Ellen Halliday

Jan 28, 2025 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Ellen Halliday

Eliane Brum dials into our video call from the rainforest. Behind her is a wall of green. Over the whirr of my laptop in a windowless basement in central London, I can hear some faint sounds of insects, or perhaps birds. The forest, life itself, is a participant in this conversation. Brum is a Brazilian journalist and documentary filmmaker—and Prospect’s Top Thinker for 2025, chosen by our readers from a shortlist of 25 experts on climate, economics, freedom, geo-politics and technology.

Dec 20, 2023 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Ellen Halliday

I meet Sir David King at the Conduit, a members’ club he regularly visits when in London that brands itself as a “collaborative community”, a “catalyst for positive change”. When we sit down for coffee, a breakfast menu is still laid out on our table—eggs on sourdough and homemade granola with compote. “A changemaker’s breakfast, fuelling your impact”. King, 84, was the UK’s permanent representative for climate change from 2013 to 2017 and chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007.

Sep 5, 2023 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Ellen Halliday

It’s the plot of a disaster movie (specifically Flood, from 2007): a storm, combined with unusually high tides, causes great waves to tear up the Thames estuary, overwhelming London’s defences and crashing through the city. Such apocalyptic scenes remain in the world of fiction, but in May, the Environment Agency warned that inner-London river defences would have to be raised by 2050, 15 years earlier than planned.

Jul 18, 2023 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Kate Raworth |Sam Fankhauser |Ellen Halliday

Ellen Halliday, deputy editor: We’re facing a huge challenge: to simultaneously make people’s lives better and address the causes and consequences of climate change. Is enough consideration being given to both these concerns? Sam Fankhauser: I would start off by saying that planetary boundaries are real and they often get ignored. The reality is that economic growth isn’t something that will happen in a 4° or 5° warming world.

Jun 13, 2023 | prospectmagazine.co.uk | Ellen Halliday