Despite solar and wind power generating the cheapest electricity in history, around forty countries are still building new coal-burning power plants – the worst thing anyone can do for climate change. How two years of campaigning led to twenty countries committing to phase-out coal power, and what needs to happen next.

Economics is not just about the allocation of scarce resources – how to ‘divide up the pie’. It is also about the creation of novelty, and the formation of new structures – how to make a pie in the first place. The new science of complexity, allied to old ideas of political economy, can help us understand how to create and change things quickly and at large scale. New economic thinking of this kind predicted the global financial crisis, but has barely begun to be applied to policy. It could transform the way we respond to climate change.

Change in the economy, just as in the climate, can be self-reinforcing, sudden, and irreversible. The world’s fastest transitions to renewable energy and electric vehicles are happening in countries where economic tipping points have been crossed in these sectors. By deliberately targeting these thresholds, we can achieve large-scale change much more quickly than we might expect. To find these opportunities, we need to move away from traditional cost–benefit analysis and adopt a very different approach to decision-making.

Humanitarian Organizations collect and process the Personal Data of individuals affected by Humanitarian Emergencies in order to perform humanitarian activities. Working primarily in Humanitarian Emergencies, they operate in situations where the rule of law may not be fully in force. In such situations, there may be limited, if any, access to justice and respect of the international human rights framework. In addition, Personal Data protection legislation may be embryonic or non-existent, or not entirely enforceable.

States around the globe have in place domestic laws authorizing governments to require service providers to disclose to them manifold types of data created by or relating to a customer, in the interest of national security and/or for use in criminal proceedings. The often-cited rationale underlying such legislation is a growing use of digital technologies, including cloud computing, for illicit purposes. Yet, even if only as a side effect, many of these legislations also enable governments to compel the disclosure of data pertaining to action of Humanitarian Organizations, processed in a public cloud environment. Such data could encompass data that Humanitarian Organizations generate, collect or exchange with others, including the contents of communications within the organization, with their partners or persons benefiting from their action. Data subject to disclosure also often include meta, location and traffic data, that is, data about the communications other than their contents, such as data about the recipient of a communication, the duration of a call and the like. For purposes of brevity, this chapter will refer to such content, meta, location and traffic data together as “Humanitarian Data”.

Most research into the impacts of climate change concentrates on what would happen at low degrees of change. We know a great deal about best-case scenarios. Thanks to wilful ignorance among policymakers, and the cultural preferences of scientists, worst-case scenarios are much less considered. We know the least about what matters most.

People often assume that to give ourselves a fighting chance of avoiding catastrophic climate change, we need either inspired political leadership, or a moral revolution in society. Both would be nice to have, but there are more plausible ways to make faster progress. They involve thinking differently. We need science that gives us risk assessment instead of prediction; economics that understands change instead of assuming stability; and diplomacy that focusses on international collaboration instead of unilateral national action.

The economics used by governments is based on ideas from the 1870s, when economists adopted the language of science, but not the method. To make the maths easy to solve, they assumed the economy was simple, predictable, and static. Nobody believes these assumptions are true, but they still shape analysis that informs policy. When the economy is complex, uncertain, and changing, this kind of analysis can lead us to bad decisions.

Drones are a promising and powerful technology potentially capable of helping Humanitarian Organizations to improve their situational awareness, their response to natural and man-made disasters, and their relief operations. They can complement traditional manned assistance by making operations more efficient, effective, faster and safer. If deployed correctly, Drones could have a significant impact on Humanitarian Action.

The Processing of Personal Data can increase risks for individuals, groups and organizations, as well as society as a whole. The purpose of a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is to identify, evaluate and address the risks to the Data Subject – arising from a project, policy, programme or other initiative. A DPIA should ultimately lead to measures that contribute to the avoidance, minimization, transfer and/or sharing of data protection risks. A DPIA should follow a project or initiative that requires Processing of individuals’ data throughout its life cycle. The project should revisit the DPIA as it undergoes changes or as new risks arise and become apparent.

In recent years, the development of new technologies allowing for easier and faster Processing of ever-increasing quantities of Personal Data in an interconnected world has given rise to concerns about possible intrusion into the private sphere of individuals. Regulatory efforts around the globe are ongoing to respond to these concerns.

There is a connection between the habits of thinking in science, economics, and diplomacy that are hindering our response to climate change. Western science since the Enlightenment has built its success on reductionism. This has left us less good than we need to be at thinking holistically, and at understanding the potential for systemic change in our environment, economy, and international relations. New ways of thinking can take generations to spread through society and displace their predecessors. In our present crisis, we must accelerate this process deliberately – we cannot afford to wait.

Science can only tell us a part of what we need to know about the risks of climate change. We also need to make judgements about politics, technology, and international security. To tell truth to power, we need to bring these fields of knowledge together.