Achim Steiner, UNDP Administrator, explores the implications of growing paralysis, polarisation and uncertainty for a world in a race against time to achieve systemic and transformational change. Conflicts, climate change, rising inequalities…. the list of crises is long and growing. But it doesn’t really matter what we call this unprecedented moment in history, in which human activity has become the dominant force shaping the planet. Whether this is the “Anthropocene” – the Age of Humans – or the “Era of Poly-crises”, what matters is that it is real, changing our lives at extraordinary speed ..read more

After a summer of extreme heatwaves, devastating wildfires and deadly flooding across the world, all made worse by climate change, the Rt Hon Sir Alok Sharma, President of COP26 in Glasgow 2021, will discuss the ongoing climate crisis. In the run up to COP28, Sir Alok will describe his hopes for the summit and his views on the future of the COP process, as well as the role of the UK in international climate policy. He will explore the importance of business in tackling climate change, and the challenges of financing the scale of climate action required. And climate action requires a facilitati ..read more

A discussion on leaders and populism with Lord Patten, Gideon Rachman, Margaret MacMillan and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira Since the beginning of the millennium, when Vladimir Putin took power in Russia, authoritarian leaders have come to dominate global politics. Self-styled strongmen have risen to power in Moscow, Beijing, Delhi, Brasilia, Budapest, Ankara, Riyadh and Washington. These leaders are nationalists and social conservatives, with little tolerance for minorities, dissent or the interests of foreigners. At home, they encourage a cult of personality and claim to stand up for ordinary p ..read more

MPs Andrew Mitchell and Margaret Hodge discuss illicit finance and their work on improving regulations. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting sanctions regime has shed light on the United Kingdom’s harbouring of illicit wealth from around the world. It has also revealed the centrality of enablers in the legal and financial sectors in laundering oligarchs’ monies and reputations. As co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Responsible Tax, Andrew Mitchell and Margaret Hodge have been at the forefront of the UK’s fight against dirty money, illicit finance and money laundering. In t ..read more

Claire Craig and Sarah Dillon discuss their new book. There is an urgent need to take stories seriously in order to improve public reasoning. The challenges of using scientific evidence, of distinguishing news from fake news, and of acting well in anticipation of highly uncertain futures, are more visible now than ever before. Across all these areas of public reasoning, stories create profound new knowledge and so deserve to be taken seriously. The two authors, Claire Craig, Provost of The Queen’s College, and Sarah Dillon, Professor of Literature and the Public Humanities at the University of ..read more

The event launched a book by the Emerging Markets Forum (EMF), a Washington DC based not-for-profit think tank focused on emerging economies. The book takes a long-term perspective of emerging market economies through 2060. It highlights some of the fundamental and structural changes in the global economy accelerated by the pandemic as well as changes in geopolitics. It looks at the global megatrends, and the key issues such as climate change, rising inequality and inequities, fragility of international monetary system as well as rapid technological changes and their impact on the way we work ..read more

Dr Leroy Hood, CEO of Phenome Health, discusses his strategy for precision population health If one takes a systems approach to healthcare, it is obvious that it should be predictive, preventive, personalised and participatory (P4). This can be accomplished, in part, by a vision which includes following the health trajectory of each individual with a data-driven (genome/longitudinal phenome) approach to, after proper analyses, optimise wellness and avoid disease. This is the essence of what precision population health should be. To achieve this object, Dr Leroy Hood, CEO of Phenome Health, has ..read more

Stefan Dercon talks about his new book, with further discussion from David Pilling (Financial Times) and Melinda Bohannon (FCDO) In the last thirty years, the developing world has undergone tremendous changes. Overall, poverty has fallen, people live longer and healthier lives, and economies have been transformed. And yet many countries have simply missed the boat. Oxford’s Stefan Dercon’s new book, “Gambling on Development: Why some countries win and others lose”, asks why it is that some of the previously poorest countries have prospered, while others have failed. Stefan argues that the answ ..read more

Please join Dr Tara Garnett (director of TABLE and fellow of the Oxford Martin School) in conversation with Dr Helena Wright, Dr Pablo Manzano and Dan Blaustein-Rejto, as they discuss livestock systems and greenhouse gas emissions. The food system generates around a third of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, with about half of these attributable to animal production; and yet food was markedly absent from official discussions at COP26. This, for many analysts, represented not only a major climate-relevant omission but also a missed opportunity for reshaping the food system in ways that could ..read more

Sir Dieter Helm discusses how we could shift to a sustainable economy. What would have to happen for this generation to live within its environmental means and to bequeath to the next generation a set of assets at least as good as it inherited? What would the sustainable economy look like? How do we stop climate change and biodiversity loss? Consumption would have to be on a sustainable growth path, having first ensured the proper capital maintenance of the infrastructures and the natural capitals. Polluters would have to pay, with prices reflecting the full costs of the pollution causes to ma ..read more