The world faces a confluence of major challenges that will define the future. Opening the panel, Suzanne Kianpour, Foreign Affairs and Political Journalist and Host at BBC News, asked Dr. Nouriel Roubini, Professor, New York University, if there were defining moments that prompted him to reflect on these in his new book. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Roubini noticed the worsening of climate change, a new Cold War, and a rise of the extreme right and left. He wanted to take a holistic look at the threat environment, not just economically and financially. We tend to extrapolate, Roubini continued, that the relative peace and welfare of the last 75 years will be that way in the future. These threats have solutions, but will require cooperation.
Pushing on that idea, Kianpour asked why the international response to climate change has been lackluster. Dr. Roubini noted that there is currently more talk than action, greenwashing, intergenerational conflicts, and selfishness. There are two potential paths to the future: one is utopian and the other is dystopian. Each of these threats is interconnected and Roubini sees the dystopian scenario more likely than the utopian. He hopes we go in the right direction and wrote the book is in part a way to warn people.
“In the media we’re often talking about the problems and not so much the solutions.”
Suzanne Kianpour, Foreign Affairs and Political Journalist and Host, BBC News
“Each one of these threats has a potential solution.”
Dr. Nouriel Roubini, Professor, New York University
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