating out of Massachusetts, Lomborg was actually living in Prague and reportedly travelling up to 200 days per year. He drew on the US$775,000 the CCC paid him <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/bjorn-lomborg-think-tank-funder-revealed-billionaire-vulture-capitalist-57745">in 2012</a> and US$200,484 in 2013.</p>
<p>But without a regular salary to back his globetrotting activities, Lomborg has been seeking to replicate his US funding here.</p>
<p>Education Minister Christopher Pyne pledged his determination to find a university home for Lomborg. This brought him back to his home town of Adelaide and negotiations with Flinders University.</p>
<p>Doubtless, there will be a new spike in outrage from conservative commenters over Lomborg’s homelessness. A campaign to give Lomborg’s centre university legitimacy has been hosted by the right-wing think tank <a href="http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/?p=6453">Menzies House</a>, which has sought to make it an “academic freedom” issue. It called on supporters in May to fund <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/bjornlomborg">full-page newspaper advertisements</a>, to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… stand with Dr Lomborg.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>“Academic censorship will NOT be tolerated,” Tim Andrews from Menzies House tells his readers. Pyne sought to characterise the Lomborg rejections as a <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/bjorn-lomborg-confident-of-getting-host-for-consensus-centre/story-e6frgcjx-1227349657063">freedom of speech</a> issue. Former Institute of Public Affairs staffer and current Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson, labelled it “soft-censorship” in an article in <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/soft-censorship-wins-out-over-public-policy/story-e6frg6zo-1227349537203">The Australian</a>.</p>
<p>In defence of Lomborg, the original UWA proposal was to look at a centre that would concentrate primarily on spending programs for the developing world, and the charge is that he was ousted from the university for his views on climate change. </p>
<p>Even if this were true, however, how would conservatives defend the charge that the abolition of the Climate Commission, or the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/treasury-chief-martin-parkinson-says-climate-refugees-inevitable-20140412-36k47.html">sacking</a> of Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson, were not simply forms of censorship of groups and individuals for their views and perspectives on climate change?</p>
<p>As noted previously, Lomborg’s policy ideas on climate change have had <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-bjorn-supremacy-is-australia-getting-the-climate-advice-it-deserves-40716">considerable influence</a> on the Abbott government’s strategies for doing as little as possible to decarbonise the economy.</p>
<p>Many of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-bjorn-supremacy-is-australia-getting-the-climate-advice-it-deserves-40716">Lomborg’s arguments</a> are familiar in the rhetoric of the Coalition’s pronouncements:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>That renewables are not up to the job of providing baseload;</p></li>
<li><p>That renewables will supposedly lead to electricity price rises;</p></li>
<li><p>That there are much more important problems that Australia could fund than climate change; or </p></li>
<li><p>That exporting coal will help lift developing countries out of poverty.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The Coalition’s enthusiasm for Lomborg coincides with the <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/climate-change-and-the-intellectual-decline-of-the-right/">decline of the intellectual right</a> in Australia. The latter development is most lamentable for Australian politics. It has deprived Australia of the kinds of constructive debates that were once possible across the political spectrum. </p>
<p>Instead, what we now have is a Coalition captive to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-zombies-can-labor-bring-back-a-tabloid-proof-climate-policy-45119">mental life of a tabloid</a> front page. Labor is trying to avoid the same front page, while at the same time failing to get its message out.</p>
<p><em>An earlier version of this article stated that Dr Lomborg was unable to find a US university to host the Copenhagen Consensus Center. A spokesperson for the Center says that the CCC has never sought a US host university, so this sentence has been amended.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The second rejection of Bjorn Lomborg’s “Consensus Centre” by an Australian university this week raises questions as to whether any university would ever go near him.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.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/192572015-05-06T07:36:21Z2015-05-06T07:36:21ZBjorn again<p>Well they may have lost out on their fair share of the GST, but my friends at the University of Western Australia (UWA) are A$4 million better off thanks to a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-20/vice-chancellor-defends-think-tank-centre-at-uwa/6407560">one-off Federal government grant</a> by the Minister for Education Christoper “the fixer” Pyne. The grant is to establish a new “<a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504027455/events/new-economic-prioritisation-research-centre-uwa">Australia Consensus Centre</a>” at UWA. </p>
<p>The consensus among most of my peers is that this was a bad idea. Why?
Well first off, the new Centre is a partnership between the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/">Copenhagen Consensus Center</a> and the University of Western Australia. It thus features the Danish academic <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/">Bjorn Lomborg</a>, author of the controversial books <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/skeptical-environmentalist">The Sceptical Environmentalist</a> and <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/cool-it">Cool It</a>, both of which argue that climate change is not our biggest problem and that we should relax about it (or in Bjorn’s terms, “cool it”.</p>
<p>Bjorn <a href="http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/">gets up the nose</a> of many environmentalists. He takes delight in attacking policies aimed at reducing CO2 (such as subsidies for renewables, electric cars and carbon taxes) and he also argues that climate change is real, but that the immediate effects of it, and rate of it, have been overstated. </p>
<p>Indeed he thinks that we should spend money on things like malaria and HIV prevention programmes because the bang for buck is significantly more than what CO2-reduction will achieve in economic terms.</p>
<p>Despite his views on the impact of global warming being anything but the “consensus”, everything he’s a member of seems to have consensus in the title – with this latest centre being another example. One can’t help but feel that Bjorn loves being controversial. His own Copenhagen Consensus Center had its funding withdrawn a few years ago by the new Danish government and he has been investigated for scientific dishonesty at the insistence of his Danish peers.</p>
<h2>Nutter or courageous?</h2>
<p>Although UWA <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504027455/events/new-economic-prioritisation-research-centre-uwa">proudly declared</a> the formation of the Centre, the university failed to mention the A$4 million of “Federal support” that helped make it possible. </p>
<p>This money was a one-off grant courtesy of education minister, Christopher Pyne, now that he is free of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/science-infrastructure-funding-is-being-held-hostage-by-government-38423">NCRIS hostage crisis</a>. Pyne sees no difference between his funding of ‘I don’t like carbon taxes’ Lomborg and the Labor government’s funding of <a href="https://theconversation.com/au">The Conversation</a>! <strong>Heresy!</strong></p>
<p>Lomborg himself is not your standard <em>“I Google therefore I’m a researcher”</em> blogger. He argues that climate change is both real and a problem, but an economically unwise one to tackle in 2015. Indeed, he has found himself the target of <a href="http://joannenova.com.au/2010/11/lomborg-uses-irrational-name-calling-and-denies-the-evidence/">climate change denial websites</a>. So he cops it from both sides.</p>
<p>But is Bjorn condemned because he’s a nutter, or because he dares to question pro-Green strategies?</p>
<p>At this point I must confess that I like Bjorn, not just because I’m a senior academic and he’s a gay vegetarian, but because he’s not like everyone else. He asks some very fundamental questions, like “what is the biggest crisis we’re facing?”. If you can’t ask things like that at a university, then where can you ask them?</p>
<p>Where I think Bjorn might go astray is when he tries (from the position of an economist!) to make sense of the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/oct/14/climatechange.conservation">rate of change of polar bear numbers</a>, something he is poorly qualified to do. </p>
<p>Bjorn also has the problem that if he’d done all his research and concluded that climate change <em>was the greatest problem we face</em>, he wouldn’t have had a book to write. So is he an unbiased observer or someone trying to continually prove what he said before was correct in a field where the “assumptions” one has to make are many and varied?</p>
<p>So I am quite comfortable living in a world where the Bjorns are allowed to ask their questions, present data and we all debate them. What I’m more annoyed about, is when anyone questions any green or decarbonising policy they are instantly branded a heretic.</p>
<p>For instance one might assume based upon standard “Labor/Green policies are good and the coalition’s are bad” theorems that Direct Action is a disaster, the Renewable Energy Target scheme is wonderful and that we should all be driving electric cars.</p>
<p>Let’s look at some of these with some calculations.</p>
<h2>Direct Action</h2>
<p>Last week was a big one for the minister for the environment, Greg Hunt, with the first of his carbon abatement auctions. For a lazy A$660 million the Coalition bought 47 million tons of carbon abatement at an average price of about $14/ton.</p>
<p>I currently sit of the board of the <a href="http://www.lowcarbonlivingcrc.com.au/">Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Low Carbon Living</a>, which was funded by Labor Senator Kim Carr to remove 10 million tons of CO2 at a cost to the tax-payer of A$28 million, or $2.80 per ton. At face value, if the CRC achieves its original objective, it will be five times more efficient than Direct Action! But is this typical?</p>
<h2>The Renewable Energy Target</h2>
<p>Australia’s other attempt to dampen our carbon footprint is the Renewable Energy Target (<a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/renewable-energy-target-scheme">RET</a>), which hopes to drive us towards sourcing over 20% of our electricity from renewables by 2020.</p>
<p>Excitingly, I am a participant in this scheme courtesy of my 1.5 kW solar panel “power station” on my roof, purchased in 2009 when the initial subsidy was about $A4,000, and for every kWh I pump into the grid I receive another 67c. Being a complete nerd, I’ve delighted in measuring exactly how many kWh I place into the grid and carefully optimising use of our dishwasher, washing machine etc to maximise the government subsidy. </p>
<p>It turns out that each year I return about 700 kWh into the grid and receive A$470 back from the RET! I also use about 700 kWh of my own power, so in total I’m saving the planet about 1400 kWh per year and the government is paying me A$470 per annum for that. </p>
<p>Now, if I didn’t have my panels we’d be burning more brown coal in the La Trobe valley. And as a rough rule of thumb, if you are using brown coal, 1 kWh of energy produces about 1kg of CO2. So my panels are saving 1.4 tons of CO2 per annum, but the cost to the tax-payer is A$470. So the price is A$470/1.4 or A$335/ton!</p>
<p>If you factor in the original A$4,000 subsidy and you say the panels last 25 years, this adds another A$4,000/(25x1.4) = A$114/ton. So my panels are reducing CO2 emissions over their 25 year lifetime by about 35 tons, but costing the tax-payer A$449/ton. In 2009 the Labor-Green coalition thought this was a good price. This compares extremely unfavourably to Hunt’s 2015 Direct Action plan at just A$14/ton.</p>
<p>Nowadays the feed-in tariff in Victoria is only 6.2c/kWh. My 1.5 kW system would still be saving the same amount of carbon (1.4 tons/year), but would be costing more like A$45/1.4 = $32 per ton, plus the one-off subsidy cost (now about A$1,000/1.5 kW), which makes the cost about A$35/ton. This is still more than twice as costly as Direct Action per kg of carbon not in the atmosphere.</p>
<h2>My Tesla</h2>
<p>OK, so I don’t have a <a href="http://www.teslamotors.com/en_AU">Tesla</a>. But as an Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor at a university with a sustainability agenda, what better excuse for an insane purchase is there than saving the planet?</p>
<p>The Tesla is an incredibly expensive, but uber-cool, all-electric sportscar. Imagine one of these toys parked outside Swinburne’s Advanced Manufacturing Design Centre on open day? Young impressionable undergrads would be seduced by its charm, and our ATAR score for engineering would skyrocket.</p>
<p>But does an electric vehicle in Melbourne really save the planet? </p>
<p>To fully charge a Tesla requires about 100 kWh from the grid. In Melbourne that mostly comes from brown coal. So that is ~100 kg of CO2 per charge! And my Tesla would only go about 350 km before we’d need to recharge it. So per 100 km, I’m emitting about 28 kg of CO2.</p>
<p>How does that compare with my existing hybrid (a Prius)? My Prius almost always achieves 4.7 l/100km. This is just 13 kg of CO2/100 km. So unless I’m going to simultaneously invest in a bunch of solar panels, I’m actually greener sticking with my Prius than buying a Tesla.</p>
<p>That is rather disappointing. The bottom line is that unless you replace your brown coal power plants by nuclear or solar, buying an electric car is worse for the environment than sticking to your hybrid - not a statement you hear a lot from some political corners.</p>
<h2>Becoming Bjorn again</h2>
<p>So getting back to Bjorn, yes I’m annoyed that the minister didn’t ring Swinburne and want to give us A$4 million for a new research centre. But I’m also of the opinion that it has to be valid to challenge the costs of the various CO2 reduction schemes. And if they are good enough they’ll stand up to evidence-based scrutiny, by Bjorn or anyone else. If we refuse to have our carbon strategies costed and scrutinised, we’re no better than many fundamentalists.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/19257/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Bailes receives funding from the Australian Research Council for Astrophysics and the Federal government for design of the Square Kilometre Array. He has also received support from supercomputing companies to attend workshops and conferences and investigate the impact of various technologies on the future of radio astronomy.</span></em></p>Bjorn Lomborg seems to inspire anything but consensus, but is his approach all that bad?Matthew Bailes, Pro-Vice Chancellor (Research) , Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/408082015-04-26T13:40:01Z2015-04-26T13:40:01ZThe Australian Consensus Centre: what are the costs and benefits to UWA?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79543/original/image-20150428-18164-pqiqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The University of Western Australia's Winthrop Hall.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UWA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This column is usually focused on the role of entrepreneurship, innovation and small business in the Australian and global economy. However, I am devoting this article to a discussion over the costs and benefits of the plan to establish the Australian Consensus Centre (ACC) at the University of Western Australia (UWA). This is in the spirit of academic freedom and is a reflection of a senior UWA academic staff member who cares deeply about the reputation of my institution. </p>
<p>Since Lenore Taylor’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/17/abbott-government-gives-4m-to-help-climate-sceptic-set-up-australian-centre">article in <em>The Guardian</em></a> on Friday 17 April, of the federal government’s plan to grant $4 million to UWA to establish the ACC, the issue has generated significant national and international media attention. It has also evoked a strong and largely negative reaction from the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/24/university-of-wa-academics-demand-end-to-deal-with-climate-change-contrarian">UWA staff</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/21/wa-students-call-for-bjrn-lomborgs-4m-for-climate-research-to-be-rejected">students</a>. This is principally driven by its association with the controversial climate science sceptic <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/">Dr Bjorn Lomborg</a>.</p>
<p>Every day that passes appears to generate a new twist or turn to this story and generally raises more questions than answers. Dr Lomborg visited UWA in March 2015 and gave a <a href="http://events.uwa.edu.au/event/20150311T064935Z-2518-7200@events.uwa.edu.au/whatson/businessschool">lecture at the Business School</a>. However, despite a <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504027455/events/new-economic-prioritisation-research-centre-uwa">low-key announcement</a> on 2 April, there was little discussion about the ACC with the staff. Even within the UWA Business School. The connection with the federal government was also held in confidence until <em>The Guardian</em> report later that month. </p>
<p>Of particular concern is whether the benefits that UWA might accrue from hosting this centre outweigh the costs.</p>
<h2>Dr Bjorn Lomborg the academic</h2>
<p>The central character is this story is Dr Lomborg a 50 year old Dane who founded the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/">Copenhagen Consensus Centre</a> (CCC) and who will play a critical role in the UWA ACC. While his background is widely published in other media, it is worthwhile summarising the story of Lomborg and the creation of the CCC as it provides an important context for understanding the proposed new centre at UWA.</p>
<p>Lomborg graduated with a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Aarhus in 1991, and a PhD in political science from the University of Copenhagen in 1994. His academic career comprises a period as an Assistant Professor (1994-1996) and then Associate Professor (1997-2005) at the University of Aarhus, where he taught statistics within the Political Science Department. </p>
<p>His early academic career saw his research focus on game theory. Between 1991 and 2001 Dr Lomborg published about 20 papers, most of which were outside the peer reviewed journals. They include a <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/3-540-58266-5_5">book chapter</a> on game theory and the iterated prisoner’s dilemma published in 1994, and a peer-reviewed article in the <em>American Sociological Review</em> published in 1996 titled “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2096335?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21106580136713">Nucleus and Shield: The evolution of social structure in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma</a>”. This latter paper has been attributed with 141 citations since its publication and remains Lomborg’s most highly cited work in the peer reviewed literature.</p>
<p>This track record in the peer reviewed scientific literature is unexceptional. It has led <a href="http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/sarah.dunlop">Professor Sarah Dunlop</a> Head of the School of Animal Biology and Head of Experimental and Regenerative Neurosciences at UWA to question how he could be appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the university. In a <a href="http://conservationbytes.com/2015/04/22/something-rotten-from-denmark/">letter to the Vice Chancellor</a> Professor Dunlop suggested that Lomborg had only 28 publications with 55 citations with one paper (Nucleus and Shield) accounting for 84% of the total. She suggested that his “H-Index” (a measure of the number of citations a paper or author has received over their life time) was a paltry “3”. </p>
<p>Citations metrics are an important measure of an academic researcher’s performance and are used as a factor when considering appointments and promotions. However, the collection and scoring of citation metrics is made complex by the way it is collected and reported. As an article in <a href="http://conservationbytes.com/2015/04/24/lomborg-a-detailed-citation-analysis/">conservationbytes.com</a> explains, depending on which database is used the citations increase. Further, since 2001 Lomborg has mainly published books, many of which are best sellers and these are generally very heavily cited. </p>
<p>However, these books remain outside the realm of the double-blind peer-reviewed literature, which remains the gold standard for academic currency. So Dr Lomborg who at best might have an H-index of “4” is not a research academic from the perspective of conventional science. Instead he is a prolific author in the mainstream media with a very large number of articles published in leading newspapers including <em>The Economist</em>, <em>The Washington Post</em>, <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, <em>The Times</em>, <em>The Guardian</em> and <em>Scientific American</em>. </p>
<h2>Dr Lomborg the sceptical environmentalist</h2>
<p>In the late 1990s Lomborg shifted his focus away from game theory and onto politics and then the environment. He published another book chapter in 1997 titled “<a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-662-03366-1_29">Simulating multiparty systems</a>”.
However, it was his foray into environmental issues where he made his mark. According to a review of Lomborg’s work by Jeron van den Bergh, published in the <em><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19438150903533730?journalCode=nens20">Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences</a></em> in 2010, the shift to environmental policy commenced in February 1997. </p>
<p>At that time Lomborg was in Los Angeles where he allegedly read a magazine interview with American economist Julian Simon. It was Simon’s claim that his own analysis of the publicly available statistics found that the “doomsday” claims of climate science were incorrect. This captured Lomborg’s interest and he sought to use his knowledge of statistics to replicate Simon’s work.</p>
<p>He reportedly set up a study group with his students and claims to have found that Simon was correct. In 1998 he published a series of articles in the Danish newspaper <em>Politiken</em> outlining his findings, which triggered a major debate across all forms of media. By 1998 he had published a book in Danish <em>Verdens Sande Tilstand</em> (The True State of the World), summarising his claims. It was positioned as a counter to the World Watch Institute’s annual report on “The State of the World”.</p>
<p>In response the <em>Danish Ecological Council</em> (an independent advisory committee on environmental matters) organised a counter publication to Lomborg’s work. They commissioned experts with no association to environmental organisations and the work <em>Fremtidens Pris</em> (The Price of the Future) was published in 1999. This book drew together 18 authors from a range of academic disciplines. They were critical of Lomborg’s work across areas such as biology, environmental science and social science. </p>
<p>This battle with the scientific establishment led to Lomborg publishing his best-selling book <em><a href="http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/00068915.pdf">The Skeptical Environmentalist</a></em> in 2001. This was essentially an English version of <em>Verdens Sande Tilstand</em> with a series of amendments including an expanded chapter dealing with global warming. </p>
<p>He has subsequently published several other books such as <em>Global crises, global solutions</em> (2004) and <em>Cool It: the skeptical environmentalists’ guide to global warming</em> (2007). These publications have given Lomborg the international profile that he now has and propelled him from a relatively obscure Danish academic in game theory, to a global celebrity.</p>
<h2>Is Lomborg a scientist or a polemicist?</h2>
<p>Dr Lomborg is often described as an environmental scientist or an economist, and has received a range of awards and accolades from media organisations such as <em>Foreign Policy</em>, <em>The Guardian</em> and <em>Businessweek</em>, as well as the <em>World Economic Forum</em>. However, his work on climate science has generated fierce opposition from the majority of the scientific community, as well as support from many in economics, the social sciences, and business. </p>
<p>Although he does not deny the existence of anthropogenic climate change, Lomborg plays down its likely impacts on the planet. His book <em>The Skeptical Environmentalist</em> invoked attempts to stop its publication by Cambridge University Press, and then at least three formal complaints to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) in 2002. A detailed account of this matter is outlined in van den Bergh’s article. </p>
<p>The DCSD conducted a detailed investigation and gave Lomborg the right of reply to many scientists who accused his book of scientific dishonesty. The committee concluded that the book was “<em>deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice</em>”. However, they did not find him guilty of committing scientific dishonesty because they did not consider him to be a scientist. As van den Bergh explains:</p>
<p><em>“The DCSD decided that The Skeptical Environmentalist was ‘deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty’, because the book was based on a systematically biased choice of data. However, the DCSD did not feel able to judge that Lomborg had misled his readers deliberately or with gross negligence, because of his lack of scientific expertise on the themes treated in the book.”</em></p>
<p>So the conclusion drawn by the DCSD was not that Lomborg’s book was credible science, or in fact “scientifically honest”, but simply that Lomborg was not a scientist and knew too little about science to be able to know that he was being dishonest.</p>
<p>For most academics this would have been a crushing blow, but Lomborg actually prospered from the exercise. He was supported by a counter-reaction from a large number of Danish social scientists who challenged the DCSD’s ruling. Lomborg filed a complaint to the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (DMSTI) against the DCSD (over which it was responsible). The Ministry deferred the matter back to the DCSD, which rendered the case against Lomborg invalid. </p>
<p>According to van den Berg the DCSD decision to invalidate its previous ruling was based on the argument that it had not found Lomborg acted with “intent or gross negligence”, and therefore found no reason to reopen the case. However, while it offered Lomborg a way to vindicate himself, it also ignored the DCSD’s earlier claim that Lomborg was lacking in any scientific expertise.</p>
<p>The reactions from the scientific community to Lomborg’s books have remained strong and largely negative. For example, in 2002 the <em><a href="http://ftp.ma.utexas.edu/users/davis/375/reading/sciam.pdf">Scientific American</a></em> published an editorial in which a number of leading scientists were asked to comment on what Lomborg had said about their fields. They encompassed climate science, energy, population growth and biodiversity. A common conclusion was that Lomborg had selectively “cherry picked” the data to support his arguments.</p>
<p>A review of <em>The Skeptical Environmentalist</em> by Andrew Aulisi was published in the <em><a href="http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.1086/367582?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21106580471763">Quarterly Review of Biology</a></em> in 2003. This is a relatively objective analysis of the book, in which Aulisi found a number of positives. However, he raised numerous concerns. These include: “…the emergence of a pattern of careless and selective use of statistics”, and the attacks that Lomborg makes on the established scientific community in relation to global warming, and the risk of extinction of many species. According to Aulisi:</p>
<p><em>“The Skeptical Environmentalist slants its coverage of climate science disproportionately in favour of skeptics, incorrectly assesses the design of climate models, overlooks key factors in estimates of greenhouse gas effects, uncritically accepts speculative theories on warming, and is generally deeply flawed and biased”.</em></p>
<p>Many other scientists have responded to Lomborg’s work pointing out the flaws in his methodology and selective use of data. For example, van den Bergh summarises a long list of criticisms covering methodological bias, conceptual and theoretical weaknesses, selective use of data, errors of fact, inappropriate data analysis and use of statistics and referencing. Many simply accuse his work of being “polemic” rather than “scientific”.</p>
<p>In 2005 Luis Bini and four colleagues published a paper in the journal <em><a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2005.00155.x/abstract">Conservation Biology</a></em>. They critically examined Lomborg’s claims that climate change was not having as negative an impact on biodiversity as many scientists believe. They undertook a major review of the scientific literature and drew the conclusion that Lomborg was wrong in his optimistic outlook.</p>
<p>His work was also vigorously criticised by writer Howard Friel in the book “<a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/Yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300161038">The Lomborg Deception</a>”. Friel argued that many of Lomborg’s supporting citations used in his books were actually saying the opposite of what was being claimed. This matter was reviewed by Sharon Begley in a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/debunking-lomborg-climate-change-skeptic-75173">Newsweek article</a> published in 2010. It provides a critical analysis of Friel’s work and the response from Lomborg. </p>
<p>I provide this background on Lomborg’s academic work because this controversy surrounding his claims against climate science lies at the heart of the political brouhaha surrounding the UWA ACC. It is also a major reason why Dr Lomborg has been able to build such a high international profile. </p>
<p>As many reviewers of his work suggest, Lomborg is more a polemicist than a scientist. It is an important distinction and while there is no problem in someone being a polemicist they should not be confused with scientists or serious academic researchers. </p>
<h2>Climate science politics and the rise of the “Consensus Centre”</h2>
<p>Undoubtedly the controversy surrounding Lomborg’s scepticism helped his career. Science and politics are uncomfortable bedfellows. The debate surrounding climate change and the appropriate policy responses to its challenge have polarised the community and become a major platform for political ideology. Lomborg has successfully positioned himself into this arena as a concerned environmentalist who refuses to be panicked by the doomsday scenarios predicted by the majority of scientists. Instead he offers an apparently objective view in which economics not science is the key to addressing global problems.</p>
<p>This is an appealing argument for those who wish to deny climate change, or at least downplay its possible impacts. It has been a major reason why Lomborg has been able to build his profile and establish the “Consensus Centre”. Once more a bit of historical perspective is required. </p>
<p>In 2002 Lomborg was appointed, by the newly elected conservative government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, to head up Denmark’s new <a href="http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory15.htm">Environmental Assessment Institute</a> (EAI). This appointment was made on the basis of Lomborg’s high profile as a climate science sceptic following the publication of <em>The Skeptical Environmentalist</em> the year before. Although appointed to the EAI for 5 years he resigned as Director in 2004 remaining on as a part-time consultant. His time as Director of the EAI was allegedly not without its controversy, and some of the research produced from the institute was reportedly criticised due to flaws in methodology and recommendations. </p>
<p>However, Lomborg used this time to devise his “consensus” project, designed to draw together some of the world’s leading economists to discuss and rank in priority order “the 10 greatest problems facing humanity today”. This was to be called “The Copenhagen Consensus” and was the beginning of Lomborg’s transition into the CCC. </p>
<p>Despite concerns over the project voiced by the board of the EAI, apparently leading to the resignation of five out of seven Directors, “<a href="http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/lomborgstory16.htm">The Copenhagen Consensus</a>” conference was held in May 2004. It took place over five days with funding from the Danish Government and <em>The Economist</em> newspaper. A <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/2004copenhagen_consensus_result_final.pdf">report on the results</a> of this first “consensus” reveals that it assembled “eight of the world’s most distinguished economists” who examined ten global challenges and 30 proposals commissioned in advance from selected experts. The task for the distinguished panel of economists was to assume they had $50 billion of government money to allocate, and to undertake a cost-benefit analysis ranking each project in order of priority for funding.</p>
<p>The outcome of the first “consensus” created a negative reaction from many within the environment movement. This was because it placed the control of HIV/AIDS, the provision of micro nutrients, trade liberalisation and control of malaria in the top four places. By contrast action on climate change via carbon taxes and the Kyoto Protocol were considered “bad” and ranked at the bottom.</p>
<p>In 2006 Lomborg established the CCC and with Danish government support staged two more conferences. The
<a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/copenhagen-consensus-ii">second “consensus” conference</a> was held in May 2008. It focused on how to spend $75 billion to advance global welfare. The <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/copenhagen-consensus-iii">third “consensus” conference</a> was held in May 2012 and followed a similar pattern to the first two. In each case 30 project proposals were commissioned in response to 10 major issues. They were reviewed and given to a panel of distinguished economists who had around three days to assess and rank the projects as they allocated the nominal money. As with the first “consensus” the <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/cc08_results_final_0.pdf">second</a> and <a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/sites/default/files/outcome_document_updated_1105.pdf">third</a> saw spending on vitamin and zinc supplements to children, infectious disease control, or global trade as being of more importance than climate change mitigation. </p>
<p>In 2011 the centre-left government of Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt took power in Denmark and the following year funding for the CCC was withdrawn. Faced with this loss of government funding Lomborg moved to the United States where he had registered the CCC as a not-for-profit organisation in 2008. </p>
<h2>The birth of the UWA ACC</h2>
<p>Now Lomborg has apparently found a new home for the CCC in Australia. The generous provision of $4 million to get the new centre established at UWA appears to have been driven by the Prime Minister Tony Abbott. According to the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/prime-minister-tony-abbotts-office-the-origin-for-controversial-bjorn-lomborg-centre-decision-20150423-1mrha2.html">Sydney Morning Herald</a> the Prime Minister, who praised Lomborg’s work on climate science in his 2009 book <em>Battlelines</em>, commenced plans to fund the CCC in the middle of 2014. It has been reported that the Australian Catholic University (ACU) was initially approached with a view to putting it into their Canberra campus. However, UWA was finally selected from “a range of other locations”.</p>
<p>This suggests that UWA was not the first choice for the ACC, nor was it the only institution that might have been approached. The official line from UWA has been that it was approached by the Abbott government to house the centre, which was a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/apr/22/bjorn-lomborg-centre-government-approached-us-says-university">contradiction to the press release</a> from the federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne. </p>
<p>The establishment of the ACC within UWA remains shrouded in a cloak of confidentiality. It seems that the process of negotiations between the university and the federal government took place over several months going back to late 2014. On 2 April 2015 the university announced the establishment of the ACC in their <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504027455/events/new-economic-prioritisation-research-centre-uwa">University News</a> stating that the centre would focus on three major projects over four years. However, it made no mention of the federal government’s funding. </p>
<p>The first project the ACC will look at is UN post-2015 agenda (something already started by the CCC in their “<a href="http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/post-2015-consensus">Post 2015 consensus</a>”). The third will aim to set global priorities for development aid and help guide the way that Australia distributes its foreign aid budget. This is also something Lomborg has a <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-bjorn-legacy-what-will-lomborg-say-about-australian-aid-and-will-anyone-listen-20150406-1mek81.html">head start on</a>, having been appointed to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) as an adviser on “<a href="http://dfat.gov.au/news/news/Pages/innovationxchange-launch-unveils-exciting-new-investments.aspx">aid innovation</a>”. </p>
<p>However, the second project titled “the Australian Prosperity Consensus” will, according to the UWA website:</p>
<p>“<em>…focus on determining which policies will help keep Australia prosperous in a generation’s time. It will generate economic evidence on efficiency across a wide range of Australia’s greatest challenges, including infrastructure, education, health, environment, governance, innovation and immigration. Its results will support a more informed national debate on Australia’s priorities.</em>” </p>
<p>This is perhaps the most contentious for Australian domestic politics as the project will potentially place the ACC into the centre of party political debates of the future of government spending. It will also do so during the run up to the next federal election.</p>
<p>Given the row that has erupted over the <em><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/dr-karl-kruszelnicki-my-role-in-government-video-does-not-mean-im-a-liberal-party-stooge-20150314-143dh5.html">Intergenerational Report</a></em> and the role played by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, UWA will need to be mindful of the risk associated with seeking to mix science with politics. </p>
<h2>What are the financial costs and benefits to UWA of the ACC?</h2>
<p>In relation to the financial costs and benefits it is known that the federal government has granted UWA $4 million over four years to help set up the ACC. While this seems like a large sum it is unlikely to be sufficient to do the job. UWA secured the money against a funding proposal prepared by the UWA Business School and a contract has now been signed. What this contract requires from UWA has not been publicly disclosed, but the <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504207494/school-news/establishment-australia-consensus-centre-uwa?page=show">university has declared</a> that it is not providing any cash support for the ACC or its projects, and that a target of the cash or in-kind support of around $13 million has been set. However it also states:</p>
<p>“<em>UWA is not providing cash support for the ACC or its projects. The ACC will always operate within its means and will only undertake additional work beyond the Australia Consensus programme funded by the Australian Government if external funding is forthcoming.</em>” </p>
<p>The centre will be located within the UWA Business School and co-located within the existing <a href="http://www.business.uwa.edu.au/school/centre-of-social-impact">Centre for Social Impact</a> (CSI), the Business School’s only research centre. The university has announced that the ACC will be staffed by a Centre Director, a Research Project Manager and “media, communications and events personnel”. This staffing formula reflects the nature of the ACC as an entity largely focused on the staging of “consensus” conference events rather than research for academic purposes.</p>
<p>It is unclear how much the salary bill for these ACC staff will be, or whether they will be redeployed from within UWA or new hires. Given my own experience of running centres at UWA and Curtin University, it is likely that the overhead cost for the ACC would be somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000 per year accounting for salaries, on-costs, office equipment, travel and associated operating costs. </p>
<p>UWA generally applies a 35% <a href="http://www.finserv.uwa.edu.au/manual/infrastructure">infrastructure charge</a> to any grants received and so it is reasonable to assume that this will apply to the $4 million provided by the government. This would see $1.4 million shaved off by the university for “infrastructure” leaving the ACC with $2.6 million over four years. The ACC would be left with around $650,000 per annum to run itself. This seems sufficient to cover the centre’s overhead costs (depending on what the salary bill is), but insufficient to do the work that is expected of it.</p>
<p>In a review of the CCC’s work published in June 2013 on the website of the UK charities organisation <em><a href="https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/blog/2013-06-14/the-copenhagen-consensus-making-a-bet-on-catching-a-big-fish">Giving What We Can</a></em> it was disclosed that a “consensus” process would cost an estimated $2 million:</p>
<p><em>“This research is expected to cost around $0.8m, and is already largely funded .The associated promotional activities will cost up to a further $1.2m, and will ensure this research is read and taken seriously by the people who most need to hear about it.”</em></p>
<p>This suggests that a “consensus” project of the type planned for the ACC will potentially need around $2 million with most of it going to publicity. The current plan for the ACC is that it will host the next “consensus” conference in Perth in 2016. This fits with the pattern of “consensus” events that Lomborg holds every four years. However, these are typically held in May so that would give the ACC only about 12 months to organise a global conference and raise the necessary money to host it.</p>
<p>There is also the question of what – if any – financial return the ACC will need to provide to Dr Lomborg. The appointment of Lomborg as an Adjunct Professor to UWA carries no salary and the university has made it clear that he will not be appointed as a member of staff. However, Lomborg is understood to draw large consulting fees from the CCC.</p>
<p>According to Graham Readfearn, the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2014/06/25/millions-behind-bjorn-lomborg-copenhagen-consensus-center">financial arrangements for Lomborg’s CCC</a> in the United States include payments to Lomborg of around US $975,454 over the period 2012-2013. This money was out of a total fund raising pool of about US $4.3 million that the not-for-profit centre raised over the period 2008 to 2012 with about half that money being received in the final year. </p>
<p>When asked by <em>The Guardian</em> on Friday 24 April if it was necessary to have Dr Lomborg involved with the ACC, Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson said that the deal was, “predicated on having a working relationship with the Copenhagen Consensus Centre but he is president of that centre, so I would say yes”. This suggests that the intellectual property rights associated with the CCC’s “consensus” methodology vests with Lomborg. It is worth asking how much the ACC will need to pay the CCC and Lomborg for the rights to use it.</p>
<p>So there are questions over the financial cost-benefit of the ACC to UWA. Even if UWA is not obliged to put in any of its own money, the ACC will still need to raise more than the $4 million offered by the government if it is to do its work. How much the full operating costs will be, how money will be allocated and the sources of any donations remain unclear. Critics will certainly pay close attention to funds sourced to donors with alleged political or commercial interests. Particularly to those who have publicly expressed opposition or scepticism to climate science.</p>
<h2>What are the reputation costs and benefits to UWA of the ACC?</h2>
<p>Aside from the financial risk there is the more complex but potentially more important issue of reputation. In 2012 UWA prided itself on <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201208154912/uwa-joins-world-top-100-universities">securing a foothold</a> in the bottom of the Top 100 leading world universities. In 2014 UWA was ranked 88th in the world according to the Shanghi Jao Tong University’s <em><a href="http://www.shanghairanking.com/World-University-Rankings/The-University-of-Western-Australia.html">Academic Ranking of World Universities</a></em> (ARWU). These international ranking systems are measured across a wide range of indicators, but one of the key measures are citations in peer-reviewed journals. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504207494/school-news/establishment-australia-consensus-centre-uwa?page=show">argument advanced by UWA</a> in support of the establishment of the ACC is that the centre will attract the Nobel Laureates who form the expert review panel that attends the “consensus” conference for about five days. It also highlights the commissioning of at least 30 research papers that will be selected for these experts to assess and rank. They point to the methodology of the “consensus” process and suggest that the research will be “published and made available in the public domain”.</p>
<p>However, the ACC is not a research centre as the term is normally understood by universities. Based on the available information relating to the operation of the CCC it is essentially an event management organisation for Lomborg’s “consensus” process. The media has already started to call it a “think tank” and both government and UWA media statements have made it clear that the centre will be providing policy advice. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.uq.edu.au/economics/quiggin-john">Professor John Quiggin</a>, who is an Economist and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow, has <a href="http://johnquiggin.com/2015/04/23/lomborg-review-repost-from-2005/#more-13173">raised concerns over the methodology</a> used by the “consensus” process. He accepts that the authors of the research papers commissioned for the project and the expert panellists approached their work “in a serious and fair minded way”. However, he is critical of the selection of the projects, the choice of reviewers and the inherent difficulties of trading off something as complex as climate change against the need to fight the spread of AIDS. </p>
<p>“<em>The real problems, though, were not with the choice of panel members but with the assessment procedure, which was clearly designed to fit Lomborg’s original example of a choice between spending on climate change and on clean drinking water.</em>”</p>
<p>“<em>The approach adopted was to assume a budget of $50 billion, and then seek to allocate it to those projects which would yield the largest benefit for a given cost. As Jeffrey Sachs points out, this approach is fine for evaluating discrete, project-based interventions, such as improvements in drinking water quality. But with a small budget and an insistence on easily quantified costs and benefits, it is naturally biased against bolder initiatives such as broad-based improvements in health and education.</em>”</p>
<p>Quiggin accused the “consensus” process of being a “political stunt”, “designed in every detail, to produce a predetermined outcome”. While this may not be accepted by all it seems difficult for the ACC to avoid the suggestion that it is a political “think tank” funded by the government to assist it with policy development as it enters the final year of its current three-year term.</p>
<p>Will the ACC produce a research dividend that will help UWA enhance its global ranking? To do so it would need to generate peer-reviewed journal papers able to secure high citations. It is my understanding that the centre is not expected to generate such research in a direct way. Any peer reviewing is undertaken by commissioned researchers engaged in the “consensus” process and publication is not via journals but via books and the media. At least that is how the CCC appears to operate.</p>
<p>There is already a call from some UWA academics and the Student Guild to not proceed with the ACC on the basis that it will “<a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/creation-of-tony-abbottbacked-lomborg-consensus-centre-has-tarnished-our-reputations-say-academics-20150423-1mry7n.html">tarnish their reputations</a>” as a place for serious research. However, other voices are calling for tolerance and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2015/apr/23/playing-the-ball-not-the-man">avoidance of trying to shut down debate and discussion</a> within the university. Those who oppose Lomborg over his controversial stance on climate science will oppose the ACC. One example is Brendan May, writing in <a href="http://www.eco-business.com/opinion/how-a-university-became-a-spineless-pawn-in-tony-abbotts-climate-game/">eco-business.com</a> who suggested that:</p>
<p><em>“UWA now risks becoming an irrelevant press office touting fake academic credentials to support Abbott’s reckless and mad climate stance”.</em></p>
<p>However, others such as <a href="http://www.uwa.edu.au/people/david%20pannell">UWA Winthrop Professor David Pannell</a>, Director of the Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy (CEEP) welcome the ACC. In his personal blog <a href="http://www.pannelldiscussions.net/">pannelldiscussions</a> he suggests that much of the criticism of Lomborg’s work is unconvincing and even causes him to “laugh out loud”. He expresses his relief that UWA has not been “scared off” by the controversy.</p>
<h2>So is it really worth the effort?</h2>
<p>Prior to the announcement of this centre in <em>The Guardian</em> article of 17 April I had little knowledge of Dr Lomborg or his “consensus” process. My journey of discovery over the past week has left me with a lot of unanswered questions. I am frustrated that there was not more consultation with university staff and students, and concerned that so much information has had to come from the media rather than the university.</p>
<p>Those with whom I have spoken, including some who were more closely associated with the ACC in its planning, have suggested that it will boost the financial resources of the UWA Business School, and enhance its research activity. However, I remain yet to be convinced of these outcomes. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that Dr Lomborg has built a successful career with his “contrarian” views on climate science. His “consensus” process is also a business model that has given him the opportunity to win support from some of the world’s most rich and powerful. </p>
<p>In my view Dr Lomborg is neither a scientist nor an economist. He is more an entrepreneur who has used the talents of a gifted polemicist to secure resources and garner attention. His “consensus” process is not without merit and seems like a useful model for securing government and media attention. It may also generate some potentially useful policy outcomes.</p>
<p>The defenders of the ACC initiative argue that it is appropriate for a university to remain open to contrarian views and embrace robust debate rather than trying to shut it down. I agree with this and note that academic discourse is too often lacking in arguments and counter arguments these days. Further, if UWA wishes to establish what appears to be a political “think tank” and an event organiser rather than a conventional research centre that is entirely up to it. </p>
<p>However, in doing so the university should ensure that it has consulted with its Senate, staff, students and alumni and secured their consensus for such an initiative. It should also undertake a rigorous cost-benefit analysis considering both financial and reputation risks. Based on the available evidence this does not appear to have occurred in relation to the ACC. The “consensus” centre currently lacks consensus support from these key stakeholders and that is the problem. </p>
<h2>Addendum</h2>
<p>Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to read my rather long article and post comments. Since its publication I have received a lot of emails thanking me for the article. Two are worthwhile sharing here. The first of these comes from David Lessman, Communications Manager for the Copenhagen Consensus Centre. His email reads:</p>
<hr>
<p>Dear Professor Mazzarol,</p>
<p>I saw your overview article in The Conversation. I wondered if it wouldn’t be appropriate to link not just to the critiques of Dr. Lomborg but also to provide his responses:</p>
<p>1) <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/media/pdf/lomborgrebuttal.pdf">Dr. Lomborg’s answer to Scientific American</a></p>
<p>2) <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/sites/lomborg.com/files/bl_reply_to_howard_friel_0.pdf">Dr. Lomborg’s answer to Friel</a></p>
<p>3) <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/sites/lomborg.com/files/godhedenspris.pdf">Dr. Lomborg’s full book to answer “Godheden Pris”</a>, and <a href="http://www.lomborg.com/sites/lomborg.com/files/reply_to_skeptical_questions.pdf">here an English excerpt</a>.</p>
<p>All the best,
David</p>
<hr>
<p>I also received another email from <a href="http://www.richardeckersley.com.au/main/page_about_me.html">Richard Eckersley</a>, a former Fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian University. His email reads:</p>
<hr>
<p>Thanks for the thorough and balanced piece in TC and the UWA CCC, Tim.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.richardeckersley.com.au/attachments/GCHH_Lomborg_1.pdf">attached essay review</a> of ‘The skeptical environmentalist’, published in <em><a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1019673215867">Global Change and Human Health</a></em>, might interest you. While most of the focus of debate about Lomborg has been on climate change and other environmental issues, my review looked especially at the sociocultural aspects of the book.</p>
<p>Feel free to pass it around.</p>
<p>Regards</p>
<p>Richard Eckersley</p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<h4 class="border">Disclosure</h4><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Mazzarol receives funding from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>The benefits from UWA’s decision to host controversial climate sceptic Bjorn Lomborg must be weighed against the costs.Tim Mazzarol, Winthrop Professor, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Marketing and Strategy , The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407162015-04-23T12:14:16Z2015-04-23T12:14:16ZThe Bjorn supremacy – is Australia getting the climate advice it deserves?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79095/original/image-20150423-25525-1j6mfx9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Alan Porritt</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As tabloid news outlets <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/sydney-snaps-its-worst-storm-in-eight-years-on-social-media/story-fncynjr2-1227313209469">invite us</a> to feast on the “craziest” and most “insane” images of the Sydney storms this week from social media, University of Western Australia vice-chancellor Paul Johnson has called for calm over Bjorn Lomborg’s appointment to be his fellow <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/apr/17/abbott-government-gives-4m-to-help-climate-sceptic-set-up-australian-centre">advisory board co-chair</a> of a new “Australia Consensus Centre” at UWA. Lomborg will play a key role at the centre.</p>
<p>What has been revealed about the centre is that it will be substantially <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/abbott-govt-funded-lomborg-consensus-centre/story-e6frg90f-1227307679337">modelled</a> on Lomborg’s controversial Copenhagen Consensus Center (CCC) – which is, oddly, based in the US. The CCC is ostensibly a policy thinktank that uses economic modelling to trivialise the importance of addressing climate change to reach long-term development goals. </p>
<p>The CCC does not disclose its donors, and denies receiving funding from fossil-fuel companies. But probing from <a href="http://desmogblog.com/2014/06/25/millions-behind-bjorn-lomborg-copenhagen-consensus-center">DeSmogBlog</a> in 2014 uncovered donations from organisations with <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/06/25/3453053/koch-bjorn-lomborg-lousy-t-shirt/">links to</a> the billionaire Koch brothers, who have <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/koch-industries/">funnelled millions</a> to climate-denying thinktanks, and helped foil decarbonisation policy and action in the US. </p>
<p>The UWA centre will receive A$4 million support from the federal government and is looking for A$8 million more from other sources.</p>
<p>Lomborg’s particularly dangerous form of climate denial is to begrudgingly accept the science while producing economic models to say that global warming is really a minor issue. He is famous for using economic modelling as a mercenary gun for hire, saleable to governments and jurisdictions requiring climate inaction, climate distraction, or just straight-out climate crisis denial. </p>
<p>As such, one has to have some sympathy for Lomborg, who is a strange kind of “climate change refugee”. In 2012, the Danish government <a href="http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1212685/climate_change_sceptic_bjorn_lomborg_im_the_victim.html">pulled all funding</a> from his centre. Since, he has only set up shop in countries that have strong climate change-denying lobbies – both in the private sector and within mainstream media. He has enjoyed this in the US.</p>
<p>Lomborg operates by attaching himself to these centres as an adjunct professor, which will be his title at UWA, rather than a staff member. This offers the freedom to command remuneration well above a professorial salary – such as the US$775,000 he was paid in 2012 <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/bjorn-lomborg-think-tank-funder-revealed-billionaire-vulture-capitalist-57745">by the CCC</a> and the US$200,484 paid for his work in 2013.</p>
<p>But Johnson believes Lomborg is good value. He <a href="http://www.news.uwa.edu.au/201504027455/events/new-economic-prioritisation-research-centre-uwa">said</a> the centre:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… will become the go-to place for useful economic research to inform the national and international debate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And on that score, Johnson <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/aap/article-3048122/Uni-students-protest-climate-contrarian.html">says</a> of Lomborg:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Contrarians are, I think, useful, particularly in a university context.</p>
<p>Universities, in a sense, live and die on the basis of rigorous discussion, thought and analysis, as long as that is conducted within the norms of academic discourse — it needs to be polite, rational and evidence-based.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But in taking the cash and not looking into the so-called <a href="http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/public-service/the-bjorn-legacy-what-will-lomborg-say-about-australian-aid-and-will-anyone-listen-20150406-1mek81.html">“Bjorn legacy”</a>, Johnson has ignored the trail of <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/debunking-lomborg-climate-change-skeptic-75173">intellectual neglect</a> in Lomborg’s work. It has even attracted a book, <a href="http://yalepress.yale.edu/Yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300161038">The Lomborg Deception</a>, that focuses solely on the lack of rigour in Lomborg’s books The Skeptical Environmentalist (2001) and Cool It (2007). </p>
<p>The Lomborg Deception’s author, Howard Friels, documented how footnote after footnote does not support anything that Lomborg says. In Cool It, Lomborg opens with a claim directly ignoring research by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature showing that polar bear numbers in the Arctic are in terminal decline. He is bold enough to suggest they are actually increasing.</p>
<p>The problem is that Lomborg’s sources consist of a blog and a study that nowhere mentions polar bears – not even the ones that are dead. Not much rigorous thought and analysis there.</p>
<p>The mere fact that Lomborg’s franchise-style “consensus” centre is here is an indictment on the climate politics environment in Australia. The centre subverts the term “consensus”, which is otherwise famous for the 97% of climate scientists who have verified the fact of global warming. </p>
<p>But, what is perhaps a new low for Australia is how the federal funding for Lomborg’s centre was not even subject to a competitive process. Instead, it was through negotiations <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/abbott-govt-funded-lomborg-consensus-centre/story-e6frg90f-1227307679337">personally held</a> between Lomborg and Education Minister Christopher Pyne.</p>
<p>Lomborg’s influence over key ministers in the Abbott government is quite well-known. He is seen to be at the centre of much of federal cabinet’s climate <a href="http://theconversation.com/groupthink-perfected-how-australia-is-isolating-itself-over-action-on-climate-change-20054">groupthink</a>.</p>
<p>Abbott’s book Battlelines gives a handy summary of the appeal of Lomborg, who can add economic “science” to Abbott’s mantra that we cannot afford to do anything about climate change if it is going to “clobber the economy”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It doesn’t make sense … to impose certain and substantial costs on the economy now in order to avoid unknown and perhaps even benign changes in the future. As Bjorn Lomborg has said: “…a narrow focus on reducing carbon emissions could leave future generations with major costs, without major cuts to temperatures.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Before the Abbott government was elected in 2013, Greg Hunt <a href="http://www.greghunt.com.au/Portals/0/13-05-30%20Sydney%20Institute%20-%20choosing%20the%20right%20market%20mechanisms%20for%20addressing%20environmental%20problems.pdf">revealed</a> that Lomborg’s “modelling” was a centrepiece for the Coalition’s Direct Action policy. In December 2014, Lomborg was <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/is-bjorn-lomborg-writing-australias-climate-and-energy-policies-98239">briefing Andrew Robb</a> on how “trade can eliminate poverty”.</p>
<p>Last month, Julie Bishop invited Lomborg to become one of her department’s <a href="http://dfat.gov.au/news/news/Pages/innovationxchange-launch-unveils-exciting-new-investments.aspx">advisers on aid development</a>. He has also written an occasional column for The Australian, which reads like an energy policy whiteboard for Hunt.</p>
<p>But the rancour this week coming from UWA students and staff over the funding of the Australia Consensus Centre was overshadowed by the Sydney super-storm, which rapidly escalated from a “once-in-a-decade” to a “once-in-a-century” storm. This discourse assumes the stability of a bygone Holocene and neglects that human beings are changing the earth’s climate at a rate faster that any geological epoch.</p>
<p>Perhaps Lomborg’s centre might want to do some economic modelling of the cost of this storm. It is estimated that it will cost many millions of dollars. <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/sydney-weather-damage-7100-insurance-claims-5500-calls-for-help-20150421-1mptpr.html">7100 insurance claims</a> have been made already. </p>
<p>The modelling would need to consider projections about the global warming-induced size and frequency of storms in the future considering that eight of the most costly extreme weather disasters have all occurred in last 16 years. This is precisely during the time when climate deniers say there has been a “pause” in global warming. </p>
<p>At a cost of more than A$14 billion so far, the Sydney hailstorm in 1999, the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, the Hunter Valley storms in 2007, the Perth and Melbourne hailstorms both in 2010, the Queensland floods in 2010-11, Cyclone Yasi in 2011 and the Sydney fires in October 2013 certainly could do with some risk analysis. </p>
<p>But the problem here is that you would actually need to listen to climate scientists to have any hope of assessing the rate of increase and intensity of such events, and how the climate dice can quickly send a sceptic into policy bankruptcy.</p>
<p>The real travesty of funding Lomborg’s newest franchise is that it comes from the same government that defunded the Climate Commission. This was composed of Australia’s best climate scientists, economists and energy experts, with an operating cost of A$1.5 million per year. This, more than even the most horrendous of storms, really exposes the parlous state of the Abbott government’s desertion of future generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
As tabloid news outlets invite us to feast on the “craziest” and most “insane” images of the Sydney storms this week from social media, University of Western Australia vice-chancellor Paul Johnson has…David Holmes, Senior Lecturer, Communications and Media Studies, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.