Dr. Michael Franczak delivered the opening talk for Emory University’s “Environmental Sciences Without Borders: Exploring Interdisciplinary Frontiers” seminar, led by Dr. Stacy-ann Robinson. Drawing on his book Global Inequality and American Foreign Policy in the 1970s (Cornell University Press, 2022) and his experience in UN processes, he explored how the oil shocks of the 1970s reshaped debates on global inequality and development, and how these legacies influenced climate negotiations in the 1990s and beyond. The session also reflected on the practice of writing contemporary history, invoking Geoffrey Barraclough’s notion that it “begins when the problems which are actual in the world today first take visible shape.”

In addition, Dr. Franczak engaged with the inaugural cohort of PhD students in Emory’s Environmental Science and Society (ESS) program, learning about their interdisciplinary research tackling urgent environmental challenges.