With threats to the global order piling up, significant work needs to be done to ensure that the future is one built upon democratic values and freedoms.
At the Atlantic Council’s inaugural Global Future Forum in New York City on Tuesday, influential and innovative leaders gathered on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss the type of work that needs to be done to address today’s most pressing challenges, from a rise in authoritarianism to the rapid advancement of technology.
“We aren’t bystanders; we’re actors trying to contribute to a better global future,” Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe said in kicking off the event. “At moments like these . . . individuals make a difference.”
The dynamic leaders at the event also spotlighted the people, forces, and ideas they believe are most shaping the global future.
“It’s going to take all of us to confront this really complex and dynamic global future,” noted Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Jenna Ben-Yehuda.
Below are more highlights from the conference, which included discussions that touched upon the future of regions such as the Middle East and Latin America and also of issues such as sustainable development and health.
Jump to a recap
How innovative African diasporas are changing the continent’s future
The economic case for improving health systems globally—and how to do it
Condoleezza Rice: ‘Do you want Russia and China to shape the international environment?’
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: The fight for freedom connects us all
Reporters at Risk: How to solve the ‘widening gap in coverage’ between democracies and autocracies
A unique opportunity for Latin America and the Caribbean to foster sustainable development globally
“The glass is more than half full” when it comes to AI, says Kevin Rudd
Why ocean diplomacy is necessary to secure the global future
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Anwar Mohammed Gargash: The UAE doesn’t want to be ‘left behind’ on the technology shaping the future
With the era of oil nearing its end stage, “We don’t want to be left behind on something that is shaping tomorrow’s world,” said Anwar Mohammed Gargash, diplomatic advisor to the president and former minister of state for foreign affairs of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), during a fireside chat at the inaugural Global Future Forum.
In this vein, Gargash explained, the UAE is working to “invest and to be a partner in what is going on right now,” including by making major investments in civilian nuclear technology, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence (AI). “This is a major bet on diversification,” Gargash said.
Here are more highlights from Gargash’s conversation with Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe.
A bet on diversification
- Gargash said the UAE “has been one of the first hydrocarbon economies that understands that with climate change, we’re really coming to the autumn of oil.” And in diversifying its economy to meet that challenge, the UAE can’t rely on “traditional pools” of income. “You can’t grow tourism five hundred times, for example,” he said. “So clearly one of the challenges is to try and plug into what is going on in various technological spheres.”
- Regarding the UAE’s collaboration on advanced technology with China, Gargash said “international relations today are multilayered,” adding that, when it comes to sensitive technologies such as AI, there are “bounds of what can and can’t be done” when cooperating with Beijing.
A region at war
- On the escalating conflict between Israel on one hand and Hezbollah and Hamas on the other, Gargash said that “the locomotive of the future of the Middle East is being pulled by the most extremist parties on both sides,” adding that the future of the Middle East “is in the center.”
- “The priority is to de-escalate” in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon, said Gargash.
- Gargash said that the Abraham Accords—the normalization agreements Israel signed with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan in 2020—are a “symbol of moderation and of realism—of what the region needs.”
- Gargash spoke of the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while acknowledging that currently, public opinion among Israelis, Palestinians, and Lebanese is “completely against” a two-state solution. “I don’t think public opinion that emerges out of conflict should dictate to the future,” he said.
UAE-US partnership
- Speaking one day after UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed visited US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House, Gargash said, “Our relationship with the United States is our most important strategic relationship,” citing cooperation between the two countries on technological investment, civilian nuclear energy, and security.
- “We need a consistent American foreign policy,” Gargash said when asked what he would like to see in terms of cooperation between the UAE and the next US administration. “We want US engagement to remain no matter who wins,” he said, adding that “it’s the inconsistency that I think is a problem, not who wins and who doesn’t.”
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How innovative African diasporas are changing the continent’s future
If African countries want to improve the prosperity of their people, they’ll need to build connections, said Kitila Mkumbo, the minister of state at the Tanzanian President’s Office for Planning and Investment and a psychology professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, at the Global Future Forum.
Those bridges must connect rural populations to urban areas with infrastructure, particularly digital infrastructure, he continued. “We are going around the world . . . to ensure that we are holding action from our friends around the world, to partner with us,” Mkumbo said.
Among those friends around the world is the African diaspora community, Mkumbo argued, which “[plays] a very important role” in providing the knowledge, innovations, and capital for improving Africa’s digital infrastructure.
Below are more highlights from the conversation, which explored the role the African diaspora plays in shaping today’s innovations.
Fight for your (legal) rights
- Koko Boakye—Meta’s* vice president of public policy for Africa, the Middle East, and Turkey—argued that getting Africans online will not only connect families but also enable Africa to “play its role in the global economy.” That means breaking from “legacy” models in which African countries relied on connections such as subsea cables to link them with those outside the continent over connections within Africa. Those models “have held us back,” Boakye argued, while today the focus is on “ensuring Africa is more connected.”
- As countries look to address inequality and poverty across the continent, they “can’t ignore” African creatives in industries such as film, fashion, and music, said Afreximbank* Executive Vice President Kanayo Awani, because these fields are the “most significant employer of young people.” However, the industry is currently held back by a lack of financing, access to markets, capacity, and skill development.
- One of the biggest challenges African creatives face, Chocolate City Group Co-founder Audu Maikori said, is that they “do not even understand what their rights are” in terms of ownership of their content, for example.
- Homestrings CEO Eric Guichard, in launching a new report, pointed to the challenge of securing intellectual property rights in Africa. Currently, he said, the “fragmentation” of intellectual property protections across the continent makes it harder for African creatives to earn their income. If the continent can “create converging incentives,” in part by harmonizing intellectual property rights across countries, “you’ll see a transformed continent,” he argued.
Investing in a youth movement
- It is “really important for us to equip creators with the skills that they need to thrive in a digital era,” argued Balkissa Idé Siddo, Meta’s* public policy director for Sub-Saharan Africa. Doing so would have more than economic benefits, she continued: Africa’s creative industry is becoming “a tool for soft power,” she said, adding that the continent has the opportunity to “impact the world.”
- African Diaspora Network CEO Almaz Negash argued that the African diaspora has “so much to offer” in terms of “tools and resources”—such as mentoring and knowledge about the digital world—that African youth need to capture more value from creative industries.
- Because of the impact that increased youth employment would have on the continent, Abdulai Jalloh, founder and president of Bordernation, said that he thinks the African diaspora “is the most equipped . . . to influence and change” the continent. “However, we can’t sit here and make these plans without going on the ground and actually training, implementing, [and] investing in these young people that are coming up.”
- “The unity of Africa is going to be the key,” said Melvin Foote, founder and president of Constituency for Africa, in closing the session. “[We’ve] got to break the boundaries and get Africa working together. And we also got to engage the diaspora fully.”
Note: Meta and Afreximbank are sponsors of the Global Future Forum. More information on forum sponsors can be found here.
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The economic case for improving health systems globally—and how to do it
The way countries regard investing in their people’s health as simply a cost is shortsighted, said Andreas Schaal, director for global relations and co-operation at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), at a Global Future Forum conversation on the health-economy nexus.
“Healthy people contribute to more productivity and economic growth,” he said.
Furthermore, health has a “rippling effect” on the economy, Roche* Vice President and Head of Global Policy Tamara Schudel argued. She explained that diseases impact not only the patient, but also their caregivers—who often cannot work while taking care of their loved ones.
Schaal explained that the effects of overweight and obesity dampen gross domestic product by 3.3 percent in OECD countries. So the potential return on investing in health, he said, is “huge.”
Duke Global Health Innovation Center Founding Director Krishna Udayakumar agreed, saying that the data show there would be a “tremendous return on investment,” but “it’s not translating to political will.”
Below are more highlights from the conversation moderated by Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center at the Atlantic Council.
The consequences of inaction
- Schaal said that while there was significant political will to invest in health systems during the pandemic, such funding has gradually disappeared. Udayakumar argued that this interest and subsequent disinterest is evidence of the world’s “cycle of panic and neglect.” He added that the world is currently “very much [in] the neglect part of that cycle.”
- Schaal warned that politicians are gearing investments less toward health and more toward solutions to climate change and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Udayakumar agreed, adding that conflict, migration, and food security are occupying the minds of politicians—and “competing for the same dollars that would go into health systems otherwise.”
- Schudel also warned that, with financing issues, half the population doesn’t have access to medical services. “We need sustainable funding and financing for universal health coverage to make sure people can access the health care they need,” she said.
- After a history of inaction on health, health systems are “not caught up and are not mature [enough] to be able to deal with the broadening burden of disease,” Udayakumar said.
All hands in for health
- Päivi Sillanaukee, Finland’s special envoy for health and wellbeing, said that technology and digitizing the sector has helped Finland’s health system be proactive in dealing with disease (with, for example, early detection capabilities) and saving money. “These technological solutions should be available also in other countries, across [borders],” she said. But for that to happen, “we need, really, collaboration.”
- Schaal argued that the technology is important, but there needs to be more work across countries on the “interoperability” of health-system technology, explaining that there is an abundance of data about health internationally, but countries don’t work enough together enough to put that data to use. Sillanaukee added that to make that cooperation happen, countries should set up structures and processes to facilitate collaboration, including on research and development.
- That collaboration also needs to happen within governments, between leaders working on various issues that may impact a person’s wellbeing, Schudel said. Sillanaukee explained how ministers across Finland’s government—including the ministers of finance and foreign affairs—are currently exploring together how technology can help improve societal wellbeing and prosperity. For that, “it is really important that we keep everyone on board,” Sillanaukee said.
Note: Roche is a sponsor of the Global Future Forum. More information on forum sponsors can be found here.
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Condoleezza Rice: ‘Do you want Russia and China to shape the international environment?’
“Whoever inhabits the White House in January needs to recognize that the United States doesn’t have a choice now but to be involved in the world and to try to shape the international environment,” former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday during an Atlantic Council Front Page event at the inaugural Global Future Forum.
“Great powers don’t mind their own business. So, the real question is: Do you want Russia and China to shape the international environment? Or do we want to shape the international environment with our allies?”
Rice’s discussion with Atlantic Council President and CEO Frederick Kempe covered a wide range of pressing global issues, from Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s moves in the Indo-Pacific to the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and the stakes of the US presidential election in November.
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Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: The fight for freedom connects us all
“The fight for freedom is a global one,” said national leader of Belarus Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya at the Global Future Forum on Tuesday. “If there’s one thing we have learned in the last few years, it is that when freedom is under attack in one country, it is under threat everywhere.”
Tsikhanouskaya has been exiled from Belarus since 2020, when she was forced to leave the country after dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka fraudulently declared victory over her in that year’s presidential election. Lukashenka subsequently began a relentless and ongoing crackdown on the political opposition, independent journalists, activists, and any outward signs of dissent.
Below are more highlights from Tsikhanouskaya’s address on the Belarusian people’s struggle for democracy and the connections between their struggle and movements for freedom the world over.
Crackdown in Belarus
- “The fight for democracy is often romanticized,” said Tsikhanouskaya, pointing to the resilience of Belarusian protesters. But, the opposition leader added, it is important to be frank about the “darker picture of this fight,” and the costs that Lukashenka’s crackdown have imposed on the Belarusian people.
- “As we speak, thousands of Belarusians are behind bars,” said Tsikhanouskaya. “Every single day, dozens of people are being detained and tortured just because they dared to speak the truth.”
- Many of these political prisoners are held incommunicado and face life-threatening health conditions, including Tsikhanouskaya’s husband and former opposition leader Syarhey Tsikhanouski, as well as pro-democracy activists Maria Kalesnikava and Ales Bialiatski.
A shared struggle
- Tsikhanouskaya repeatedly emphasized the international nature of the struggle for democracy. “From Ukraine to Iran, from Venezuela to Cuba, the fight for freedom connects us all,” she said.
- Fighting for democracy in Belarus “also means standing with the brave people of Ukraine” in a shared struggle against Russia’s “imperialist war machine.” Russia’s war on Ukraine, she said, is “our common war for freedom.”
The path ahead
- Tsikhanouskaya advocated for further international economic pressure on the Lukashenka regime. “We need sanctions to be tightened,” she said, “not because sanctions are perfect, but because they are necessary.”
- “We realize that the fight for freedom is not sprint; it’s a marathon,” said Tsikhanouskaya. “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And our fight needs allies, and many of these allies are in this room today.”
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Reporters at Risk: How to solve the ‘widening gap in coverage’ between democracies and autocracies
“There’s been massive investments in saving local media here in the United States,” said Washington Post Global Opinions writer Jason Rezaian at the Global Future Forum. “I think we need to think about how to massively invest in exiled journalists to save our coverage of the world.”
Rezaian spoke at a panel on supporting journalists in an era of rising authoritarianism and crackdowns on press freedoms around the world. Joining him were Mikhail Zygar, founding editor in chief of TV Rain and an Atlantic Council nonresident senior fellow; Jean Lee, the former Pyongyang bureau chief for the Associated Press; and Edward Wong, diplomatic correspondent and former Beijing bureau chief for the New York Times. PBS News Hour Correspondent Jane Ferguson served as moderator.
“The technology that we have available to us in terms of tools for reporting digital and visual forensics,” Rezaian said, “is a great opportunity for us. But we got to get on this quick, because the number of places that we can adequately cover at this point is diminishing day by day.”
Below are more highlights from this panel, a part of the Atlantic Council’s “Reporters at Risk” series sponsored by Atlantic Council Board Executive Vice Chair Adrienne Arsht.
Jason Rezaian: Closing the coverage gap
- “I’m worried about the widening gap in coverage,” between countries with press freedoms and authoritarian states, Rezaian said. He noted the difficulties in covering not only China, Russia, and Iran, but also countries that “used to be reliable democracies” such as the Philippines and India, where the number of unprosecuted murders of journalists is “shocking.”
- One way to better cover authoritarian countries is to more robustly support exiled journalists, he said: “We need to do a better job of protecting them while in freedom.”
- Rezaian, who was imprisoned by Iran on espionage charges while serving as Tehran bureau chief for the Washington Post, said his arrest foreshadowed a larger trend of authoritarian countries cracking down on the press. “Our defense or reaction to journalist arrests around the world has to change” in response, he said. “Our tools of prevention and reaction have to evolve to respond to the nature of the problem.”
Jean Lee: “Psychological warfare” in North Korea
- “When you’re an American journalist in Pyongyang,” said Lee, “you are the only one.” So “I was under complete surveillance at all times.”
- North Korea’s investments in technology, Lee said, “are part of a broader strategy” that is primarily focused on raising illicit funds for its nuclear weapons program, “but also there is a cyber espionage campaign. And people like me and my colleagues, experts, journalists are the target of this right now.”
- Lee called for more investment from news outlets and nongovernmental organizations not only in covering North Korea but also to better protect journalists from the North Korean government. “This threat is very real on the ground,” she said. “It may not be active warfare, it may not be conflict, bombs, bullets. But the psychological warfare is very real.“
Edward Wong: How China cracks down on sources
- The “trickiest thing” about reporting in China is getting in touch with sources without endangering them, said Wong. Almost everyone in China relies on WeChat, and “security agencies can instantly get messages from that app and track what you’re doing with your sources,” with the ability to use chats “as evidence in trials.”
- However, Wong also noted that sometimes there is an “overemphasis” on China’s technological capabilities when it comes to surveilling journalists. “If I went to China now, I think I could reasonably contact sources, meet with them, travel around the country to most places without being followed by the security agencies and having that meeting disrupted before it takes place,” he said. But, Wong added, “When your story comes out, then they might track down the people and then question them, sometimes detain them or imprison them or put them on trial.”
Mikhail Zygar: Exile media is penetrating Russia
- Zygar, who was recently sentenced in absentia to eight-and-a-half years in prison by the Russian government, said the sentence “was not a threat to me,” but rather “a warning to my sources. They wanted to discourage my sources from communication with me.”
- Even with the chilling effect of his sentence and Russian bans on social media platforms, “I can still talk to all of my sources,” Zygar said. He said he uses Signal to speak to sources inside Russia, “including Russian bureaucrats, including Russian members of government.”
- Despite the widespread crackdown on dissent in Russia, Zygar said he was “very optimistic” about the reach of Russian exile media inside the country. “The population of Russia is sabotaging Putin’s policy because we have so many people watching and consuming the content of media in exile.”
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A unique opportunity for Latin America and the Caribbean to foster sustainable development globally
With major global convenings on climate, sustainability, and biodiversity set to take place in the region in the coming years, Latin America and the Caribbean has a unique opportunity to redefine what development looks like globally, argued Alicia Montalvo, manager of climate action and positive biodiversity at the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF).
“We are now in a very important moment to change the paradigm” toward sustainable development, she said Tuesday at the Global Future Forum. Montalvo said that Latin America and the Caribbean “is a region of solutions,” pointing to the region’s projects on renewable energy, critical minerals, food security, and biodiversity.
Columbia University Professor Mauricio Cárdenas explained that when it comes to sustainable development, it isn’t just about fueling the energy transition. It’s about developing clean and green alternatives to tools that other countries used to industrialize in the past—and using them to reindustrialize Latin America. “This is our opportunity. This is our time,” argued Cárdenas, adding that while Latin America and the Caribbean “didn’t cause all these elements of the current global challenges,” it is “a powerful force” in solving them.
Within the region, Brazil is simultaneously wrapping up its Group of Twenty (G20) presidency and gearing up to host the UN Climate Change Conference in 2025. To Renata Vargas Amaral, secretary for international affairs and development at Brazil’s Ministry of Planning and Budget, this moment presents an “opportunity [for] Brazil,” and it needs to “either lead or get out of the way.”
Below are more highlights from the conversation, moderated by Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.
Global leaders
- Amaral pointed to Brazil’s record-setting floods and severe fires in the Amazon, calling the upsurge in disasters “a warning that the climate crisis is here now, it’s not the future anymore.”
- She pointed out that sustainable development was one of Brazil’s top focuses during its G20 presidency, including its sustainable finance agenda and its work in the G20 Sustainable Finance Working Group. “We need to have more blended finance,” she said, and to “bring all stakeholders we can bring together to find solutions.”
- Amaral also talked about the new Global Alliance Against Hunger and Poverty, to be officially launched in November, which aims to mobilize funds, knowledge, and resources to expand related programs around the world. While the initiative was proposed by Brazil in the context of its G20 presidency, it will be open to non-G20 members. Amaral said that she hopes to see G20-related sustainable development initiatives “flourish” and Brazil is working with the next G20 president, South Africa, on achieving “continuity.” “We need to work as a group for the years to come,” she said.
- In climate and development convenings, Latin America and the Caribbean have the potential to power a “strong voice” in negotiations, Montalvo argued. “The problem is that we are not able to find these spaces where we can have a single voice. Sometimes we are very divided,” she said. However, “I think we have the opportunity now,” she added.
Everyone on board
- “We’re not getting enough attention,” said Cárdenas, a former minister of finance of Colombia. Montalvo agreed, saying that it is “crucial” to create alliances for tackling development issues in the region, so that Latin America and the Caribbean can join up with other regions in creating a common understanding of the problems they face—and share solutions.
- “Taking advantage of this set of opportunities is not easy, but without the private sector, certainly this is not going to be the case,” Cárdenas said. “You won’t be able to take advantage of all the opportunities.”
- Multilateral development banks such as CAF, Montalvo said, have an important role to play in incentivizing the private sector. “What we can do is to create these conditions, what we call the ‘enabling conditions,’ for bringing the investment towards the countries,” she explained. She pointed to green bonds and biodiversity certificates, as well as efforts by multilateral development banks to bolster security, help harmonize regulations, and improve capacity across the region.
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“The glass is more than half full” when it comes to AI, says Kevin Rudd
For Australian Ambassador to the United States Kevin Rudd, the opportunities from AI in policymaking and defense may outweigh the challenges.
Rudd, in conversation with Amazon Web Services* Vice President Dave Levy at the Global Future Forum on Tuesday, said that while AI can do things like “turbocharge cyberattacks,” the technology also can make it easier for leaders to digest large amounts of data quickly and access real-time information in making their decisions.
“Its ability to augment our existing human judgments, I think, is enormously useful,” Rudd said.
Below are more highlights from the conversation, moderated by Paula Dobriansky, vice chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
“Move faster”
- Rudd and Levy each touched upon how AI can be useful in helping manage policy challenges across topics including food security, health, climate change, and more. “It allows, fundamentally, for organizations to move faster, to do things with speed,” Levy said. For example, Levy noted, AI can help policymakers track where to move resources to get ahead of future food insecurity and housing crises.
- On health, Rudd and Levy explained, AI can help doctors make decisions faster and also optimize staffing; meanwhile, AI—including generative AI—can help edit complex information from scientists or create models that show the seriousness of climate change, specifically geared toward the public. The technology is an “untapped tool in shaping the future climate change action debate,” Rudd said.
- “When it comes to AI and generative AI, the glass is more than half full, and we should approach it in terms of the opportunities it provides humankind,” Rudd said.
Competing with authoritarian worldviews
- Still, Rudd cautioned to keep being “sober about the questions of governance.” While he thinks it is possible to achieve balanced AI governance norms applicable to democracies, he does not believe that the world will be able to agree on shared standards. “The truth is authoritarian states have a different worldview,” he said, “and therefore they will not share what the democratic world holds to be near and dear in terms of the ultimate sovereignty of citizens.” But Levy contended that countries around the world do have a “fairly common point of view,” especially on topics of reliability, security, and privacy.
- Rudd and Levy also touched upon a recent $1.3 billion deal for Amazon Web Services to provide a top-secret cloud service to host Australia’s intelligence data and to improve defense interoperability with the United States. The goal: “more resiliency, even more speed, [and] even more agility” for Australia, according to Levy.
- Rudd said that there is a realization among the governments of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance (Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom) that “the possibility of developing these leading-edge technologies within government, somehow hermetically sealed from the private sector, is just nonsense.”
Note: Amazon Web Services is a sponsor of the Global Future Forum. More information on forum sponsors can be found here.
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Why ocean diplomacy is necessary to secure the global future
The Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation was designed to “put the ocean at the center of our diplomacy,” said Jessye Lapenn, senior coordinator for Atlantic Cooperation at the US Department of State. The Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation is a a multilateral grouping of forty-two Atlantic countries founded in 2022 to focus on science, technology, economic development, and the environment. “Instead of thinking about ourselves as continents, we thought about ourselves as Atlantic coastal neighbors,” she said.
She spoke at a panel on Tuesday at the Global Future Forum on the importance of effective ocean diplomacy in protecting ocean health, biodiversity, and food security. Lapenn was joined by Eoin Leahy, Ireland’s maritime affairs attaché to the European Union; Austin Gallagher, founder and chief scientist of Beneath the Waves*, and Ben Bowie, managing director of TMP Public*. “The appetite for partnership and for multilateralism in the ocean space is growing,” said Leahy.
In the next five years, said Bowie, there will be “a very, very strong diplomatic case for using the oceans as a way to bring countries together, and we’ll have a much, much clearer sense of how those interactions work to shape our future.”
Below are more highlights from this discussion, which was moderated by Sherri Goodman, an Atlantic Council board director and a senior fellow at the Wilson Center.
What the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation means
- The Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, Lapenn said, “began in some ways as a US idea,” but is now “very much owned across the Atlantic and by other Atlantic states.” The Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation, she said, creates “a new language of pan-Atlantic” cooperation that “engages countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa.”
- Leahy said that one of the main benefits of Ireland joining the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation is “the community” it provides in terms of information sharing and learning from other countries’ ocean policies. “The community is now at foreign minister level,” he said, but also extends “right down to the practitioner level.”
- Leahy also described concrete economic benefits to Ireland that he attributed to maritime spatial planning conducted as part of the Partnership for Atlantic Cooperation. “Data harvested through the mapping program,” he said, has allowed Ireland to become an exporter of offshore wind energy and “helps us decarbonize our society.”
Into the unknown
- “From a food source perspective,” said Gallagher, as well as when it comes to regulating climate, “it’s really not a stretch at all to say that human health and ocean health are connected.”
- Gallagher outlined the importance of continuing research into the ocean, given how much of it still has yet to be mapped and researched. “There’s countless discoveries,” regarding “human health remedies, solutions to global challenges that are in an inaccessible part of our planet,” he said. “These gaps in our knowledge really underscore the need for science and for exploration,” he said.
The blue economy
- “There’s a very, very close interaction between our weather systems, our climate systems, and the ocean,” said Bowie. “We’re beginning to understand those interactions a little better,” he said. “That’s giving us some hope. It’s also giving us a bit of fear. The state of ocean health at the moment is precarious.”
- Bowie spoke of the importance of securing ocean health for the blue economy—which includes fisheries, tourism, maritime trade, and renewable energy. “It’s an absolutely integral part of our economy and just to be clear, not just our ocean economy, but the terrestrial economy as well,” he said.
Note: TMP Public and Beneath the Waves are sponsors of the Global Future Forum. More information on forum sponsors can be found here.
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Katherine Walla is an associate director of editorial at the Atlantic Council.
Daniel Hojnacki is an assistant editor on the editorial team at the Atlantic Council.
Further reading
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Image: Atlantic Council Executive Vice President Jenna Ben-Yehuda speaks at the Global Future Forum on September 24, 2024.