Related Goals
Note: Some of the content for the 4D Network Goal Tree has been drawn from the Millennium Project's 'State of the Future' . This report documents global progress toward the achievement of the fifteen Global Challenges.
If you would like to update and improve this overview of the world, send your suggestions to jglenn@igc.org; this is an interactive document.
Short Overview - Executive Summary - The 15 Global Millennium Challenges
Video Link
Distillation of the 2009 State of the Future's Executive Summary:
Although the future has been getting better for most of the world over the past 20 years, the global recession has lowered the State of the Future Index for the next 10 years. Half the world appears vulnerable to social instability and violence due to increasing and potentially prolonged unemployment from the recession as well as several longer-term issues: decreasing water, food, and energy supplies per person; the cumulative effects of climate change; and increasing migrations due to political, environmental, and economic conditions.
The good news is that the global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centered adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood. The G-20 is improving international financial regulations, market supervision, and accounting rules, and has brokered massive stimulus packages to prevent the world from falling into even deeper global financial crises. The December 2009 climate change conference in Copenhagen has focused attention around the world on the practical details of how to address climate change. World leaders in politics, business, academia, NGOs, and international organizations are increasingly cooperating. Many perceive the current economic disaster as an opportunity to invest in the next generation of greener technologies, to rethink economic and development assumptions, and to put the world on course for a better future.
After 13 years of the Millennium Projects global futures research, it is increasingly clear that the world has the resources to address its challenges. Coherence and direction has been lacking. But recent meetings of the U.S. and China, as well as of NATO and Russia, and the birth of the G-20 plus the continued work of the G-8 promise to improve global strategic collaboration. It remains to be seen if this spirit of cooperation can continue and if decisions will be made on the scale necessary to really address the global challenges discussed in this report.
According to the IMF, the World Bank, and OECD, the world economy should begin to grow again toward the beginning of 2010, but at a slower pace than during the past several years. If it is true that more complex systems tend to be more resilient than less complex ones, and that the world has increased in complexity since the Great Depression, the ability for the global economy to recover should be better today than in the past.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the world is living in peace, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade, cross-cultural dialogues are flourishing, and intra-state conflicts are increasingly being settled by international interventions. By mid-2009 there were 15 conflicts with 1,000 or more deaths per yearone more than in 2008. These occurred in Africa (4), Asia (4), the Americas (2), and the Middle East (4), with 1 conflict classified as worldwide anti-extremism. A pending unknown is whether Iran and North Korea will trigger a nuclear arms race. Another more distant specter, but possibly even a greater threat, is that of single individuals acting alone to create and deploy weapons of mass destruction, such as new diseases for biological weapons or super viruses to bring down the Internet. These present unprecedented difficulties in deterrence. It used to be a religious ideal that the welfare of anyone is the welfare of all, but with such potential massive threats from single individuals, this ideal may be the most practical attitude to take to help prevent individuals from growing up to be such threats. Networks of nanotech sensors for chemical, biological, and radiological traces can help, but they cannot eliminate these threats.
In the meantime, the world is beginning to wake up to the enormity of the threat of transnational organized crime. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has called on all states to develop coherent national strategies to counter international organized crime as a whole. Interpol held its 38th European Regional Conference developing a European strategy. The 2009 G-8 meeting of justice and home affairs ministers explored global strategies, noting the increasing linkage between terrorism and organized crime. The U.S. opened the International Organized Crime Intelligence and Operations Center in June 2009. Meanwhile, transnational organized crime continues to expand in the absence of a comprehensive, integrated global counter-strategy. Its global income is estimated to be about $3 trillion, which is twice all the military budgets of the world combined.
Freedom Houses 2009 survey found that democracy and freedom have declined for the third year in a row, and press freedoms declined for the seventh year in a row. It estimates that only 17% of the worlds population lives in 70 countries with a free press, while 42% lives in 64 countries that have no free press. The number of countries rated free declined by one from the previous years survey. Nevertheless, over the past three decades democracy grew rapidly: countries rated free increased from 47 to 89 (representing 46% of the worlds population); those partly free increased from 56 to 62; and those not free decreased from 55 to 42 (representing 34% of worlds population). Democratic forces will have to work harder to make sure that the short-term reversals do not stop the longer-term trend of democratization.
Although government and business leaders are beginning to respond more seriously to the global environmental situation, it continues to get worse. Each day, the oceans absorb 30 million tons of CO2, increasing their acidity. The number of dead zonesareas with too little oxygen to support lifehas doubled every decade since the 1960s. The oceans are warming about 50% faster than the IPCC reported in 2007. The amount of ice flowing out of Greenland during the summer of 2008 was nearly three times more than that lost during the previous year. Arctic summer ice could be gone by 2030, as could many of the major Himalayan, European, and Andean glaciers. Over 36 million hectares of primary forest are lost every year. Human consumption is 30% larger than natures capacity to regenerate, and demand on the planet has more than doubled over the past 45 years. This growth continues as, for example, more cars are expected to be produced in China in 2009 than in the U.S. or Japan.
Some environmental forces have been pushing for a U.S.China 10-year Apollo-like goal with a global energy/environment R&D program. This is not only important for the environment; it is also a strategy to increase the likelihood of international peace. Without some G-2 agreement, it will be difficult to get the kind of global coherence necessary to address climate change seriously. Politicians are arguing that a ceiling of 450 ppm CO2 is the best agreement possible, but our atmosphere has 390 ppm of CO2 now, and glaciers are already melting, polar caps are thinning, insects are migrating, disease patterns have been altering, and temperatures have been rising. A leading NASA climatologist argues that we should reduce atmospheric CO2 to 350 ppm to avoid hitting a point of no return for global warming. We know more about how to move the peak year for GHG emissions closer to the present than rocket pioneer Werner von Braun knew how to land a man on the moon when President Kennedy announced that famous 10-year goal.
Scientific and technological progress continues to accelerate. IBM has promised a computer at 20,000 trillion calculations per second by 2011, which is estimated to be the speed of the human brain. Genetic code is being written to create new life forms such as plants that emit hydrogen instead of oxygen. Synthetic chromosomes have been created from laboratory chemicals. Nanomedicine may one day rebuild damaged cells atom-by-atom, and nanotech robots moving through arteries may destroy plaque, pathogens, and cancer. Just as the world was surprised by the impact of the Internet, so too the world may well be surprised by the coming impacts of nano-synthetic biology in prolonging life. Even though the global economy is slowing, global R&D for 2009 is expected to be 3.2% higher than last year. The acceleration of S&T innovations from improved instrumentation, communications among scientists, and synergies among nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, cognitive science, and quantum technology continues to fundamentally change the prospects for civilization. Yet the risks from acceleration and globalization of S&T are enormous. We need a global collective intelligence system to track S&T advances, forecast consequences, and document a range of views so that politicians and the public can understand the potential consequences of new S&T and have antidotes prepared in advance for highly negative impacts despite their low probability.
World energy demand could nearly double by 2030, with China and India accounting for over half of the increase. China uses more coal than the U.S., EU, and Japan combined, but it now has a policy to close an old coal plant for each new cleaner burning plant that turns coal into a gas before burning it. Without major policy and technological changes, fossil fuels will meet 80% of primary energy demand by 2030. If so, then large-scale carbon capture, storage, and/or reuse should become a top priority to reduce global climate change. For the first time, during 2008 the majority of the increase in U.S. and EU electrical production came from renewable sources instead of fossil or nuclear sources. New investment in renewable energy reached $120 billion in 2008, up 16% over the previous year despite the credit crunch. Japan claimed it will have a solar power satellite system wirelessly transmitting energy to its electric grids on Earth by 2030. Electricity was wirelessly transmitted 148 kilometers between two Hawaiian islands by a U.S. firm in 2008.
In March 2009 an asteroid missed Earth by 77,000 kilometers, 80% closer to the planet than our moon is. If it had hit Earth, it would have wiped out all life on 800 square kilometers. No one knew it was coming. The time between its discovery and close approach was very short. Few people knew the global financial crisis was coming; fewer still forecast its breadth and depth. We need global, national, and local systems for resiliencethe capacities to anticipate, respond, and recover from disasters while identifying future technological and social innovations and opportunities. The acceleration of change reduces the time from recognizing the need to make a decision to completing all the steps to make the right decision. The number and intricacy of choices seem to be growing beyond leaders abilities to analyze and make decisions. For example, do we have the right to clone ourselves, or to rewrite genetic codes to create thousands of new life forms, or to genetically change ourselves and future generations into new species? Some experts speculate that the world is heading for a singularitya time in which technological change is so fast and significant that we today are incapable of conceiving what life might be like beyond the year 2025.
Fortunately, we have the means for many people to know the world as a whole, identify global improvement systems, and seek to improve such systemshence accelerating the improvements of our global situation. We are the first generation to act via Internet with like-minded individuals around the world. We have the ability to connect the right ideas to resources and people to help address global and local challenges. This is a unique time in human history. Mobile phones, the Internet, international trade, language translation, and jet planes are giving birth to an interdependent humanity that can create and implement global strategies to improve the prospects for humanity.
Nearly 25% of humanity is connected to the Internet. There are more people using the Internet in China than the total population of the U.S. Mobile phones are becoming handheld computers.
Humanity, the built environment, and ubiquitous computing seem destined to become so interconnected that collective intelligences with just-in-time knowledge will emerge for improving civilization. With an increasingly educated world and the majority of humanity connected to the Internet over the next 20 years, new forms of political power may emerge, growing beyond the control of traditional hierarchical structures.
The worlds population is 6.8 billion. It is expected to grow to 9.2 billion by 2050, but it could shrink by 2100, creating a world with many elderly people. Nearly all the population increases will be in developing countries; hence, todays first world will be tomorrows elderly world. Today, 18 countries have falling populations, which could increase to 44 countries by 2050. The vast majority of them will be in Europe. Scientific and medical breakthroughs over the next 50 years are likely to change these forecasts, giving people longer and more productive lives than most would believe possible today. Meanwhile, nearly a billion people are undernourished, lack safe water, and have the highest birth rates. Without substantial policy and technological changes, there could be 3 billion people by 2025 without adequate water due to climate change, population growth, and increasing demand for water per capita. The implications for migration and conflict are enormous.
Infectious diseases are the second leading cause of death worldwide. About half the people in the world are at risk of several endemic diseases. More than 42 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and 74% of these infected people live in sub-Saharan Africa. For the first time in 40 years, WHO declared a pandemic: the H1N1 influenza (swine flu) rapidly infected 60,000 people in nearly half the countries of the world, resulting in 263 deaths between April and June 2009. Over the past 40 years, 39 new infectious diseases have been discovered. In the last five years, more than 1,100 epidemics have been verified, and we face 20 drug-resistant superbugs, including deadly skin infections (MRSA). Old diseases have reappeared. Massive urbanization, increased encroachment on animal territory, and concentrated livestock production could trigger new pandemics. Climate change is altering insect and disease patterns. New kinds of diseases may accidentally come from future synthetic biology laboratories unless new international regulations for laboratories are created and enforced.
Major development assistance grew to $119.8 billion in 2008 and a projected $145.1 billion in 2010 even in the face of the global recession. The financial crisis and recession has stimulated the G-8, G-20, and others to rethink the basic assumptions of economics, finance, and trade-led development strategies. The worldwide trend of poverty reduction continues, but at a slower rate due to the global recession and higher food, fuel, and commodity prices. Although remittance flows to poorer countries have more than doubled since 2002, they are likely to fall substantially this year. About 1 billion people live on just $1.25 a day. As humanity and its technology become a continuum, simultaneous knowing or just-in-time knowledge seems inevitable, making more people in the knowledge-oriented world more successful.
Women have been making slow but steady increases in political and economic decision making around the world. The ratio of women in national parliaments has increased from 13.8% in 2000 to 18.4% in 2009. Women account for over 40% of the worlds workforce but earn less than 25% of the wages and own only 1% of the assets. WHO reports that after diseases and hunger, violence against women is the greatest cause of death among women.
Progress in more ethical decisionmaking may also have been making slow but steady progress. Over 5,000 businesses in 130 countries have joined the UNs Global Compact to use global ethics in decisionmaking. The International Criminal Court has successfully tried political leaders. News media, blogs, mobile phone cameras, ethics commissions, and NGOs are increasingly exposing unethical decisions and corrupt practices. Collective responsibility for global ethics in decisionmaking is embryonic but growing. Corporate social responsibility programs, ethical marketing, and social investing are increasing. Global ethics also are emerging around the world through the evolution of ISO standards and international treaties that are defining the norms of civilization.
Yet each year over $1 trillion is paid in bribes, most of the annual 50 million tons of e-waste is dumped in developing countries, and 1227 million people are slaves today. Refugees, internally displaced people, and asylum seekers dropped by 700,000 in 2008 to 42 million, but will increase in 2009 due to 2 million displaced people in northwestern Pakistan and others in Sri Lanka and Somalia.Too many greedy and deceitful decisions led to a world recession and demonstrated the international interdependence of economics and ethics. Improved systems to increase integrity, financial transparency, and accountability are being developed by governments and international organizations. All these and other global challenges are presented in Chapter 1 of this print edition, while more detailed information is available in Chapter 1 of the attached CD.