There is an ongoing debate in macroeconomics about the role of inequality. Does inequality impact growth, and if so negatively or positively? How do we measure inequality, and more generally distribution of resources? How do economic systems, and specific policy choices, influence the distribution of income and resources?
These are fundamental aspects of economic study.
Again...what is "globalization?" How do we measure it? How has it benefited or harmed different countries and different segments of society within countries? How do we measure that? Why have these effects been visited on these particular groups? Can we build quantitative models around these ideas? Do those models have predictive power? How can we measure their predictive power? How can we establish confidence in model outputs?
Especially given that there are conflicting viewpoints across the political spectrum, it's hard to see an inherent political aim in discussing this important contemporary economic movement (e.g. there are right-wing populists and left-wing populists who write that they oppose globalization, and right- and left-wing thinkers who favor globalization, in both cases often for different reasons).
How do different climate outlooks effect economic prospects? How does the existence of these outlooks effect economic behavior of individuals, firms, and nations? How do we measure climate risk? What are the economic effects of potential mitigation efforts? What level of risk should motivate what degree of mitigation cost, given various estimates of uncertainty? How can these ideas be placed in a quantitative framework? How can model output be assessed given the scale and ongoing nature of the topic? Are there past climatic events with known economic impacts? How do we measure those impacts? How do they compare to current data? And on and on.
It only takes a moment's reflection to note the importance of these questions, and their relevance to the study of economics. That's probably why there are economists from all over the world, and from all over the political spectrum, who spend their academic (or corporate) lives on just these ideas.