Elemental by Arthur Snell | Surviving the New Geography of Climate Change

Within this century, the new era of extreme weather will threaten India’s ability to grow rice, prevent southern Europe’s farms from providing the continent with fresh produce, and make building in Saudi Arabia near impossible. While such unprecedented challenges inevitably drive conflict, they will also encourage innovation, upending economies and global power structures to create opportunities for new players and pioneering ways of living.

In conversation with Peter Frankopan, Arthur Snell presents Elemental, his new book and ground breaking study that shows how we can live on a warming planet. The world he describes sees Africa powering Europe with solar energy; autocratic oil states are no more; and new shipping routes across the melting Arctic bring Asia, Europe and North America closer than ever before.

Through four sections – Earth, Air, Fire and Water – Elemental blends reportage with analysis and interviews with key experts, policymakers and politicians, to reveal the turbulent future we face – and the choices we need to make to avert disaster.

Speakers

Arthur Snell is an expert on the interaction between geopolitics and climate change with a degree in History from the University of Oxford. He has over 30 years’ experience in conflict zones and fragile states throughout the Middle East and Africa, and advised governments – including Ukraine during the current conflict – on a range of security- and conflict-related issues. He is also an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, the world’s oldest think tank, a former British Ambassador, and has hosted numerous podcasts which have had millions of downloads.

Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University, where he is Director of the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research and Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford. He is also UNESCO Professor of Silk Roads Studies and a Bye-Fellow at King’s College, Cambridge. He works on the history and politics of the Mediterranean, Russia, the Middle East, Persia/Iran, Central Asia, China and beyond – as well as on the histories of climate, natural resources and connectivities. Peter’s bestselling books The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, The New Silk Roads: The Future and Present of the World and The Earth Transformed have been translated into forty languages.