Futurist Gerd Leonhard: What To Expect In The Next 7 Years - Foresights And Observations

It's hard to imagine the world by 2030. First, we have geopolitical changes unheard of for the last 50 years. America versus Soviet Union is finished. And then we have Europe coming into its own power. We have China trying to assert themselves everywhere. We have India trying to take a global role. We have Russia still there as well. So now we have a world of 5, 6, 7 different polar systems, and they're all struggling. Then we have 50-year-old conflicts, like we have Ukraine, Russia, and of course, Israel, Hamas, Palestine. That's not new, but now it's coming to a peak. So it seems like all of that stuff is percolating, creating heavy friction. And then we have this idea of deglobalization, which is actually reglobalization coming back in a different way after COVID. And so everything is upside down. On top of that, we have this shift from the fossil fuel economy, oil and gas, to essentially the sustainable economy, the green economy. And that's happening all over the world, creating also major friction because we have to pay for it. And the North will have to pay the South to make that work. So all these conflicts are part of this. Who's in charge? Who decides what the Indians can do and the Brazilians can do? Who pays for it? It's safe to say until 2030, considerable chaos and confusion, but also rebirth of new potential partnerships like you have right now with the BRICS countries, but also a reorganization of economics because we realize it's no longer just about money and about GDP and growth, but also about collaboration, about the planet. Like, what good would it do if we have more money but the planet becomes uninhabitable? Now we have this large overriding concern about what we want. And on top of that, we have the millennials, 25 to 45, coming into power because they're getting the money from their parents, and they have a different objective. They don't just want growth and new jobs or money. They want a larger life. And many of those younger generations are thinking of themselves already as a global citizen, much more so than we did. So we are German or French or American, but they think of themselves at least as being part European or larger. So all that stuff is coming together, creating an explosive mix. Of new potentials. Before it gets better, it gets worse. We're at a very tough place. It's very painful. Lots of really painful things are happening. But starting next year, we're going to see some resolution there. I'm certain of that because we're coming to the point where we can see a tiny door emerging as to new potentials based on collaboration and understanding. I think that's the plan for the next decade. Within all of these things lies the enormous power of technology. To help us solve our everyday problems like climate change, like food, like water, energy, and so on, which is radically improving. We're leaping into the exponential age in terms of tech, forcing us to come together in terms of society, creating a very unique next 7 years. The exponential thing that we're seeing right now, 2030, 8.5 billion people on the internet with high-speed computing devices that cost $50 or even less. And very powerful machines allowing us to work remotely, connecting people in different ways. That's all good, but also creating more of a virtual society. So that is a huge leap to even imagine what the world could look like. Flying cars, supercomputing, nuclear fusion, genetic engineering, augmentation of humans. These are things from science fiction, and science fiction is becoming science fact. And this will mean that every politician, public official, CEO needs to be faster in understanding what's coming. Because it's not coming in 20 years, it's coming in 2 years. And that's what exponential change does. In terms of growth and population growth, we anticipated in the '70s that this was going to be a big problem. But now it turns out that growth is actually not as big as we thought it would be. We're still growing, but we're not growing in the way that's going to be a major danger in terms of the numbers. We're solving all the practical things like water, food, and energy. When we have solved that, then we can grow sustainably. And of course, sooner or later, once we have nuclear fusion, we will go to other planets. We will stop being a one-planet species. That's roughly 30, 40 years away, but it is in the cards of most people living today. We're going to see a big change in that regard. And population is a major issue for countries where the young population is not growing like most of the developing countries. They're growing, but in Europe, they're shrinking. So we have social issues, we have retirement issues, we have workforce issues coming out of that. But generally speaking, the disaster of having 20 billion people, it's not happening as was envisioned in 1972. But we do have very practical problems like water, food, and energy that seem solvable now. In many ways, our major obstacle will be that the old world is crumbling in terms of logic, economics, but also the power system. But the new world isn't here. So we're like, okay, we could be covering the world with sustainable energy. We could, but we haven't quite accomplished that. We're getting it now, but it's very hard to make that shift. And that's going to happen in the next 7 years. There's also another curve that's really important. The GDP in general is growing in most countries, and we are actually able to not grow emissions along with it. So we have had the emissions curve grow and then it stayed flat with GDP increase. So it's possible to grow without growing emissions. In practical in broad terms, a human society without growth isn't really possible. We have kids, we consume, we travel, we eat, we create damage, we put out emissions. So what we have to learn is how to grow sustainably in a context of everything else.