SOAS Inaugural Lecture Series: Professor Tom Tanner and Professor Ulrich Volz (College of Development, Economics and Finance)
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
5:30 pm to 7:30 pm
- Venue
- SOAS Gallery
- Room
- SOAS Gallery Lecture Theatre
About this event
Our first inaugural lecture of 2025 welcomes Professor Tom Tanner and Professor Uli Volz from the College of Development, Economics and Finance, who present lectures on The Real Adaptation Gap: Development in a Climate Changing World and Reversing the Vicious Circle of Debt, Underdevelopment, and Environmental Change respectively.
Given ongoing failures to prevent the causes of global heating, tacking climate-related impacts is one of the most pressing challenges facing humanity. In this lecture, Professor Tanner critically examines our dominant approaches to adapting human society to climate change and looks to interdisciplinarity and decolonising knowledge as reasons for optimism.
In the second lecture, Professor Volz examines how climate vulnerability and nature loss create a vicious circle in which developing countries face higher sovereign risk, rising capital costs, and decreasing fiscal space for investment. It subsequently discusses ways of enhancing investment in resilience and sustainable development to reverse this process and create a virtuous circle.
About the Speakers
Professor Tom Tanner
Tom Tanner is a Professor of Climate and Society. Tom’s research interests include climate change policy and planning, anticipatory decision-making, urban resilience, policy processes and political economy, and child-led approaches to resilience.
Professor Uli Volz
Uli Volz is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance. Ulrich is Research Fellow in the Climate Change and Environment programme of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) and a member of the CEPR’s Sustainable Finance Research and Policy Network.
SOAS Inaugural Lecture Series
The SOAS Inaugural Lecture Series recognises that research is an integral part of university life, and offers a platform for newly appointed and promoted professors to share their significant contributions to their field while also showcasing the overall strength, depth and vitality of research at SOAS.