What were the most globally impactful decisions of 2022?

 We surveyed 100 journalists from around the world to find out.

In a special episode, and the second iteration of our end of year show, One Decision host Julia Macfarlane is joined in London by The Economist's Anne McElvoy, Semafor's Prashant Rao, and Bloomberg's Maria Tadeo to discuss the most important decisions of 2022.

  1. Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine

  2. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v Wade

  3. The Chinese Communist Party's decision to grant Xi Jinping a third term

  4. The decision for major world countries to set aside most COVID-19 restrictions

  5. The Iranian Morality Polices' decision to allegedly kill Mahsa Amini and the subsequent protests

  6. U.S. and UK's decision to ban Russian oil, followed by the EU's decision to cut demand drastically

  7. Elon Musk's decision to buy Twitter

  8. Brazilian voters' decision to elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as president

  9. NATO's decision for Sweden and Finland to apply for NATO membership

  10. The decision at COP27 to create a losses and damages fund

  11. U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's decision to visit Taiwan

  12. Liz Truss' decision to present a mini-budget and the subsequent economic fallout

  13. U.S. decision to grant immunity to Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the case brought against him for journalist Jamal Khashoggi's death

  14. OPEC Plus' decision to reduce oil output

  15. Donald Trump's decision to run for another term as US president

  16. Italian voters' decision to elect Giorgia Meloni as prime minister

  17. The decision of countries to potentially leave the Commonwealth following Queen Elizabeth's death

  18. Colombian voters' decision to elect the country's first leftist government in modern history

  19. Israeli voters' decision to reelect Benjamin Netanyahu

  20. Filipino voters' decision to elect Bongbong Marcos

Meet the Panelists

  • Anne McElvoy

    Executive Editor at The Economist

    "If you want to change something in China, it's been done many times before, you simply put a new set of words around it. It does seem that he has difficulty with that specifically, on COVID. And it may be that it's because he's seen as so much the author of that decision."

  • Prashant Rao

    Senior Editor for Semafor

    “The zero-COVID decision was possibly, I think, almost certainly the most important thing that any person in China did this year because it impacted all of us. It changed supply chains, it impacted economies.”

  • Maria Tadeo

    Europe Correspondent for Bloomberg Television

    “I think ultimately, with the case of Ukraine, what Vladimir Putin figured out is that they're not going to put boots on the ground, they're not going to go well in and to help Ukraine and that's essentially kind of what happened then he miscalculated on the Western response.”