Speaking

Interview: Costs Pile Up As Climate Change Adds $600 Billion In Insurance Losses

I was interviewed by David Vetter at Forbes about risks to the insurance industry from climate change. You can read the article here. “Because insurance impacts are mounting and because we don’t have an insurance system built for the way that climate change is evolving, this dynamic is only going to get much worse,” Laybourn…

Interview: Organising the Future

I was interviewed by Andrew Parry, Head of Investments at J O Hambro Capital Management and Regnant, on the Organising the Future podcast. We talked about how climate change pose a threat to national security, the cascading impacts of climate change on global systems, and why current economic models are inadequate for assessing risks.

TED Countdown: 1.5° Overshoot – risks and new dilemmas

Dr James Dyke (University of Exeter) and I led a workshop at TED Countdown in Brussels. The majority of climate scientists no longer believe we can limit warming to 1.5°C  and efforts to do so now depend on the concept of overshoot, which is increasingly relying on carbon removal to lower temperatures by 2100. What…

Quote: Bloomberg Green

I spoke with Olivia Rudgard at Bloomberg about the role of games in understanding and acting on climate risk. “Games are a great way to help those people, and wider society, grapple with the challenge to their imagination of something that has never happened before. The things that could happen if we don’t deal with…

Global Tipping Points Report 2023: Discussion with lead authors

The Global Tipping Points Report was launched on 6th December 2023 and provides an authoritative assessment of the risks and opportunities of both negative and positive tipping points in the Earth system and society. In this webinar several Section Leads presented key insights from this report. Speakers:

Quote: The Telegraph

I spoke with the Daily Telegraph about how people in the UK should think about China’s record on the climate crisis. While China is a huge emitter, it is also a world-leader in clean technologies. It is installing more renewables in a given month than others countries achieve in years. This matters for the environment…

Interview: Times Radio

I spoke with Times Radio about leadership on the climate crisis and comparisons with the mobilisations behind WWII.

Event: Stories of 1.5°C: Dead or alive?

I chaired a panel event exploring the challenges to the plausibility of the 1.5°C global climate goal, building on a report I co-authored, published by IPPR and Chatham House. High profile voices are arguing that the global goal of limiting climate change to 1.5° C is already lost. Yet limiting to 1.5°C is still physically possible…

Interview: Financial Times

I spoke with Attracta Mooney at the FT about the 1.5C climate target. You can read it here.

Interview: Washington Post

I was interviewed by the Washington Post about an IPPR and Chatham House report, for which I was the lead author.

Interview: BBC World Service

Over the last few years, I’ve been helping develop a new board game on the climate crisis. It’s called Daybreak. We played it with the BBC World Service. Listen to the podcast below.

Interview: Planet Critical – What We Need From COP27

Rachel and I had a chat about the opportunities in crisis moments throughout history. We explored how our current fiscal ideologies, including our relationship to debt, impedes necessary climate action around the world whilst hobbling the global south’s capacity to respond to increasing catastrophes.

Interview: PTV interview on COP27

I spoke with the Pakistani news broadcaster about how climate impacts in one place have consequences further afield.

Panel: Trying to have a ‘discussion’ with David Starkey

He thinks that in ‘tribal societies…you cannot have a modern, developed economy’ and that we can’t allow modern medicine to go into such societies as they will then have a larger population, which they will fail to sustain.

Event: Beyond ‘Hopeium’ and ‘Doomism’, Chatham House

As part of London Climate Action Week (LCAW), I chaired a fantastic panel that explored how to maintain focus and attention on reducing emissions even as horrifying climate impacts grow, featuring: Nina Jess, Schwarzman Academy Fellow, Environment and Society Programme, Chatham House Dr Jesse Reynolds, Executive Secretary, Global Commission on Governing Risks from Climate Overshoot…

Event: Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Part of an event on “Governing in the climate crisis: how should future leaders prepare?”, I explored how the environmental crisis is creating a more chaotic – or ‘turbulent’ – world, what challenge that poses for the sustainability transition, and how emerging leaders need to be supported in their journey to senior leadership under these…

Event: How can future leaders prepare for an environmentally-destabilized world?

At this Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator event, I was joined by an excellent panel to discuss the huge challenges facing future leaders and what we can do about it: Ana Yang, Executive Director, Sustainability Accelerator, Chatham House May Boeve, Executive Director, 350.org Dr Kate Guy, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of State Gadir Lavadenz, Global Coordinator, CBD Alliance Dr Daniel…

Seminar: Into the Storm – Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter

24th May 2021 I gave a talk at the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter that explored the grand strategy for re-stabilising the natural world – or lack thereof – and how this will have to increasingly contend with the destabilising consequences of the environmental emergency. Check out the video below and read…

Interview: A World to Win

Mathew Lawrence and I joined Grace Blakeley to discuss Planet on Fire on the A World to Win podcast.

Interview: The Owen Jones Show

Mat Lawrence and I spoke with Owen Jones about Planet on Fire, how we face an overall environmental emergency, it’s caused by (deeply unjust) economic systems over individuals – so our response can and must be political and transformational.

Interview: The Nomiki Show

I spoke to Nomiki Konst on the Nomiki Show about the environmental emergency, the role of economic systems in driving the disaster, and how our response can and must be political and transformation. I joined by Mat Lawrence and we also spoke about our new book, Planet on Fire.

Foul is no longer fair: Towards an economics for planetary stability

Talk to the Council for the Human Future conference, 21st March 2021 It is never hard to find commentary on why we are collectively failing to address the accelerating environmental emergency.  ‘We’re not wired to empathize with our descendants,’ laments a psychology professor in the Washington Post. ‘We lack courage,’ concludes President Macron to world…

Video: Emotional and Psychological Resilience to Current and Looming Crises. Leslie Davenport

More and more individuals and communities are struggling to cope with the psychological and emotional toll of environmental and social systems gone awry, with this trend likely to get more severe in the coming years and decades. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Leslie Davenport joins me to explore the emotional and psychological…

Video: The Cycles of Societies and Where We Find Ourselves. Interview with Daniel Hoyer

Around the world today you see societies in varying degrees of stability and instability. Looking back throughout history, we may be able to identify certain patterns in how societies develop, change, fall into crisis, and evolve into new phases of development. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Daniel Hoyer joins me to explore…

Video: The Critical Need for and Challenges Facing the Energy Transition. Interview with Richard Heinberg

Access to energy is of foundational importance for societies, but constraints on our abilities to meet societies’ energy requirements are growing. Foremost among them is the pressing challenge of transitioning to a zero-carbon energy system. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Richard Heinberg joins me to explore the crucial role of energy in…

Video: The Rise of Far-Right Counter-Revolution around the World. Interview with Walden Bello

Regressive political movements have increased in size and power over the last decade, with dissatisfaction with the status quo and political conflict on the rise. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Walden Bello joins me to explore the factors behind the rise in political fragmentation in both the global south and global north,…

Video: Growing Economic and Environmental Inequality. Interview with Jason Hickel

Despite prevalent claims that economic well-being has been on the rise in recent decades globally, the post-colonial period has been one of increasing, not decreasing, inequality between the Global North and Global South. Growing economic and social inequality is a driving factor in a range of major problems, from poor health to political fragmentation, but…

Video: What’s Driving the Migration of Humans and Other Species? Interview with Sonia Shah

Over 70 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, with large increases in recent years having been driven by a complex mix of factors, including environmental shocks, conflict, and economic crisis. As ever, the vast majority of these people stay within countries or regions and suffer. Meanwhile perceptions of migration — which are often incorrect…

Video: Fragility in Economic Systems. Interview with Nate Hagens

Ten years after a financial crisis, the inherent instability of financial markets has been further confirmed by the coronavirus pandemic, while fragilities in wider economic systems have been exacerbated, from precarious work to the consequences of high levels of debt in the global south and across the corporate sector. In this episode of the “Great…

Video: Fragility in Food Systems. Interview with Raj Patel

Food systems around the world are dependent on supply chains that connect the fate of consumers in one region to producers in another. A range of major problems are already buffeting these systems, from the chronic failure to provide adequate nutrition to growing environmental shocks. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Raj Patel…

Video: Who’s Already Suffering the Consequences of the Environmental Crisis? Interview with Nnimmo Bassey

The consequences of environmental degradation have impacted people across the world for hundreds of years. In recent decades, the negative social, economic and health impacts of global environmental problems have fallen disproportionately on those least responsible. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Nnimmo Bassey joins me to explore how environmental destruction has impacted…

Video: How Bad Is the Wider Environmental Crisis? Interview with Johan Rockström

Human destabilisation of the environment encompasses a range of critical natural systems and processes. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Johan Rockström joins me to set climate breakdown within the full picture of overall environmental breakdown, explore destabilisation of natural systems, and the consequences. Professor Johan Rockström is a world-leading global sustainability scientist…

Video: How bad is the climate crisis? Interview with Michael Mann

Average global surface temperatures have passed 1.1º Celsius above pre-industrial levels. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Michael Mann joins me to explore the current status of the climate crisis and the unprecedented minefield we enter as we head to and exceed 1.5º Celsius. Dr. Michael E. Mann is a world renowned expert…

Video: Introduction to the “Great Unraveling?” Series

Here I introduce the Great Unraveling? interview series: its purpose, what topics will be covered, and why we’re initiating this timely discussion. Over summer 2020 I conducted brief interviews with some of the world’s foremost experts on a broad range of environmental and societal challenges, to set a foundation for understanding the accelerating and interrelated…

Panel: We Are Not Ready

I spoke at and chaired a panel at the launch of the final report of my IPPR programme on environmental breakdown.

Panel: Change Only Through Crisis?

I spoke at a Forum for a New Economy, Berlin conference about the role of pandemics in driving political and economic change.

What’s Causing the Environmental Crisis? Interview with Julia Steinberger

Human destabilisation of natural systems is related to a range of factors, including technology, population, and, importantly, levels and types of consumption. In turn, these factors are affected by a host of economic, political, legal and cultural considerations, which differ markedly throughout the world. In this episode of the “Great Unraveling?” series, Julia Steinberger joins…

Podcast: Back to the Future

I spoke on Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd’s Reasons to be Cheerful podcast about the intergenerational issues at the heart of the environmental emergency.

Video: A Toxic Inheritance

I did a video on my latest IPPR report – Inheriting the Earth? – which looked at the huge intergenerational issues at the heart of the environmental emergency.

Panel: The Big Tent Ideas Festival

I spoke at the Big Tent Idea Festival about a new economic system capable of dealing with the challenges of the present and future.

Video: Resilience and Africa

I spoke at the Wilton Park Climate Resilience Conference on the role of younger generations in responding to the huge challenges of environmental breakdown.

Video: This is a Crisis

The introductory video for the IPPR This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown report.

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