Emma Broomfield

“Those bits of plastic packaging we come into contact with every day, which are in our hands for mere moments, can end up existing in the natural environment for potentially hundreds of years.” LBS alumnus, Tristan Kaye MBA2015, is talking about the catastrophic consequences of plastic pollution. The statistics are chilling.

What is the likely impact of the war in Ukraine? AS: Aside from the tragedy, from an economic point of view it’s bad news for the global economy. There was a hope that we might get a robust recovery from Covid, but the war is clearly greatly impeding that. The likely impact will be different in different places. If you’re in the UAE, you’re probably quite excited about higher oil prices and the reflowing of capital flows, but it’s bad news for the economy at a time when we wanted recovery.

Every day, we all take steps to use fossil fuels less and minimise our carbon footprint, but there is a limit to what we, consumers, can do. The economy needs to be weaned off its reliance on fossil fuels systematically. A common approach to this challenge is to give carbon a price that better reflects the cost to the planet. Pricing this external effect of our use of carbon can be achieved through taxes or through cap-and-trade systems. In doing so, green technologies become more cost-effective.