Bjorn Lomborg testified after Al Gore yesterday, although very few people saw it. In his testimony, not yet online as far as I can find, he made the following bold assertion:

Let us be frank. Al Gore and the many people he has inspired have good will and great intentions. However, he has got carried away and come to show only worst-case scenarios. This is unlikely to form the basis for a sound policy judgment. The problem is compounded in that if we follow Al Gore’s recommendations, we will likely end up choosing very bad policies to solve the many problems we agree need attention. In short, following Gore’s logic, with its good will and fine intentions, will actually end up costing millions of lives.

But backed it up with the data:

Take malaria. Dealing with malaria by affecting a change in global warming through the Kyoto Protocol will probably save in the order of 0.1% of annual malaria deaths averaged over the century (289.5m/9109.5m * 7%/2 (Arnell et al., 2002:439; Wigley, 1998:2287) or save about 1,000 lives each year (at 1m deaths, (Awash & UN Millennium Project. Working Group on Malaria., 2005:1). In comparison, a targeted approach could cut malaria deaths by 75% or 750,000 per year averaged over the century. (Notice, because of growth in population and climate effects, the actual numbers would probably be about 1,400 and 850,000 on average over the century.) Moreover, the cost of Kyoto would be $180 billion annually, compared to just $3 billion annually for the targeted malaria policy (Awash & UN Millennium Project. Working Group on Malaria., 2005:2; Weyant & Hill, 1999). Kyoto would therefore save 140,000 people at 60 times the cost, whereas a targeted malaria policy would save more than 85 million. Not initiating the targeted malaria policy first means forgoing saving – or simply costing – 85 million lives.If that doesn’t demonstrate the vast opportunity cost of the Gore approach, I’m not sure what will.