Years of remarkable progress in health, wealth, education, and the deepening of global interconnections have made people much better off overall. But the world has entered a new period of turbulence, and it remains to be seen what new rules and institutions will emerge from it.
SYDNEY – There are some decades when only a year’s worth of change happens, and some years when a decade’s worth of change happens. The past three years – marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a full-blown cost-of-living crisis, all playing out against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tensions – certainly feels like the latter. Indeed, it feels all too similar to the years surrounding the early 1970s oil shock, after which it took about 20 years for stability to return. Can we write a new narrative of progress more quickly this time?
SYDNEY – There are some decades when only a year’s worth of change happens, and some years when a decade’s worth of change happens. The past three years – marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and a full-blown cost-of-living crisis, all playing out against a backdrop of heightened geopolitical tensions – certainly feels like the latter. Indeed, it feels all too similar to the years surrounding the early 1970s oil shock, after which it took about 20 years for stability to return. Can we write a new narrative of progress more quickly this time?