LSE: Public lectures and events

Contributor(s): Professor Nick Couldry, Baroness Beeban Kidron | Drawing on his recent book, The Space of the World, Nick Couldry will reflect on the global space of social communications and interaction that has been constructed over the past three decades through a commercialized internet and digital platforms whose business model depends on extracting data from users and shaping their behaviour to optimize advertising value. What if those conditions – valid perhaps in narrowly commercial terms – have guaranteed a space of human interaction that is larger, more polarized, more intense, and more toxic than is compatible with human solidarity? A space associated increasingly with toxic forms of political power and risks to the most vulnerable members of society? If so, we need to build a different space of the world, less likely to be toxic and more likely to generate the solidarity and effective cooperation that humanity absolutely needs if it is to have any chance of addressing its huge, shared challenges.

Contributor(s): Sharon Grant, Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka, Dr Roxana Willis | Join us to explore the legal, political and community-based racial justice work that emerged 40 years ago from the Broadwater Farm riots, examining methods of resistance that continue to address present-day questions of race, racism and social inequality. On 6 October 1985, The Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham became the site of one of the most significant moments of civil disobedience in British history. Three men, known as the Tottenham 3, were wrongly convicted and later acquitted for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock after a long campaign for justice. Four decades after the Broadwater Farm uprising, the events of October 1985 continue to resonate in the ongoing struggle against systemic racism. Marking the riots as a significant moment in Black British history, the event explores the Broadwater Farm Riots in the context of politics, community activism, law and criminology, the media and Black injustice.

Contributor(s): Professor Kristin Andrews, Dr Leonie Bossert, Jane Lawton, Dr Jeff Sebo | Learn more about the Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience, a new LSE initiative committed to making sure technological change works for - rather than against - the interests of other species. Would you trust a device that claimed to translate your dog or cat's emotions into English? Would you be OK with completely automated, human-free farming? What if you had a driverless car that was indifferent to hitting birds and foxes? AI is transforming the lives of animals at speed, but these huge impacts are going unnoticed and unregulated. Some of the changes could transform our relationships with our fellow creatures for the better, whereas others could make existing animal welfare problems much worse and even more deeply entrenched. How can we curb the risks and take the opportunities?

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta | How should we measure economic progress in an age of ecological crisis? Join us for a conversation with Partha Dasgupta, Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Cambridge, as he discusses his latest book On Natural Capital where he lays out a seminal and groundbreaking new approach to economics. Challenging everything that has come before, he asks, what if we were to put a value on nature just as we value everything else?

Contributor(s): Melinda Bohannon, Dr Vera Songwe, Dr Sudarno Sumarto, Professor Chris Woodruff | Climate finance is a critical tool in supporting low-income countries as they face the growing impacts of climate change. These nations, despite contributing the least to global emissions, are often the most vulnerable to climate-related shocks such as extreme weather, rising sea levels, and food insecurity. Yet, they frequently lack access to the capital needed to adapt, build resilience, and pursue low-carbon development. Unlocking investment for climate action in low-income countries requires a coordinated effort between governments, development banks, private investors, and international organisations.

Contributor(s): Professor Juliano Assunção, Jim Leape, Professor Rohini Pande | As climate change accelerates, the economic case for protecting and investing in natural capital has never been clearer. This event brings together leading economists and policymakers to explore how the degradation of ecosystems – from forests and wetlands to oceans – is not only an environmental crisis but a profound market failure. Natural capital – the world’s stock of natural assets like soil, air, water, and biodiversity – underpins global economies yet remains largely invisible in traditional financial systems. In the face of rising climate risks, we must rethink how we measure, value, and invest in nature.

Contributor(s): Professor Patrick Bolton, Professor Michael Greenstone, Sherry Rehman, Professor José Scheinkman | As the world prepares for COP30 in Brazil, this event provides a forward-looking platform to explore priorities, challenges, and opportunities for accelerating and aligning climate ambition with sustainable economic growth. As countries prepare to submit enhanced nationally determined contributions (NDCs), our panel explores how climate action can drive innovation, job creation, and long-term resilience, particularly in emerging and developing economies.

Contributor(s): Thomas Piketty | Presenting new research produced by the World Inequality Lab, Thomas Piketty discusses recent trends in global inequality, analysing the historical movement toward equality and future prospects for more redistribution. This lecture includes preliminary results from the Global Justice Project. Combining comparative historical data series from the World Inequality Database with global input-output tables, environmental accounts, labour force surveys and other sources, the Global Justice Project explores what a just distribution of socio-economic and environmental resources could look like at the global level from 2025 to 2100 – both between and within countries – in a way that is compatible with planetary boundaries. The project partly builds on the analysis and proposals set out in Thomas Piketty’s Brief History of Equality, extending them into a broader and more comprehensive global framework.

Contributor(s): Sir Jeremy Hunt | Join us for this talk by Jeremy Hunt in which he will talk about his new book, Can We Be Great Again?: Why a Dangerous World Needs Britain. Since the global financial crisis, Britain has been through a difficult period, leading many to conclude the country is doomed to inevitable decline. Jeremy Hunt was at the top of government as both Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. In Can We Be Great Again? he rebuts those who think Britain is no longer capable of shaping the world we live in.

Join Philip Coggan, a former Economist and Financial Times journalist, as he unpacks the economic chaos sparked by Trump's trade policies. He challenges the misconceptions about tariffs and trade deficits, revealing their harmful effects on consumers and inequality. Coggan discusses the complexities of global supply chains and the future of manufacturing jobs. He also explores the dollar's role in geopolitics and its implications for lower-income countries, emphasizing the urgent need for global economic cooperation in a post-Trump world.