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By Bjorn Lomborg
Despite multiple gains, the world has a long way to go to improve the quality of people's lives. Almost a billion people still go to bed hungry, 1.2 billion live in extreme poverty, 2.6 billion lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation, and almost three billion burn harmful materials inside their homes to keep warm.
Each year, ten million people die from malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis, along with pneumonia and diarrhea. Lack of water and sanitation is estimated to cause at least 300,000 deaths. Malnourishment claims 1.4 million children's lives. Poverty is one of the main killers. It is why children are deprived of nutrition, clean water and sanitation, and why malaria cannot be controlled with drugs and bed nets.
Governments are often too poor to eradicate the mosquitos or contain outbreaks when they occur. But some of the lethal problems are environmental. According to the World Health Organization, about seven million deaths each year are caused by air pollution, with the majority a result of burning twigs and dung inside. Previous generations' use of lead in paints and gasoline is estimated to cause almost 700,000 deaths annually.
Ground-level ozone pollution kills more than 150,000 people, while global warming causes another 141,000 deaths. Naturally occurring radioactive radon inside homes kills 100,000 people every year. Here, too, poverty is a culprit, making people go without electricity.
While outdoor air pollution is partly caused by incipient industrialization, this represents a temporary tradeoff for the poor - escaping hunger, infectious disease, and indoor air pollution to be better able to afford food, health care, and education.
One of the best anti-poverty tools is trade. China has lifted 680 million people out of poverty over the past three decades through a strategy of rapid integration into the global economy. Extending free trade, especially for agriculture, throughout the developing world is likely the single most important anti-poverty measure that policymakers could implement this decade.
But it is also encouraging that the world is spending more money to help the world's poor, with development aid almost doubling in real terms over the past 15 years. This has boosted resources to help people suffering from malaria, HIV, malnutrition, and diarrhea. And, it is clear that the world is spending more on environment.
Aid for environmental projects has increased from about 5% of measured bilateral aid in 1980 to almost 30% today, bringing the annual total to about $25 billion. That sounds great. The world can increasingly focus aid on the main environmental problems - indoor and outdoor air pollution, along with lead and ozone pollution - that cause almost all environment-related deaths. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
Almost all environmental aid - about $21.5 billion - is spent on climate change. Tackling global warming requires cheap green energy, especially in the developed world, not spending aid money to reduce developing countries' emissions of greenhouse gases like CO .
The world spends at least $11 billion of development money just to cut GHG emissions. A large part of this is through renewable power.
If all $11 billion were spent on solar and wind in the same proportion as current global spending, global CO emissions would fall by about 50 million tons each year. Run on a standard climate model, this would reduce temperatures so trivially - about 0.00002oC in the year 2100 - that it is the equivalent of postponing global warming by a bit more than seven hours.
Of course, climate campaigners might point out the solar panels and wind turbines will give electricity - albeit intermittently - to about 22 million people. But if that same money were used for gas electrification, we could lift almost 100 million people out of darkness and poverty. Moreover, $11 billion could save almost three million lives each year if directed toward preventing malaria and tuberculosis, and increasing childhood immunization.
It could also be used to increase agricultural productivity, saving 200 million from starvation in the long run, while ameliorating natural disasters through earlywarning systems.
And there would be money left over to help develop an HIV vaccine, deliver drugs to treat heart attacks and a Hepatitis B vaccine, and prevent 31 million children from starving each year.
Why does the world consciously choose to help so ineffectively? Could it be that environmental aid is not primarily about helping the world, but about making us feel better about ourselves?
Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2014.
Despite multiple gains, the world has a long way to go to improve the quality of people's lives. Almost a billion people still go to bed hungry, 1.2 billion live in extreme poverty, 2.6 billion lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation, and almost three billion burn harmful materials inside their homes to keep warm.
Each year, ten million people die from malaria, HIV, and tuberculosis, along with pneumonia and diarrhea. Lack of water and sanitation is estimated to cause at least 300,000 deaths. Malnourishment claims 1.4 million children's lives. Poverty is one of the main killers. It is why children are deprived of nutrition, clean water and sanitation, and why malaria cannot be controlled with drugs and bed nets.
Governments are often too poor to eradicate the mosquitos or contain outbreaks when they occur. But some of the lethal problems are environmental. According to the World Health Organization, about seven million deaths each year are caused by air pollution, with the majority a result of burning twigs and dung inside. Previous generations' use of lead in paints and gasoline is estimated to cause almost 700,000 deaths annually.
Ground-level ozone pollution kills more than 150,000 people, while global warming causes another 141,000 deaths. Naturally occurring radioactive radon inside homes kills 100,000 people every year. Here, too, poverty is a culprit, making people go without electricity.
While outdoor air pollution is partly caused by incipient industrialization, this represents a temporary tradeoff for the poor - escaping hunger, infectious disease, and indoor air pollution to be better able to afford food, health care, and education.
One of the best anti-poverty tools is trade. China has lifted 680 million people out of poverty over the past three decades through a strategy of rapid integration into the global economy. Extending free trade, especially for agriculture, throughout the developing world is likely the single most important anti-poverty measure that policymakers could implement this decade.
But it is also encouraging that the world is spending more money to help the world's poor, with development aid almost doubling in real terms over the past 15 years. This has boosted resources to help people suffering from malaria, HIV, malnutrition, and diarrhea. And, it is clear that the world is spending more on environment.
Aid for environmental projects has increased from about 5% of measured bilateral aid in 1980 to almost 30% today, bringing the annual total to about $25 billion. That sounds great. The world can increasingly focus aid on the main environmental problems - indoor and outdoor air pollution, along with lead and ozone pollution - that cause almost all environment-related deaths. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
Almost all environmental aid - about $21.5 billion - is spent on climate change. Tackling global warming requires cheap green energy, especially in the developed world, not spending aid money to reduce developing countries' emissions of greenhouse gases like CO .
The world spends at least $11 billion of development money just to cut GHG emissions. A large part of this is through renewable power.
If all $11 billion were spent on solar and wind in the same proportion as current global spending, global CO emissions would fall by about 50 million tons each year. Run on a standard climate model, this would reduce temperatures so trivially - about 0.00002oC in the year 2100 - that it is the equivalent of postponing global warming by a bit more than seven hours.
Of course, climate campaigners might point out the solar panels and wind turbines will give electricity - albeit intermittently - to about 22 million people. But if that same money were used for gas electrification, we could lift almost 100 million people out of darkness and poverty. Moreover, $11 billion could save almost three million lives each year if directed toward preventing malaria and tuberculosis, and increasing childhood immunization.
It could also be used to increase agricultural productivity, saving 200 million from starvation in the long run, while ameliorating natural disasters through earlywarning systems.
And there would be money left over to help develop an HIV vaccine, deliver drugs to treat heart attacks and a Hepatitis B vaccine, and prevent 31 million children from starving each year.
Why does the world consciously choose to help so ineffectively? Could it be that environmental aid is not primarily about helping the world, but about making us feel better about ourselves?
Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2014.