Discussions about climate action nowadays often focus on the largest past and current emitters. But, if one looks to the future, the biggest climate risks and opportunities lie in the more than 60 countries that have signed up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

MUNICH – There is a subtle yet important change occurring in how political leaders think about international trade, including how to remedy long-standing problems.

LONDON – There is not a country in the world that is not grappling with the serious health and environmental consequences of their people’s diets. There has to be a better way to feed everyone well and sustainably.

FLORENCE – Earlier this month, Jim Yong Kim abruptly resigned from his post as World Bank president, leaving a pillar of the international financial order without leadership or direction.

LONDON – If there is one useful conclusion that economists and investors can draw from the crazy year that has just ended – indeed, from the whole crazy decade since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 – it is this: As they say in Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.”

WASHINGTON, DC – During a recent commute to work, as my car inched along in rush-hour traffic, I watched a heron stalk the banks of the Potomac River. T

LONDON – British Prime Minister Theresa May’s plan to withdraw her country from the European Union in an orderly fashion is collapsing.

CAMBRIDGE – With so much angst about artificial intelligence and the future of work, the recent world chess championship in London offers some hope.

The singular issue of Brexit has consumed the United Kingdom for two and a half years.

WASHINGTON, DC – In 2015, 21 young people between the ages of 11 and 22 filed a major lawsuit against the US government for failing to limit the effects of climate change.

ROTTERDAM – For anyone still undecided about the consequences of global warming, the summer of 2018, one of the hottest on record, should have tipped the scales. Across far-flung longitudes and latitudes, regions are struggling with the fallout from large-scale climate-related events.

BRUSSELS – Far from settling the question of the United Kingdom’s future, the 2016 Brexit referendum and subsequent negotiations with the European Union have triggered a full-blown identity crisis and culture war in Britain.

A common misperception among observers of digital trends is that consumers in developing countries do not benefit from advances in technology.

BOSTON – On a recent trip to India, I hailed a rickshaw that was pedaled, I soon noticed, by a man with a lame leg.

The 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession left the Global North 10% poorer than it otherwise would have been, based on 2005 forecasts.

The key strategic issue in East Asia is the rise of Chinese power. Some analysts believe that China will seek a form of hegemony in East Asia that will lead to conflict. Unlike Europe, East Asia never fully came to terms with the 1930s, and Cold War divisions subsequently limited reconciliation.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body tasked with providing scientific evidence and consensus on climate change and its implications for decision-makers and the public, has just issued its latest, long-awaited report.

Heat waves and extreme-weather events across the Northern Hemisphere this summer have brought climate change back to the forefront of public debate.

This week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will release its annual Goalkeepers report card assessing progress toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Among the expected findings is a prediction that by 2050, nearly 90% of global poverty will be concentrated in Sub-Saharan Africa, and two-thirds of the world’s poorest people will live in just ten countries.

This year, extreme weather conditions have ravaged our planet, subjecting vulnerable communities around the world to the ever-increasing impacts of climate change.

Much will be said about the tenth anniversary of the 2008 financial crisis, so I will focus on the global economy, which has not been nearly as weak as many seem to think.

Next month, the Global Climate Action Summit – one of the largest international gatherings on climate change the world has seen – will be held in San Francisco.

Humanity is on the move. We are living in an era of unprecedented mobility of ideas, money, and, increasingly, people.

Having gained more than 8% in value since the start of the year, the US dollar is nearing highs not seen in more than a decade, and market indicators point to even more appreciation in the coming months.

The European Union’s regulatory bodies seem to be particularly hostile to Google. In June 2017, the European Commission fined the company €2.42 billion ($2.75 billion) for breaching EU antitrust rules, after concluding that, “Google has abused its market dominance as a search engine by giving an illegal advantage to another Google product, its comparison shopping service.”