After decades of growing inequalities, polarizing pressures and a pandemic that has destroyed jobs on an unprecedented scale, the economic recovery provides an opportunity to rebalance the distribution of income within and between countries. But, in spite of calls by G7 leaders for “building back a better world”, separate economic worlds may in fact be rising from the ashes of 2020, with little chance of them being unified without concerted reform measures at the national and international levels.
A better world will only emerge from the pandemic if strong economic recoveries are promoted and supported in all regions of the global economy, if the economic gains from recovery are skewed towards middle and lower-income households, if health provision, including ready access to vaccines, is treated as a truly global public good and if there is a coordinated big investment push across all countries into carbon-free sources of energy.
- Chapter 1: Global trends and prospects - Positive vibrations or waiting in vain?
- Chapter 2: The troubled history of building back better - From the 1980s debt crisis to covid-19
- Chapter 3: It's the end of the world as we know it - Surveying the adaptation landscape
- Chapter 4: From de-risking to diversification - Making structural change work for climate adaptation
- Chapter 5: Adaptation governance - Challenges in international trade and finance
In our fifth episode of The Weekly Tradecast, we talk to economist and author Richard Kozul-Wright, UNCTAD's director of the globalization and development strategies division, about how we can reduce the negative effects of climate change.
Much of Europe has been seeing soaring temperatures and battling to control huge wildfires this summer. Scientists say the heatwave is consistent with the global impact of our changing environment. Hundreds of millions of people around the world -- many in developing countries -- are suffering as extreme weather destroys crops, threatens development and makes entire areas unliveable.
Tune in to hear Richard on why climate change is not going away and why we must support developing countries with adaptation and mitigation to stop it from getting worse.
