Possibilities Come with Responsibilities (My reflections from DFF 2024)

The Dubai Future Forum has always been a nexus of ideas, blending philosophy, foresight, and actionable solutions. Bringing together the world’s leading foresight practitioners from governments and corporates, alongside renowned divergent thinkers and storytellers, the forum provided a platform for sharing transformative insights through panels, keynotes, and workshops.

This year, it served as a refreshing check on my mental models, challenging assumptions and updating perspectives I hold about systems and climate.

Here’s a distillation of (some of) the most profound takeaways, connecting these to my own views on systems change and the urgent need for climate resilience.

🚀 The Future Isn’t Something We Await

To kickoff the Dubai Future Forum, Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of the Dubai Future Foundation, delivered a keynote highlighting, that highlighted that by 2025, the world is expected to move beyond GDP as the primary measure of progress.

He noted, "A country with a high GDP may not offer the best quality of life. This calls for a rethink of GDP – a measure adopted nearly 80 years ago"

(Recommended reading: Dubai Future's Foresight Report on the Global Transition Beyond GDP, h/t to Patrick Noack for sharing it earlier this year)

Khalfan also quoted this powerful quote by His Highness Sheikh Maktoum:

“The future isn’t something we await; it’s something we create.”

This sentiment speaks directly to the heart of systems design. Waiting for change is complacency disguised as patience. 

In climate, this means not just reducing harm but actively reimagining systems—whether through new energy paradigms, regenerative economics, or global collaborations.

The systems we often deem as failing—whether through the rejection of status quo politics in the West or the visible decline in both human and planetary health—are, at their core, human-made and therefore open to reinvention. This recognition calls for intentional redesign, embracing resilience as a guiding principle. 

Adaptive policies that anticipate disruption and climate-positive investments that align economic incentives with ecological health exemplify the shift from passive critique to active creation. If these systems can be built, they can also be rebuilt to serve both people and the planet.

🚍 Getting Everyone on the Bus: Inclusive Progress

"We need everyone on board the bus from the start and ensure they stay until the journey's end."

This metaphor captures a core truth: meaningful progress demands early, inclusive collaboration and sustained engagement. Climate solutions highlight why this approach is essential.

Indigenous leaders, for example, offer critical wisdom rooted in stewardship, yet are often brought into conversations late, missing the chance to shape strategies from the start.

Similarly, policymakers, innovators, and impacted communities each bring unique perspectives that, when aligned, ensure solutions are effective and equitable. It’s not enough to convene stakeholders at the outset—they must remain engaged through transparent communication and shared purpose to adapt to challenges along the way.

Ultimately, true systems change happens when every voice is valued throughout the journey.

🌱Challenging the Commodification of Nature: A Dual Reality

A panel on geoengineering solutions, including Solar Radiation Management (SRM), highlighted a vital tension in climate action.

Indigenous leaders, for instance, challenge the very premise of commodifying nature—be it land, rivers, or even air through mechanisms like carbon credits. Renzo Taddei

Their perspective is a powerful reminder that while market-based solutions aim to address climate challenges, they risk perpetuating the very systems that created these problems by treating nature as a resource to be traded rather than a partner to be stewarded.

This tension resonates deeply with me. As someone who contributed to the Dubai Future’s Carbon Economy report and has explored frameworks for a Carbon Stock Exchange leveraging capitalist & tax-incentive aligned principles, I see both sides of this divide.

Markets, as they currently function, are often the fastest way to incentivize individuals and corporations toward action. Yet, this same market logic frequently conflicts with universal truths about nature’s intrinsic value and the need for equity in how climate solutions are deployed.

The reality is that both perspectives can coexist. Manipulating markets to drive climate action may be necessary in the short term to create momentum and scale solutions. However, this approach must be accompanied by a deeper reckoning with the systems we are reinforcing. Are we solving the problem—or simply finding new ways to monetize and manage it?

The challenge lies in aligning the efficiency of capitalism with a vision of stewardship that honors nature’s rights and addresses systemic inequalities. This dual reality is one of the most complex—and critical—debates for shaping the future of climate action.

📜 Rights of Nature: Legal Guardianship for Ecosystems

The forum highlighted the growing momentum behind recognizing the rights of nature.

In Bangladesh, where rivers are vital to life and livelihoods, pollution and encroachment have led to legal cases advocating for rivers as entities with rights. This movement proposes appointing legal guardians for ecosystems, ensuring their protection and longevity.

“What we do to nature, we do to ourselves.”

This idea is foundational to understanding our interconnectedness with natural systems.

With 50% of the global population’s GDP reliant on nature, preserving biodiversity and ecological health is not just an ethical imperative but an economic one.

👀 Possibilities Come with Responsibilities

The concept that “possibilities come with responsibilities” came up during an insightful foresight panel moderated by Meabh Quoirin, with panelists, Jennifer Brace, Marie-Caroline Darbon, Melanie Subin; challenging the temptation to romanticize potential futures without acknowledging their weight.

Every possibility must be met with ethical considerations, accountability, and follow-through.

For example, as the Philippines cancels school classes during typhoons or extreme heat events. While this reflects adaptation, it also reveals a system failing its people—climate inaction ripples into education, opportunity, and equity.

This highlights the importance of not just adapting to challenges but addressing the underlying systemic issues. Prioritizing both mitigation and adaptation ensures we tackle root causes while providing support for those already affected.

📉 Negative Scenarios Are Too Easy

“If negative forecasts are given as predictions, you always win. If you’re wrong, you helped prevent it; if you’re right, you’re a genius.”

This observation shared during Jay Ogilvy and Paul Saffo's fireside chat points to a crucial flaw in our approach to climate forecasting. Negative scenarios dominate climate discourse because they’re easier to imagine and require less creativity... think of the worst case of the current situation, and then imagine we neglect doing anything about it. What’s harder—but far more necessary—is building plausible, positive futures and rallying action toward them.

This is where scenario planning, probabilistic forecasting and systems thinking come in. My own “Three Futures Test” framework applied to venture capital, embraces multiple possibilities, balancing optimism with realism to chart paths forward, whilst also providing a roadmap on how to act on the desired futures as innovators, policymakers and investors who want to realize said future.

🔗 The Role of Networks in Change

Networks were a recurring theme at the forum, described as “invisible work sustained by brave spaces and social contracts”.

Intentional network design is critical for galvanizing collective energy toward shared goals.

Three types of networks stood out:

•Learning Networks: Focused on education and knowledge sharing.

•Action Networks: Mobilizing resources and people toward solutions.

•Movement Networks: Networks of networks, designed to create large-scale impact.

The strength of these networks lies in their ability to connect diverse stakeholders—policymakers, Indigenous leaders, and youth—while preserving the context and stories that ground them.

🤝 Nature as Partner, Not Resource

Bangladesh’s river systems and the rights of nature movement also highlighted a paradigm shift: ecosystems must be treated as partners in progress, not mere resources.

Consider coral reefs, which occupy just 1% of the ocean floor but support 25% of marine biodiversity. Their fragility underscores the disproportionate reliance we place on ecosystems. 

The forum also explored how AI could be used to translate nature’s needs, ensuring that ecosystems have a voice in decisions that impact them (parallels with the panel on Nature being represented in our human legal systems & having legal rights). Imagining a future where ecosystems could even represent themselves in court.

🔮 Open Source and Emergent Futures

Open data champion & visual artist, Refik Anadol emphasized transparency and accessibility as drivers of innovation when adopting AI & data-driven tools.

Similarly, the forum explored the idea that the future is not a fixed endpoint but an emergent property of interconnected variables. This framing invites us to move beyond linear thinking, embracing complexity and adaptability.

The open-source ethos resonates with my belief in collaboration as a driver of systemic change. Emergent systems, whether ecosystems or economies, need intentional design to flourish—and that design must be as inclusive and open as possible.

🌍 Global Majority & the Climate-Health Nexus

While the Global North wrestles with political dissatisfaction and retreats from decisive climate action, the Global Majority faces the immediate and compounding effects of climate change.

Across discussions at the Forum, a recurring theme emerged: climate is no longer merely a technological crisis—it is a crisis of imagination, where political inertia, cultural barriers, and a lack of societal resolve stand as the true blockers to progress.

This reality is felt most acutely among vulnerable populations. Arab youth displaced by conflict, systemic inequities, or resource-driven wars exacerbated by climate change now face bleak prospects, with refugee teens experiencing secondary graduation rates under 5%. Such systemic failures leave little room for hope or opportunity, perpetuating cycles of disadvantage.

Similarly, in India, studies reveal that newborns are exhibiting signs of "smoker's lungs" due to chronic in-utero exposure to polluted air. (Thanks for sharing Fanette Brandalac)

This stark evidence of environmental injustice underscores the urgency of addressing climate change not as a distant threat but as a present crisis affecting health, equity, and the futures of entire generations.

These realities make it clear: the future of climate action lies in breaking through the barriers of our imagination, galvanizing cultural and political will to create systems that prioritize resilience and justice.

The Dubai Future Forum reinforced this truth: the future is not something distant; it’s the system we are shaping now. Whether through nature guardianship, education reform, or adaptive climate policies, the path forward demands we take responsibility for the possibilities we unlock.

As always, people with ideas change the world. The challenge—and the opportunity—is ensuring those ideas build systems worthy of the future we imagine.