Global trends 2040: US intelligence report paints dark picture of world’s future
- Disease, rich-poor gap, climate change and conflicts will pose greater challenges in coming decades
- The Covid-19 pandemic already worsening some of those problems, US intelligence report says
US intelligence officials are painting a dark picture of the world’s future, writing in a new report that the coronavirus pandemic has deepened economic inequality, strained government resources and fanned nationalist sentiments.
Those assessments are included in a Global Trends report by the government’s National Intelligence Council. The reports, produced every four years, are designed to help policymakers and citizens anticipate the economic, environmental, technological and demographic forces likely to shape the world through the next 20 years.
This year’s report focuses heavily on the impact of the pandemic, calling it the “most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come”.
Nations in different parts of the world set records on Thursday for Covid-19 deaths and new infections.
“Covid-19 has shaken long-held assumptions about resilience and adaptation and created new uncertainties about the economy, governance, geopolitics, and technology,” the report says.
“Our intent is to help policymakers and citizens … prepare for an array of possible futures,” the authors wrote, noting they make no specific predictions, and included input from diverse groups, from American students to African civil society activists.
The report posed five scenarios for what the world might look like in 2040.