Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs

On the 60th anniversary of the University of Sarajevo Faculty of Political Science, I addressed the conference “The World and Us”, held on 8 November. “My warm thanks for the invitation today. This is a prestigious list of speakers and panellists, many of whom I have been following for some time.  And this is an […]

World-leaders, policy-makers and negotiators from across the globe have converged on Glasgow for the United Nation’s 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26). Among the key objectives of COP26 will be to a) raise ambitions on climate action through countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to reach net-zero by 2050 (including ambitious 2030 targets), and b) mobilize […]

Accelerating innovation in low-carbon technologies is essential to achieve our net-zero targets and to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. While both mature and novel low carbon technologies are already transforming the global economy, speeding up their deployment can reduce the cost of decarbonization, saving $2.7 trillion annually by 2050, and lower food […]

This article is co-authored by Dr Jonathan Hassall, Environment Research Lead of the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; and Dr Mikael Allan Mikaelsson, Europe Lead on Net-Zero Innovation & Climate Change of the UK Science & Innovation Network  The 6th Assessment Report from the IPCC‘s Working Group I published in August 2021 painted a […]

This year I’ve had the privilege of heading the UK’s G7 anti-corruption efforts, negotiating the commitments which Interior and Security Ministers announced in September. I’ve worked on anti-corruption policy for more than five years and in that time have experienced the buzz of the 2016 London Anti-corruption Summit and the satisfaction of shepherding knotty issues […]