State of play The monumental task of the clean energy transition has touched every corner of the globe, and soon may go even deeper than ever before: the bottom of the ocean. In the race to secure critical minerals needed for a variety of technologies, notably electric vehicle (EV) batteries, some companies have launched exploration…
The planet is on fire metaphorically (and unfortunately, quite often literally). As a young human in their mid-20s, I’ve slowly and painfully learned, as I’m transitioning into adulthood, that the world I’m living in, and one day maybe my children, is on a downhill spiral of environmental degradation and that increasingly tougher times are ahead. …
A world on edge The world is currently in a state of anxious agitation around an issue we knew we would have to concretely and seriously deal with, sooner or later. We are faced with the colossal problem of human-induced climate change, an end-of-the-world scenario of our own making. Thankfully, many of us have now…
The Glasgow Climate Pact, taken together with other decisions adopted at the close of COP 26, constitute an impressive step forward in multilateral climate policy. The true measure of success of “Glasgow”, however, will lie not in the words uttered or committed to paper but in the lasting impact of the full array of Glasgow’s…
The international community has been gearing up for the COP26 in Glasgow for months. It has been all that we have been able to talk about and rightly so. With the climate emergency continuing to present a mortal challenge to humanity, the international gathering taking place in Scotland will likely be one of the last…
October 24th is observed worldwide as “UN Day”, the day that the Charter of the United Nations Organization came into effect. The year was 1945, at the end of World War II, and it was the start of humanity’s second experiment in global governance, after the failed League of Nations in the inter-war period. UN…
Climate change is a threat to global peace, security, and prosperity. It poses a threat to human and natural systems due to their vulnerability and exposure. Vulnerability, in this context, is the propensity or predisposition to be adversely affected. People who are socially, economically, culturally, politically, institutionally, or otherwise marginalized are especially vulnerable and pose…
The annual meeting of the “global village chiefs”, also known as “General Debate” of the United Nations General Assembly is due to start this coming Tuesday, 21 September 2021. It is the opening of the 76th session of the world body and is planned as a hybrid event, because of the continuing pandemic concerns. Nonetheless,…
The Olympics, the world’s most celebrated international sporting tournament, needs no introduction. Inspired by the Ancient Olympic Games, held in Olympia, Greece more than two thousand years ago, the Modern Olympics began in Athens during the late 1800s and have successfully continued ever since, uniting over 200 countries and territories when it was held in…
This is a republished version of the original article published on the Global Challenges Foundation website, which you can access here. The climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic harshly highlight that there is a lack of an “all-of-government” and an “all-of-multilateralism” approach to addressing contemporary global threats of a non-military nature. But there is…
