Spring 2012 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern | Five years on from the Stern Review there have been important changes in the world which are likely to have a profound impact on our response to the two defining challenges of the century; overcoming poverty and managing climate change. Lord Stern will discuss how we can bring economics and political economy to the analysis of our response to these challenges in the context of a special but difficult decade in the global economy. The analysis of climate change has seen risk and the new-energy-industrial revolution move up the agenda in recent years, and we have learned more about prospects and mechanisms of collaboration. We require a deepening of the understanding of public policy for promoting the dynamics of transformation and managing immense risks. This should include a strong focus on key market failures. In this series of lectures, Lord Stern will outline the attractiveness of the new energy-industrial revolution and of low-carbon growth and will discuss how we can build the necessary national and international action to respond to the two defining challenges. This is the second of the three lectures, the others take place on 21 and 23 February. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE.

Contributor(s): Mukhtar Hussain, Professor Volker Nienhaus | It is felt that conventional financial systems have failed and should be replaced, or supplemented, by more ethical banking and socially responsible finance. Can Islamic Finance, as a system with a strong religious background and moral framework, satisfy this hope? Mukhtar Hussain is chief executive officer at HSBC Malaysia. Volker Nienhaus is visiting professor, University of Reading.

Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern | Five years on from the Stern Review there have been important changes in the world which are likely to have a profound impact on our response to the two defining challenges of the century; overcoming poverty and managing climate change. Lord Stern will discuss how we can bring economics and political economy to the analysis of our response to these challenges in the context of a special but difficult decade in the global economy. The analysis of climate change has seen risk and the new-energy-industrial revolution move up the agenda in recent years, and we have learned more about prospects and mechanisms of collaboration. We require a deepening of the understanding of public policy for promoting the dynamics of transformation and managing immense risks. This should include a strong focus on key market failures. In this series of lectures, Lord Stern will outline the attractiveness of the new energy-industrial revolution and of low-carbon growth and will discuss how we can build the necessary national and international action to respond to the two defining challenges. This is the first of the three lectures, the others take place on 22 and 23 February. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, and Chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, LSE. Judith Rees is Director, LSE.

Contributor(s): Dr Mark Vernon | What, in fact, is the love called friendship? What is the nature of its rules and perils, as well as its promise? Mark Vernon is a writer, broadcaster and journalist. He is an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck, University of London.

Contributor(s): Michael D. Higgins | On 11 November 2011, Michael D. Higgins was inaugurated as the ninth President of Ireland. A passionate political voice, a poet and writer, academic and statesman, human rights advocate, promoter of inclusive citizenship and champion of creativity within Irish society, Michael D. Higgins has previously served at almost every level of public life in Ireland, including as Ireland's first Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht.

Contributor(s): Dweep Chanana, Anwar Hasan, Shiv Nadar | Mr Dweep I. Chanana is a Director of Philanthropy & Values-based Investing at UBS AG. For the past five years he was responsible for advising clients in Africa, Asia, Israel, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He previously managed the UNDP’s Growing Sustainable Business initiative in Kenya and worked in the telecommunications industry. Dweep serves as mentor to a number of social enterprises and is co-founding Benefiit, a peer network of professional impact investors. UBS recently concluded a study of family philanthropy in Asia. The study revealed interesting insights into the evolution and state of philanthropy in Asia, and particularly India. Dweep will share some of the findings of the study, including some lesser known and possibly unexpected facets of philanthropy in the region. He will also draw comparisons to the practice of philanthropy globally, in the past and today. Mr Anwar Hasan is the Managing Director of Tata Limited in London. He joined the Tata Group in 1963 in Calcutta with Tata Steel. After holding several executive positions with Tata Steel he was appointed Managing Director of Tata Limited in 1999. Mr Hasan will speak about the Tata model of philanthropy. The founders of Tata had initiated and sustained a tradition of bequeathing much of their personal wealth to the many trusts they have created for the greater good of India and its people. Thus they created an extraordinary saga of philanthropy that has enriched India and its citizens across a century. Today the Tata trusts have come to control 66 per cent of the shares of Tata Sons, the holding company of the group. The wealth that accrues from this asset supports an assortment of causes, institutions and individuals in a wide variety of areas. The trusteeship principle governing the way the group functions casts the Tatas in a rather unique light: capitalistic by definition but socialistic by character. The Tata Group was awarded the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy in 2007 in recognition of the group's long history of philanthropic activities. Mr Shiv Nadar is Founder and Chairman of HCL Technologies and the Shiv Nadar Foundation. He founded HCL in the mid 1970s, which today is a $6 billion global enterprise with 90,000 professionals from diverse nationalities, who operate from 31 countries including over 500 points of presence in India. Shiv Nadar was conferred the Padma Bhushan - the third highest civilian honour, awarded by the President of India. Forbes Magazine featured Shiv Nadar in its list of 48 Heroes of Philanthropy in the Asia Pacific region in 2011. Mr Nadar will speak on Creative Philanthropy as a model for building spirals of inspiration. Shiv Nadar Foundation is engaged in empowering people through primary, secondary and higher education and transform lives. Creative Philanthropy is modelled on the principle of building institutions of excellence in education for long-term high impact socio-economic transformation and creating spirals of inspiration & concentric circles of impact and outreach. Mr Nadar posits that the potential outcome of creative philanthropy is its differentiated high impact approach that creates individuals as catalysts of transformation for many others. Dr Ruth Kattumuri is Co-Director, LSE India Observatory.

Contributor(s): Professor Ulrich Beck | German euro-nationalism is not inevitable. Europe's crisis is an opportunity to enlarge democracy. Ulrich Beck is professor of sociology, University of Munich and British Journal of Sociology LSE Centennial Professor in the Department of Sociology.

Contributor(s): Pierre Dinan | Unlike other African economies since independence, Mauritius has experienced long term sustained economic growth and development. What explains this success? Pierre Dinan is an economic consultant and external member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of Mauritius.

Contributor(s): Gareth Peirce | Evidence suggests that the British government has colluded in a range of extrajudicial activities – rendition, internment without trial, torture – and has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal its actions. Gareth Peirce is a solicitor whose battles against miscarriages of justice have changed legal history.

Contributor(s): Professor Emily Jackson | In a humane society, should it be legal to help those who are suffering terribly to end their lives? Emily Jackson, professor of law at LSE, tackles this provocative issue in a public lecture entitled ‘Right to Die’. Professor Jackson looks at how the law deals with the issue of assisted dying. While there is an absolute prohibition on assisting someone to kill themselves in the UK, Jackson shows that the line drawn between lawful and unlawful practices which may lead to someone’s death, is not clear cut. She asks whether the law draws the line between the right place. The lecture is the second of LSE's 'Burning Issues' lectures – a short series of interactive talks, designed to showcase the social sciences to a non-academic audience. In the first lecture, ‘Parasites – enemy of the poor’, Professor Tim Allen questions the effectiveness of our fight against one of humankind's most endemic invisible enemies. In the third and final lecture, Professor Conor Gearty will ask what human rights are in 'The DNA of Human Rights'. The Burning Issue Lectures are supported by the LSE Annual Fund and Cato Stonex (BSc International Relations 1986).