Blogs and Opinions
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COVID-19 is creating a hunger catastrophe in India – here’s an opportunity to break the cycle
Tuesday 15th of June 2021
COVID-19 has proven to be not only a health crisis, but also a livelihood crisis – quickly turning into a hunger and malnutrition catastrophe.
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Bye, bye, baby? Birthrates are declining globally – here’s why it matters
Tuesday 15th of June 2021
At the end of May, the Chinese Government announced that parents in China would now be permitted to have up to three children. This announcement came only five years after the stunning reversal of the 1980 one-child policy.
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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 15 June
Tuesday 15th of June 2021
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 176.2 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 3.81 million. 2.4 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
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Human nature can combat climate change, says Belgium’s Prime Minister
Tuesday 15th of June 2021
This is one of a series of articles written by Young Global Leaders with action-oriented ideas to improve the state of the world by 2030.
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Meet the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers of 2021
Tuesday 15th of June 2021
From artificial intelligence to healthcare to fintech, the latest group of World Economic Forum Technology Pioneers blends entrepreneurial spirit with science and engineering to tackle global problems head on.
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7 renewable energy lessons from South Australia
Monday 14th of June 2021
It’s one-and-a-half times bigger than the US state of Texas, almost as big as Egypt and has a population of 1.7 million people. The state of South Australia is also a global leader in the use of renewable energy.
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Here’s how one social entrepreneur became a first responder to the Indian COVID crisis
Monday 14th of June 2021
“In rural Manharashtra, India we have a local saying that the sky has burst – we are trying to fix it with small pieces – it’s a bad situation”, says Chetna Sinha, Founder-Chairperson of Mann Deshi Bank and the Mann Deshi Foundation.
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Taxonomy: Why 19 ferns are named after Lady Gaga and a bug is named after Brad Pitt
Monday 14th of June 2021
People have long named their pets after celebrities or well-known figures, but scientists do it too – and for good reason.
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Tasmania’s already reached net-zero and 100% renewables. So what’s next?
Monday 14th of June 2021
Getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and 100% renewable energy might seem the end game for climate action. But what if, like Tasmania, you’ve already ticked both those goals off your list?
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2020 was a record year for US renewables. This is what needs to happen next
Monday 14th of June 2021
Despite the challenging economic conditions created by COVID-19, 2020 was a record year for clean energy development in the United States, with the country nearly doubling the capacity installed in 2019.
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25 million people in Africa and Asia cannot afford electricity due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Monday 14th of June 2021
The economic toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has left more than 25 million people in Africa and Asia unable to afford electricity, threatening a global goal to provide power to everyone by 2030, international agencies warned on Monday.
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Experts explain: What the FDA’s approval of a new Alzheimer’s drug means for healthcare
Monday 14th of June 2021
In 2019, Alzheimer’s disease was the seventh biggest cause of death globally, so it’s likely you know someone who has been affected. It’s the leading cause of death in the UK, where, of the COVID-19 deaths in March to April 2020, 1 in 5 were people with dementia.
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Everything you need to know about the G7’s plan to donate 1 billion vaccine doses
Monday 14th of June 2021
A G7 plan to donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to poorer countries will have limited impact because it includes some previous pledges, but it still offers a small lifeline to a global vaccine buying system, according to some experts.
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5 charts on the state of the global economic recovery
Monday 14th of June 2021
The global economy is set to expand 5.6 percent in 2021—its strongest post-recession pace in 80 years. This recovery is uneven and largely reflects sharp rebounds in some major economies amid highly unequal vaccine access, with many poorer countries facing subdued prospects. By 2022, last year’s per capita income losses are not anticipated to be reversed in about two-thirds of emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs). To help repair the damage from the pandemic, policy makers will need to promote growth-enhancing reforms and steer their economies onto a green, resilient, and inclusive development path.
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How to bring your conscience to work
Monday 14th of June 2021
Wharton professor G. Richard Shell’s graduate course on business responsibility is peppered with students he calls “ethics refugees.”
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Climate change is making ocean waves more powerful, threatening to erode many coastlines
Monday 14th of June 2021
Sea level rise isn’t the only way climate change will devastate the coast. Our research, published today, found it is also making waves more powerful, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere.
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40 years on: four action points essential to the global battle against HIV and AIDS
Monday 14th of June 2021
On 5 June 1981 a short report of five cases of pneumocystis pneumonia in young homosexual men in Los Angeles marked the discovery of AIDS, the first pandemic of the 20th century caused by a completely new virus, HIV.
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How tech is helping Egypt’s informal recyclers build a circular economy
Monday 14th of June 2021
For more than 70 years, Cairo’s zabbaleen (Arabic for waste collectors) have been gathering and recycling the city’s rubbish with an efficiency that would be the envy of most professional waste management companies. Yet their pivotal role in the city’s circular economy has gone largely unrecognized.
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A new era of sustainable travel prepares for take-off
Monday 14th of June 2021
At the last World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, weeks before the start of the pandemic, Greta Thunberg warned that “our house is on fire” and we need to take urgent action. In my recent speech at Stanford Graduate School of Business, I predicted that we have now reached a tipping point when it comes to environmentally sustainable travel, in the wake of the pandemic. The transportation industry will reach a sustainable cruising altitude and build back better using my 5P framework of purpose, prepare, pursue, partner and pivot:
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From remanufacturing to recycling: how manufacturing can raise the bar on global climate goals
Monday 14th of June 2021
The manufacturing industry must accept its heavy responsibility for emissions of greenhouse gases. In the US, manufacturing accounts for almost a quarter (23%) of direct carbon emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. In Europe the situation is equally dire: the industry emits an annual total of 880 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents making it one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases on the continent.
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COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 14 June
Monday 14th of June 2021
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 175.9 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 3.8 million. More than 2.36 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.
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How trade-based money laundering works and its impact on world finances
Monday 14th of June 2021
Money laundering is big business, so big, that to handle the movement of enormous sums of money, fraudsters are increasingly turning to Trade-Based Money Laundering (TBML). In developing countries, TBML and associated tax evasion contributed to almost $9 trillion in losses between 2008 and 2017. Tackling TBML is complicated by cross-jurisdiction trade, multinational companies, and globalized trade pathways.
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How to practise good cyber-hygiene across your supply chain
Monday 14th of June 2021
• Most businesses simply accept that their suppliers are cybersecure.
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Why startups don’t want the workplace to return to normal
Monday 14th of June 2021
If you were to encapsulate the state of business in 2020 (and so far, most of 2021) in a word, it should be “friction.” I am not referring to the complications of the overnight change to digital workplaces, the lockdown of retail, or even the bureaucratic nature of vaccine rollouts. I’m talking about the constraints that disappeared for some startups, revealing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to thrive. The COVID-19 pandemic was, and is, a watershed moment for more startups to compete on a global scale. I believe that even more of them can succeed and grow in the COVID-19 recovery – if we can maintain a hybrid model of both in-person and remote business.
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Morgan Stanley’s Audrey Choi on Meet the Leader: Think beyond your title
Friday 11th of June 2021
Audrey Choi, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Sustainability Officer, had a non-traditional path to working in an investment bank. Her career includes time as a reporter and bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal and she later worked in public policy, first for the Clinton Administration and then for Al Gore. And she was also chief of staff to Janet Yellen when Yellen served as the chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers.
