The WEF recently released an ominous article, warning that we must prepare for “an era of shock events” in the near future.
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2024/08/4-global-risks-to-look-out-for-in-the-post-pandemic-era/
Aug 19, 2024
-The post-pandemic era is being shaped by heightened global risk and unpredictable shock events.
-Power is dispersing in a post-superpower era, while governments struggle with a recurrent crisis of political legitimacy worldwide.
-The lingering pandemic mental health crisis is being exacerbated by climate and AI.
Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the end of COVID-19’s emergency phase last May, other threats have escalated – more variants, global wars, climate events, tech challenges, terrorist activity on Western soil and even a new public health emergency of international concern called mpox. But what else may be on the horizon?
The following analysis—which is based on a multi-year prediction project with graduate students at New York University and experts at crowdsourced consultancy Wikistrat, where I’m a lead analyst—details the global risk trends to watch this decade.
1. Power disperses in a post-superpower era
Most citizens would agree that our community of world leaders, including the G7 and G20, largely fell short in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.Since the pandemic eased, the reality is we haven’t had enduring global leadership on much, and it’s hard to imagine that changing soon. This is partly because superpowers are terribly burdened with global wars and domestic challenges.
These powers will, of course, still be relevant, compete and attempt to 'lead' everywhere from space to AI and oil. But look for other actors to step up more to fill the leadership void, including 'geopolitical swing states' leveraging rare earth minerals (like Ghana) to reduce the dominance of superpowers; smaller states (e.g. Scotland) using climate funding as a foreign policy tool; the Global South moving away from trading in the US dollar, even attempting a new blockchain payment system; and tech firms (and leaders) driving change largely unchecked. Frankly, we’ve noted this trend before but this may be the official start of a post-superpower era shaped increasingly – and unpredictably – by other players, regardless of the outcome of the US election. The nature of power will continue to evolve in our post-pandemic era.
2. A big election year won’t stop our recurrent crisis of political legitimacy
Everyone has rightly noted how 2024 is the biggest election year in history with around half the world going to the polls. This, of course, could still be complicated by AI disinformation, cyber threats or simply accusations of rigging (as already seen in countries like Bangladesh, Venezuela and the US).
Yet, the larger issue is whether these elections will even make a tangible difference in local and global change; widespread government distrust in most political systems has not abated in our post-pandemic era. Let’s not forget democracy—declared the sole surviving source of political legitimacy by the US hegemon at the end of the Cold War—has been in decline globally for 18 consecutive years, according to Freedom House.
Anti-government unrest has recurred everywhere since the Arab Spring, representing an enduring global crisis of political legitimacy. People have fought back in all political systems, driven by a conviction that there must be a better, more effective way to govern. In most countries, even after their vote, citizens will continue to challenge their leaders, questioning whether they have the capacity to tackle our many post-pandemic risks.