‘Conflict is costly’ – yet we see it arising around the world on a constant basis. And climate change can create the conditions for conflict and violence.

So, just how many of these conflicts are related to climate change and weather shocks – and why? And what can we do to break the climate-conflict cycle?

Professor Jean-François Maystadt, from UCLouvain in Belgium and Lancaster University Management School, brings his expertise as an economist specialising in conflicts, natural disasters and forced migration to show us the connections.

We learn that between 5% and 20% of all conflicts globally in the last century had a link to climate change, and see the regional variations in causality across South Asia, Africa and the Middle East in recent years, with some surprising revelations.

We look at the effects of economic shocks in countries such as Somalia, low rainfall monsoon seasons in India, and drought in Syria. And we discover often it is those with more resources who are able to leave a region following a natural disaster, leaving behind those with little to begin with.

We see how many countries choose to intensify practices rather than adapt when it comes to coping with the effects of weather and climate on agriculture and other industries; and come to understand how having nothing to lose can influence the actions of those entering conflict.

JF explains the importance of strong national and regional institutions in helping to prevent conflicts arising, why some communities can cope with shocks when others cannot and collapse into violence, and the importance of agriculture in the big picture.

Plus, how refugee camps can have a positive economic effect on the area around them, how farmers in Kenya benefit from weather-based insurance policies, and why Jan has inner conflict over doughnuts.

Read more about Jean-François’ work here: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/lums/people/jean-francois-maystadt

We cannot expect the technology of tomorrow to be better than the humans of today. So, if we want Artificial Intelligence and other tech to be better, then we need to improve as people.

Dr Cornelia Walther, from our hosts the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, joins us at the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University to discuss AI’s links to tipping points, and to the future of humanity.

The complexity of AI makes it hard to know what’s to come, but Cornelia stresses the technology can be both good and bad. The problem is it operates on the garbage in, garbage out principle, when we need it to work on a values in, values out basis. If we want to see that change, we must alter our priorities.

As the last of the analogue generations, living through the move towards a time of hybrid intelligence (HI) – mixing natural intelligence and AI – we consider the effects on our brains of delegating previously everyday functions to the phone in our pocket or the computer on our desk. Will it lead to us all having robot partners?!

We find ourselves asking, how can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past and take advantage of AI as a force for good?

This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

We know language is key to getting the message across on climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and tackling global tipping points. So what do we need to talk about?

Said Faisal is an advisor on disaster risk management, and the former Executive Director of the ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Centre. He is also one of the MCs for the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University. As such, he has been in the perfect position to take in all the discussions and get a view of the whole picture.

He joins us – with his Jerry Maguire references but without his rap group – to talk the importance of messaging, the need for business to look beyond profit, the power of a critical mass of people in moving us towards positive tipping points, and whether the Global South message has been ignored in the past and how important it has been to hear that voice at GTP 2026.

We stack up logic, emotion and belief alongside climate, disaster and sustainable development, and take a ride across the whole conference agenda, from nature to culture and religion.

This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

How can we build infrastructures to be climate and nature resilient? Do we sometimes focus too much on safeguarding and not enough on improvements when it comes to action?

In the third part of our series from the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University in Malaysia, we are joined by Professor Erik Berglöf, Director of the House of Governance and Public Policy at Stockholm School of Economics, to look at the importance of governance and finance, and the nature of planetary health.

We discuss the role of positive tipping points, how governance can encourage a tip over in the right direction, the importance of nature as critical infrastructure for all life on earth – and the global economy – and the need to enforce laws if they are to have an effect. We also look at how business, but most importantly nations, value nature, and the importance of placing a financial value on it if companies are to treat it seriously.

This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

How does nature fit into the tipping points framework? With so much focus on the climate in debates, nature can be forgotten.

In the second part of our series from the Global Tipping Points 2026 Conference at Sunway University in Malaysia, Tamara Singh, of The Nature Conservancy, joins us to talk about how business and nature fit together, where she has seen good practice in her work across many countries, and how finance fits into this dynamic.

We discuss whether business is always the bad guy when it comes to tackling planetary challenges, what it can learn from nature, and how it can be valued on the balance sheet.

This episode was produced in conjunction with the Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, hosts of the conference.

What are the global tipping points? What are positive tipping points? How can the world work together to stop one and produce the other?

We are at the Global Tipping Points Conference 2026 at Sunway University in Malaysia to investigate these questions and many more.

In this introduction to a special mini-series produced in conjunction with conference hosts the Centre for Planetary Health at Sunway University, we look at the key issues being discussed by figures from government, academia, business, NGOs and many other groups and organisations.

We will explain the key concepts, outline our initial impressions from the opening sessions, and look ahead to the future.

Over the course of this series, we will speak to figures from across the conference on a wide range of topics. Keep an eye on the Transforming Tomorrow feed as episodes will land while the event is ongoing.

As we wrap up season three of Transforming Tomorrow, we consider how the vast range of subjects out guests have brought into the studio are and attempt to tie these topics together.

This brings us to issues of politics and the law, Artificial Intelligence, and the experiences of businesspeople and researchers that ties them to their subjects.

Join us on a journey that takes us from courtrooms to boardrooms, government chambers to war zones, cotton fields to refugee camps, and it is amazing to see how things fit with each other, and how quickly change can come.

We discuss the optimism and determination of our guests to make a difference, how personal experiences drive them, and how the compassion they have directed their work.

We see how ideas and ideals have come together, think about what the next year might bring, and wonder some more about the next generation and rethinking how things work.

Plus, can Jan pick out the ringer from a list of topics to have been discussed on the show over the last 12 months – the answer is not badgers, but is it the Moomins, Kevin Bacon, Logan’s Run or shampoo?

And, to show us that things really are always changing, since recording this episode, Donald Trump has brought up his desire to control Greenland once again! We suspect we will be mentioning his name again in seasons to come.