David Miliband

After nearly 18 years of continuous war, formal peace is now on the agenda, but so is meltdown.

The G20 summit needs to issue a global call for effective resettlement policies, education and humanitarian aid.

All ideas for change in the situation of refugees should be considered.

The energy crunch fed the credit crunch, because oil represents a third of the U.S. trade deficit.

Power is spreading as never before, but so are the problems. five rules for navigating the new world that's emerging.

It was a busy week for David Miliband, Great Britain's youthful new foreign secretary . On Tuesday, the 42-year-old addressed the Labour Party conference, acknowledging the successes and "scars" from 10 years of Labour government and saying that Britain must strengthen its links with the United States and the international community to address the worlds' problems. Europe, he added, should avoid institutional navel gazing and look "to the problems beyond its borders that define insecurity within our borders." Two days later he addressed the U.N. General Assembly, warning that rising inequality is both "morally offensive" and "dangerous" to global stability and prosperity. In a discussion with NEWSWEEK editors, he elaborated on his view that three key issues—inequality, terror and climate change—are threats the world must come to terms with. Excerpts: ...

Climate change has become a "threshold issue." Deny the evidence, ignore the problem, and you look like a Luddite. The new report of the International Panel on Climate Change confirms the scientific consensus: global warming is happening and its consequences will be severe, unless action is taken.The European Commission proposes unilateral cuts of 20 percent in European emissions from 1990 levels. The U.S. Senate is considering four similar bills. The British government will soon present a landmark Climate Change Bill mandating CO2 emission reductions of 60 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. All this is welcome. But the biggest issue has yet to be confronted: how to forge an equitable global compact that sustains the development aspirations of poorer countries and contributes to the battle against climate change.Consider the facts framing this debate. At the moment, the United States accounts for 25 percent of global emissions and the European Union 14 percent. Per capita, emissions...

Climate change raises issues of science, economics and politics. By the month the debate moves on: 2007 will be a key year. And the science is now unambiguous. At the recent 12th annual United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Nairobi, no country challenged the consensus: climate change is man-made, it is happening now, carbon levels already in the atmosphere aredangerous, and if we carry on catastrophic climate change will become more, rather than less, likely. Contrary to Robert Samuelson's unfounded claim in NEWSWEEK (Nov. 15 issue), scientists do have a good idea how much warming might occur. Within ten years we will be running a better than even chance of a two degrees Celsius average change in the earth's temperature; within 50 years it will be a majority chance of a three-degree change.The economic debate is also turning full circle. The report by Sir Nicholas Stern, Head of the U.K. Government Economics Service, shows that to be pro-growth, especially but not only for...