Saving the planet in an age of geopolitical rivalry
Is the return of great power rivalry and conflict eroding the collective capacity and willingness of the international community to address environmental, trade, and public health crises globally? Leading international relations experts from LSE and Tsinghua University discuss the global resurgence of geopolitical competition and the implications of this for strategies that sustainability leaders can adopt to sustain international cooperation over climate, trade, and health in our increasingly fractured world.
Meet your speakers and chair:
Catherine Boone is Harold Laski Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on questions of comparative political economy, and especially on questions of institutional change and economic development. Her books include Inequality and Political Cleavage in Africa: Regionalism by Design (2024), Property and Political Order: Land Rights and the Structure of Conflict in Africa (2014); Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice (2003). She was elected to the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2020. At the LSE, she convened the MSc in African Development and has led the LSE-UCL Land Politics Working Group since 2015.
Robert Falkner is Professor of International Relations in the Department of International Relations at LSE, and the Academic Dean of the TRIUM Global Executive MBA, a world leading executive MBA programme jointly run by NYU Stern School of Business, HEC Paris and LSE.
Stephanie J Rickard is Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government at LSE. For over fifteen years, she has researched issues related to the international political economy, including trade agreements and international financial rescues. In her award-winning book, Spending to Win, Rickard investigates how economic geography influences countries' economic policies and international economic relations.
Tang Xiaoyang is the chair and a professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University. His research interests include political philosophy, China’s engagement in the developing countries and global modernization process. He is the author of Coevolutionary Pragmatism: Approaches and Impacts of China-Africa Economic Cooperation (Cambridge University Press 2020) and has published extensively on the Belt and Road Initiative. Previously, he worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, DC and as a consultant for the World Bank, UNDP, USAID. He was also deputy director for Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy until 2021. He completed his Ph.D. in the philosophy department at the New School for Social Research in New York. He earned his M.A in philosophy from Freiburg University in Germany and his B.A in business management from Fudan University in Shanghai.
Zhao Kejin, Professor and Deputy Director of Global Development Institute at Tsinghua University. He received his Ph.D in International Relations at Fudan University and worked at the Center for American Studies at Fudan University until 2009 when he moved to Tsinghua University as Professor at Institute of International Studies. He has published more than 120 papers in academic journals and published books on such topics as the American studies, public diplomacy and China’s foreign policy. His current research focuses on global governance, public diplomacy and China’s foreign affairs
Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations, and Director of the Phelan US Centre at LSE and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs.
More about this event
This event is part of the LSE Festival: How to save the planet running from Monday 15 to Saturday 20 June 2026. This year's Festival explores how existential threats including the climate crisis, conflict and AI are affecting all parts of the world, transforming the way and where we live, and how our societies function. With a series of events asking what can we be doing to save the Earth, its people and environment? Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 18 May.
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