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.

The trade that destroys forests is worth a hundred times the money that is spent on protecting them. This will only change if the top producer and consumer countries of forest-risk commodities agree steps to shift global markets towards sustainability. We brought these countries together for the first time, to see if it could be done.

The most widely used definition of “cloud computing” is the one published by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), according to which, “cloud computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g. networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction”. The NIST document defines three service models: Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and four deployment models: public, private, community and hybrid cloud environments, although it should be borne in mind that new models are being developed all the time.

Humanitarian Emergencies know no borders and regularly create the need for Humanitarian Organizations to share data with other entities across borders to provide the necessary humanitarian response. Accordingly, ensuring efficient cross-border flows of Personal Data between different countries is essential to the work of Humanitarian Organizations. In addition, the adoption of new technologies in humanitarian responses requires the involvement of multiple Data Processors and Sub-Processors which are, almost inevitably, established in various jurisdictions other than that where the Humanitarian Emergency takes place. This may be the case, for example, when cloud-based solutions are used by Humanitarian Organizations to process Personal Data, in which case data may be hosted in the territory where the organization is headquartered, and service providers may be acting as Data Processors and Sub-Processors in a number of jurisdictions.

The Paris Agreement on climate change has been widely hailed as a diplomatic triumph, but it commits its signatories only to a process, not to anything of substance. It represents a gamble: that if enough governments say they will act, they will believe each other and have the confidence to move forward – and that businesses and investors will believe them too. Six years later, the gamble appears to be succeeding, but despite this, progress is nowhere near fast enough. Global emissions of greenhouse gases are still going up.