Quarterly

The year 2022 was one of grim and grisly returns: the return of major war – and nuclear brinkmanship – to Europe; the return of high inflation and the threat of stagflation globally; and the return of famine, dire poverty, and other problems against which the developing world had been making steady progress. With all these developments poised to continue, the question now is whether solutions will be found to counter the forces of discord and disintegration.

Anticipations of a hotter world have brought the issues of adaptation and climate justice to the fore. How can public policy, finance, and technology be leveraged to protect vulnerable communities in a dangerously warmer world?

Over the past decade, a mix of global shocks and more subtle, creeping trends has exposed the fragility of twenty-first century progress. It remains to be seen whether we are witnessing a new Great Game, a Cold War 2.0, or merely a continuation of past trends. But it is already clear that the international community will need to set some new ground rules, lest it cease being a community at all.

In 2021, governments around the world united behind the exhortation to “build back better” from the COVID-19 crisis. But sloganeering will offer little respite for a world that has only just begun to reckon with the systemic challenges posed by recrudescent nationalism, rising debt levels, cyber warfare, new technologies, and other distinctly twenty-first-century challenges.

In a world that is finally waking up to the climate crisis, everyone has new summits to reach. The COP 26 climate conference in Glasgow this November will be a crucial test. Stronger decarbonization and climate-financing commitments must be made to keep the world on a sustainable path. But even then, the real work will have only just begun.

The COVID-19 pandemic has set back the sustainable development agenda in countless ways. Yet by shining a spotlight on issues that can no longer be ignored, and restoring science to its proper place at the center of decision-making processes, the crisis can also spur progress toward building more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive societies. In Back to Health, created with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, leading experts will consider what it will take to seize this opportunity and bring all communities and societies back to health.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a process of deglobalization that was already underway, exposed deep disparities in the quality of governance around the world, and cast a shadow of anxiety across all societies. Even more ominously, recovering from the crisis will require a political stability, policy coherence, and international cooperation on a scale not witnessed in years.

The Green Recovery focuses on what comes next, with an emphasis on biodiversity, energy, public investments, and financial and corporate governance. The recovery phase will bring far-reaching opportunities to accelerate the transition to renewable energies, reorient business and finance toward sustainable development, and reconsider our relationship with the planet. But it will also open a window for populists, nationalists, and others to exploit public anxieties and pursue zero-sum politics. The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that averting the worst-case climate scenario will depend entirely on the actions taken (or not taken) in the 2020s. The stakes could not be higher.

After years of growing suspicion toward the latest wave of digital technologies and the companies and governments that control them, Beyond the Techlash brings together economists, technologists, policymakers, and business leaders to consider how the lost promise of twenty-first-century innovation can be reclaimed. They do not all agree on the best path forward, but each recognizes that the next stage of the revolution must bring new forms of freedom, not new reasons to live in fear.

As 2019 draws to a close, it is unclear whether we have reached “peak disruption,” or whether a further unraveling of political systems, economic models, and international arrangements is in the offing. Between the poles of populist/authoritarian “destruction” and liberal/reformist reconstruction, what specific forces are most likely to define the next year – and the next decade?