According the Global Trends report just released by the National Intelligence Council of the United States of America, the world will face more intense and cascading global challenges.
Besides disease pandemics, global challenges including climate change, financial crises, and technology disruptions are likely to be more frequent and intense in every part of the world. The combined impact of climate change and environmental degradation is likely to accelerate loss of biodiversity, exacerbate food, nutrition and water crisis, and trigger new health challenges in developing countries.
According the Global Trends report trends in demographics, environment, economics, and technology are laying the foundation and defining our future world. Changing demographic trends will widen economic disparities within and between countries as efforts to provide education and health, as well as reduce poverty are affected by the social, economic and health impacts of Covid-19.
The impacts of climate change are likely to intensify over the next two decades with more frequent extreme storms, heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels. Climate change and the associated environmental degradation will amplify existing risks to poverty reduction, food, nutrition, water and energy security.
Moreover, the report suggests that rising national debt and a more complex and fragmented global trade regime will define conditions within and between nations in the next two decades. Public debt in emerging markets has increased to levels not seen in 50 years. Many developing countries have increasingly taken on debt on non-concessional terms.
According to the report, the pace and reach of technological developments will increase rapidly over the next two decades. Thanks to technological change, human experience and capacities will be transformed, creating new conflict and disruptions within and between societies. Contestation for supremacy between state and nonstate actors will play out in science and technology, with potentially grave implications for global security.
The report poses three questions; the severity of looming global challenges, the engagement of state and nonstate actors and what might states prioritise for the future. Out of these questions the authors present five scenarios for the world in 2040.
The first scenario imagines renaissance of democracies and shared global prosperity led by the USA. In the second scenario the world is adrift. The international system is rudderless, volatile and rules-free. In the third scenario characterised by competitive coexistence, the USA and China prioritise economic growth and robust trading relationships but the economic mutuality exists alongside unrelenting rivalry.
The fourth scenario imagines a siloed world centred on big power axes of the United States, China, the European Union and Russia. Global problems, including climate change and pandemics, will be spottily addressed at best. Global supply chains will be disrupted. The fifth scenario is forged from tragedy and mobilisation. A coalition led by the EU and China implement far-reaching reforms to address climate change, environmental degradation and food security.
Now that we are forewarned can we eke out tactical, preemptive global action?
