Timeline of Copenhagen Consensus

“Bjørn Lomborg’s work with the Copenhagen Consensus is a vital, solution-oriented contribution to the economics of global warming – and the many other problems facing a growing planet.” - Bryan Walsh, Time Magazine

The Copenhagen Consensus Center is a nonprofit organization. We commission and conduct new research and analysis into competing spending priorities and publish the best solutions based on prioritization.

The following timeline gives a historical overview of our work.

2002 – Establishment of Environmental Assessment Institute. Bjorn Lomborg, now-President and Director of Copenhagen Consensus Center was the Institute’s first Director. The Institute is an independent body of the Danish government which provides economic and environmental cost-benefit analyses.

2004 – March: In a London press conference, Bjorn Lomborg announces the Copenhagen Consensus conference. “Copenhagen Consensus will provide a framework to allow us to make better prioritizations," said Lomborg. In April, Lomborg, economist Jagdish Bhagwati, Dominic Ziegler of the Economist, and Sloane Lederer of Cambridge University Press launched the project in the U.S. The Copenhagen Consensus broadens the scope of the Environmental Assessment Institute, focusing on solutions to ten of the world’s most pressing issues.

May: The first Copenhagen Consensus conference was held from May 24 – 28. An Expert Panel, composed of 4 Nobel Laureates, evaluated the proposals and ranked them. The policies most deserving of aid dollars were, of course, listed at the top. The event is sponsored by the Economist, the Tuborg Foundation, The Carlsberg Bequest to the Memory of Brewer I.C. Jacobsen, and the Danish Ministry of the Environment. The collected research from 30 top economists working in 10 policy areas was published by Cambridge University Press under the title, Global Crises, Global Solutions.

"I hope that Copenhagen Consensus projects will draw the attention of governments around the world to the issues and the things that we think are clearly things that would improve the wellbeing of societies in countries. If we succeed at all in doing that, I would say we have done a good job.” - Douglass North, Nobel Laureate in Economics

2006 – The Copenhagen Consensus Center is formed, with the funding of the Danish state. The Center builds on the mandate of the EAI, expanding the research it commissions to include cost-benefit analysis and prioritizing solutions for the world’s most pressing issues.

2006 – The Copenhagen Consensus project expands. The Center hosts two conferences: Copenhagen Consensus UNICEF and Copenhagen Consensus Georgetown.

June: The Copenhagen Consensus Georgetown meeting drew on the 2004 conference, asking attendees to prioritize research from the previous meeting. Representatives came from China, India, Pakistan, Tanzania, Thailand, the United States, Vietnam and Zambia.

October: The Copenhagen Consensus UNICEF meeting was held in New York. UN Ambassadors from 30 countries were asked to prioritize major global issues such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and climate change. The goal of the conference was to introduce an element of transparency and cost-benefit efficiency to member countries and the UN system.

2007 – Copenhagen Consensus hosts “Bill Gates for a Day.” The project asked the question, “If you were the richest man of the world, how would you solve the world's problem?” We commissioned 25 economists to address 25 different issues. Eight presented at the conference. Tuborgfondet sponsored the project.

2007 – Copenhagen Consensus hosted its first region-specific project with the Copenhagen Consensus on Latin America. Using the Copenhagen Consensus framework, the project brought together leading economists who focused on the most important issues for Latin America.

“Because the results of Copenhagen Consensus are so concrete, and because they are based on solid knowledge, the results provide a valuable insight for politicians – an insight that is in fact used by policy makers.” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark, Opening of Copenhagen Consensus Conference May, 25, 2008

2008 – The second meeting of the flagship Copenhagen Consensus conference held May 25 – 30. The Expert Panel again consisted of Nobel Laureates tasked with prioritizing a hypothetical $75 billion. The collected research from 55 top economists, as well as the Experts’ rankings, were compiled in the book, Global Crises, Global Solutions. Following the project, the Center hosted a prioritization clinic with Danish primary school students in the spring of 2009.

2009 – Copenhagen Consensus’s second regionally-themed project, the Denmark Consensus is held. In cooperation with the newspaper Politiken, Denmark Consensus asked the Danish population to address five crucial issues facing the future of their country.

2009 – Copenhagen Consensus commissioned the Best Practice Papers, based on the top solutions the second Copenhagen Consensus. The aim was to provide more in-depth, empirical, regional/national experience- based analysis of the issues.

September – Copenhagen Consensus tackles the issue of climate change with its project, Fix the Climate. An Expert Panel of five world-class economists sought to answer which solutions to climate change would be best for the planet. Copenhagen Consensus Center commissioned research papers from specialist climate economists, outlining the cost and benefits of each way to respond to global warming. A book of the collected solutions was published under the name Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefit.

December – How can one person’s charitable donations make use of Copenhagen Consensus findings? In December 2009, we released a guide to help funnel donations to the most effective sources. The Guide to Giving provides information on how to make your donation count.

2010 – The Copenhagen Consensus Center teamed with Rush Foundation for Rethink HIV project, addressing the problem of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was the first-ever comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of AIDS investments in sub-Saharan Africa. The Expert Panel considered interventions ranging from social policies to increased funding for researching a cure. As with other Copenhagen Consensus projects, the findings were published in the Rethink HIV book.

2012 – The third Copenhagen Consensus conference is held in Denmark in May. As with previous iterations, the Expert Panel rigorously examines ten of the most important issues facing global development. A list of priorities with all the solutions identified by the scholars was ranked by the Expert Panel according to the potential of each solution for solving the world’s greatest challenges most cost effectively. A summary of these findings was published as a book under the title How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, published in 2012. A second edition was released in 2014.

Since its inception in 2006 until end of 2011, the Copenhagen Consensus Center has received funding from the Danish state. Where recent projects have received any additional funding, you can find that information on our website under the descriptions of those projects.

In particular we focus on the international community's effort to solve the world's biggest challenges and on how to do this in the most cost-efficient manner.

We create a framework in which solutions to the world's big problems are prioritized explicitly, with the goal of achieving the most 'good' for people and the planet.

We work with governments, NGOs and multilateral organizations on projects around the world.

The idea is simple, yet often neglected; when financial resources are limited, it is necessary to prioritize the effort. Every day, policymakers and business leaders at all levels prioritize by investing in one project instead of another. However, instead of being based on facts, science, and calculations, many vital decisions are based on political motives or even the possibility of media coverage.

The Copenhagen Consensus approach improves knowledge and gives an overview of research and facts within a given problem, which means that the prioritization is based on evidence. In the late 2002 the Copenhagen Consensus approach originated from a small group of people headed by Bjørn Lomborg, then-Director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute.

During 2003, an outline for a global conference was created. In May 2004, the first Copenhagen Consensus conference took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, and brought together eight of the World's leading economists, including 4 Nobel Laureates and 30 of the world's top specialists within ten problem areas. This conference was the culmination of a project involving nearly two years of research, outreach, and advising on policy.

Our project continued and diversified, followed by the Copenhagen Consensus United Nations at Georgetown University, which brought together United Nations ambassadors. Copenhagen Consensus United Nations UNICEF built on this success. In 2006, the Consulta de San José saw a focus on Latin American and Caribbean issues.

The global Copenhagen Consensus was repeated at the second Copenhagen Consensus in 2008. Again, our researchers and Expert Panel took stock of the world's problems and proposed cost-efficient solutions to mitigate the negative consequences of those problems.

In 2009, the Copenhagen Consensus Center worked on the Denmark Consensus, the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate, and malnutrition conferences in New York and Nairobi, at which new research was released on ways to effectively combat micronutrient deficiencies.

In addition, the Copenhagen Consensus Center continues to work with international organizations and policy makers to develop projects of national and international concern. An example of this is the RethinkHIV project; the first-ever comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of responses to HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, conducted by Copenhagen Consensus Center in 2011.

In May 2012, the Expert Panel of Nobel Laureate economists met again for the third Copenhagen Consensus conference, to engage with the prominent economist scholars who had drafted pioneering cost-benefit analysis for 12 global challenges.