Opinion | Poverty rates have plunged, but can we all live like the Swiss by 2100?

In 1900, most people lived without electricity, antibiotics or universal education. Today, life expectancy is decades longer, literacy and access to medicine are near universal in many regions, and hundreds of millions have entered the global middle class.

This progress was built through science, industry, public health, education and the hard work of ordinary people who believed tomorrow could be better. The question now is whether humanity can achieve a still more audacious goal: a world in which even the poorest countries have the living standards of modern Switzerland by 2100.

Evidence suggests this vision is challenging yet plausible if we make the right choices.

Historical data shows that when people have a fair chance and the right tools, they thrive. According to the World Bank, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell from around 2.3 billion in 1990 to about 831 million in 2025, largely due to robust growth in East and South Asian economies.

At the same time, global economic output more than quadrupled, and per capita incomes rose across regions. A medium-term forecast by Fathom Consulting suggests that the global economy could be twice its current size by the mid-2050s.

Progress in living standards depends on resources. Critics argue that a significant expansion of the global economy would exhaust the planet’s energy and food supplies. Long-term analyses show that global energy demand could rise by around 124 per cent over 2015 by 2100 – a substantial increase, but one that can be met if we accelerate renewable deployment and efficiency gains.