Critics and proponents of offsetting agree: achieving global net zero emissions is essential. But how we get there is up for debate.

Once hailed as a key solution to help individuals, organisations and governments achieve net zero emissions, offsetting approaches, and the carbon market underpinning them, have been plagued by bad actors, bad credits, and bad press.

We are bombarded by doomsday headlines that tell us the soil won't be able to support crops, fish will vanish from our oceans, that we should reconsider having children.

But in this talk, data scientist Hannah Ritchie, author of Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet will discuss with Professor Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School, that if we zoom out, a very different picture emerges.

This year, Professor Jonathan Baillie will speak on "The Journey to 30 by 30", charting the journey from today’s biodiversity crisis to the aspiration of 30% of the world’s natural habitats being protected by 2030.

Wealth inequality has been rising for the last forty years and today the richest 10% of household hold 43% of the country’s wealth and the bottom 50% under a tenth.

There is evidence that high inequality has multiple negative consequences for individuals and societies, and possibly undermines democracy itself.

State intervention in the energy sector has become increasingly evident, even in the most liberal arrangement of electricity markets –including in the UK. However, the literature treats these as marginal interventions to provide incentives or reduce business risks. This presentation will argue that the role of state intervention is more structural that just intervention on price signals.