Oxford Martin School: Public Lectures and Seminars

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 facilitating political environment: how strong is the climate agenda and how much support does it have amongst citizens and in the private sector. Speaker: Rt Hon Sir Alok Sharma, President of COP26 in Glasgow 2021 In conversation with: Professor Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School,

Join Nathalie Seddon and Cameron Hepburn as they discuss the need for increased investment combined with rigorous evaluation of activities undertaken, using metrics which consider the complex, long-term benefits that nature-based solutions provide. Nature-based solutions (NbS) can contribute to the fight against climate change up to the end of our century. But the world must invest now in nature-based solutions that are ecologically sound, socially equitable, and designed to deliver multiple benefits to society over a century or more. Properly managed, the protection, restoration and sustainable management of our working lands could benefit many generations to come. While solutions such as community-led restoration and protection of mangroves, kelp forests, wetlands, grasslands and forests, bringing trees into working lands and nature into cities can bring multiple benefits from storing carbon and protecting us from extreme events, to supporting biodiversity and providing jobs and livelihoods, how can we engage governments, businesses and local communities in these solutions to ensure their success? The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review states that relative to other interventions, Nature-based solutions have the potential to be cost-effective and provide multiple benefits beyond climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction. So how can these economic evaluations for each solution be derived?

Professor Dame Henrietta L. Moore and Professor Sir Charles Godfray discuss how we can rebuild new economies in a way that ensures global prosperity. The recently published Dasgupta Review has made a strong call for the fundamental rebuilding of economic models in ways that inherently value Nature. These are welcome findings, coming at a time when existing economic structures, extractive systems and patterns of consumption are eroding ecological resilience and exceeding planetary limits. Yet the imperative for new economies that value biodiversity and ecosystem health as foundational for human wellbeing leaves us with a host of challenges and opportunities centred on how we may best build alternative economic infrastructures in inclusive and sustainable ways. This endeavour is unavoidably bound up with questions of how different communities understand social and ecological prosperity and how this should be researched and measured. Grounded in the innovative research of the Institute for Global Prosperity at UCL, this discussion between Professor Dame Henrietta L. Moore and Professor Sir Charles Godfray takes stock of how research traditions within the social sciences that are attuned to the diversity of human livelihoods, value systems and collaborative research methods are of urgent necessity for designing new socio-natural economies and planetary prosperity for all.

Inger Andersen, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, speaks to the implications of the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity, and how we can begin the journey to re-shape our economies, working with nature, not against it. Even as we seek to overcome the global pandemic, humanity faces three planetary crisis that threaten our future - the climate crisis, the biodiversity crisis, and the pollution and waste crisis – driven by decades of relentless and unsustainable consumption and production. In an important year for multilateral governance for the environment, Ms Andersen will address how the Dasgupta Review's findings can influence the finalisation of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, and open up financing for nature-based solutions, which must feature extensively in the updated and stretched Nationally Determined Contributions, to be submitted ahead of COP26 in Glasgow later this year. And finally, in this pivotal year, with countries making unprecedented investments to kick-start economies, and protect livelihoods, how can we use the Review’s findings to inform global efforts to “recover better” from the pandemic?

In the book launch for Rescue: From Global Crisis to a Better World, Ian Goldin, Author, and Nik Gowing, Founder at Thinking the Unthinkable, will discuss how the pandemic provides a unique opportunity to tackle today’s challenges. We are at a crossroads. Covid-19 has wreaked havoc but also offers the potential for radical change. Ian Goldin explains why bouncing back to business as usual would be disastrous, leading to escalating inequality, potentially more devastating pandemics and escalating climate change. Drawing on the experience of history, Ian identifies how during the Second World War the welfare state and new world order was created to build more cohesive societies and overcome global threats. The book and this talk examines the impact of the pandemic on the future of jobs, cities, globalisation, governments and businesses. The talk provides an analysis of what is to be done, and shows how the pandemic could lead to a better world.

Join Professor Chris Dye, author of The Great Health Dilemma, and Professor Salim Abdool Karim, Director of CAPRISA, as they discuss ways to invest more money and effort in health promotion and prevention around the world today.

Join us for a conversation between the author of the Economics of Biodiversity Review, Sir Partha Dasgupta, and Professor Cameron Hepburn, where they will discuss the important messages from the review and the road ahead.

Sadie Creese and Jamie Saunders discuss the steps that need to be taken by technologists, businesses, government and the international community to ensure that our digital infrastructure continues to provide the level of resilience and security we need. The pandemic has accelerated digitisation across many sectors of the economy and society. It is hard to imagine how many countries could have implemented lockdown measures to control the virus without the availability of digital technology to maintain at least a degree of economic and social activity. This technology has been remarkably resilient in the face of the increased demand. While there has been a perceptible increase in criminal activity seeking to exploit our increased dependence on IT during the pandemic, overall our systems and networks have held up well. This provides some confidence that the significant investment that government and business have made in operational resilience and cybersecurity over the past 10 years have paid off. However, future technology will bring a digital world of increased complexity, pace, scale and interdependence that will overwhelm many of the risk mitigations that are currently deployed. Without interventions now, it will be difficult to maintain the integrity of and trust in the technology on which we increasingly depend. How confident can we be that the technology will prove equally resilient and secure in the event of a future major shock? In particular, is our collective approach to managing cyber risks sustainable in the face of the major technology trends taking place in the near future?

in most countries conservation of leopards is dependent on trans-boundary collaboration. In this talk, Dr Mohammad Farhadinia explores the critical role of mountains for biodiversity conservation amidst international political concerns.

Ian Goldin, Kristalina Georgieva discuss how we can bring the Sustainable Development Goals in reach by 2030 The global pandemic has derailed progress toward the SDGs as developing countries now balance long-term investments in health, education, roads, electricity, and water with spending to protect lives and livelihoods. Bringing the SDGs within reach by 2030 will take a global effort from all stakeholders. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has run the numbers and is publishing a framework for developing countries to consider policy choices that can raise long term growth and bring in private investments in SDG projects. In this conversation with Ian Goldin, Kristalina Georgieva will look at country case studies and the kinds of reforms each can make to move towards the SDGs by 2030. Although it looks as though the building blocks of prosperity have moved just a bit farther out of reach, the roadmap for how to get there is now clearer.