After a dozen years of war, the 2008 financial crisis, budgetary contraction inside government, and growing political polarization, U.S. security policy stands at a crossroads as America finds itself lacking a durable political consensus on the nation’s role in the world. In Global Forecast 2014, CSIS scholars answer the questions that will determine the future trajectory of American power in 2014 and beyond. The report looks overseas at America’s ability to sustain its rebalance to Asia and adapt to the changing order in the Middle East. At the same time, the authors examine America’s ability to get its own house in order—to develop a sustainable resource strategy for defense and to rebuild a national security consensus to meet the challenges the United States will face in the years ahead.
The pace of recovery has disappointed in recent years, and downside risks have increased, including from heightened geopolitical tensions. These increased risks make it a priority to raise actual and potential growth. In a number of economies, an increase in public infrastructure investment can also provide support to demand and help boost potential output. And in advanced economies as well as emerging and developing economies there is a general, urgent need for structural reforms to strengthen growth potential or make growth more sustainable. The four individual chapters examine the overall global outlook, the prospects for individual countries and regions, the benefits of increased public infrastructure investment in terms of raising output, and the extent to which global imbalances have narrowed significantly since their peak in 2006.
Examines the factors which limit human economic and population growth and outlines the steps necessary for achieving a balance between population and production. Bibliogs
With clarity, conscience, and courage, global-systems pioneer Jorgen Randers and his distinguished contributors map the forces that will shape the next four decades. Forty years ago, The Limits to Growth study addressed the grand question of how humans would adapt to the physical limitations of planet Earth. It predicted that during the first half of the 21st century the ongoing growth in the human ecological footprint would stop-either through catastrophic "overshoot and collapse"-or through well-managed "peak and decline." So, where are we now? And what does our future look like? In the book 2052, Jorgen Randers, one of the coauthors of Limits to Growth, issues a progress report and makes a forecast for the next forty years. To do this, he asked dozens of experts to weigh in with their best predictions on how our economies, energy supplies, natural resources, climate, food, fisheries, militaries, political divisions, cities, psyches, and more will take shape in the coming decades. He then synthesized those scenarios into a global forecast of life as we will most likely know it in the years ahead. The good news: we will see impressive advances in resource efficiency, and an increasing focus on human well-being rather than on per capita income growth. But this change might not come as we expect. Future growth in population and GDP, for instance, will be constrained in surprising ways-by rapid fertility decline as result of increased urbanization, productivity decline as a result of social unrest, and continuing poverty among the poorest 2 billion world citizens. Runaway global warming, too, is likely. So, how do we prepare for the years ahead? With heart, fact, and wisdom, Randers guides us along a realistic path into the future and discusses what readers can do to ensure a better life for themselves and their children during the increasing turmoil of the next forty years.
The projections in the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA's) Annual Energy Outlook 2013 (AEO2013) focus on the factors that shape the U.S. energy system over the long term. Under the assumption that current laws and regulations remain unchanged throughout the projections, the AEO2013 Reference case provides the basis for examination and discussion of energy production, consumption, technology, and market trends and the direction they may take in the future. It also serves as a starting point for analysis of potential changes in energy policies.
The global economy got off to a bumpy start this year, but growth in 2015 and 2016 looks to be broadly on track. Projections for developing countries in 2014 have been down downgraded by 0.5 percentage points to 4.8 percent mainly reflecting weak first quarter growth in the US due to weather and the conflict in Ukraine. Going forward growth is projected to firm to 5.3 and 5.5 percent in 2015 and 2016 supported by easy global financial conditions and rebounding exports as high-income countries continue to recover under the influence of a reduced drag from fiscal consolidation and improving labor markets. Financial conditions will eventually tighten, and when they do there is risk of further volatility. Most developing countries are in good fiscal and financial shape, but where vulnerabilities remain countries need to tighten policy to reduce the potential impact of external shocks. Overall, growth for developing countries will be solid but not strong enough to generate the income and employment gains needed to eliminate poverty by 2013. As a result, countries need to focus on structural reform in order to lift growth in and enduring and sustainable manner.
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.
Energy, and access to energy, are essential to human life, civilisation and development. A number of energy issues - including energy security, energy prices and the polluting emissions for energy use - now have high prominence on global agendas of policy and diplomacy. In addressing these and other global energy issues, the purpose of this book is to lay out the broad global energy landscape, exploring how these issues might develop in coming decades, and the implications of such developments for energy policy. There are great uncertainties, which will be identified, in respect of some of these issues, but many of the defining characteristics of the landscape are clear, and the energy policies of all countries will need to be broadly consistent with these if they are to be feasible and achieve their objectives. The book therefore provides information about and analysis of energy and related resources, and the technologies that have been and are being developed to exploit them that is essential to understanding how the global energy system is developing, and how it might develop in the future. But its main focus is the critical economic, social, political and cultural issues that will determine how energy systems will develop and which technologies are deployed, why, by whom, and who will benefit from them. The book has three Parts. Part I sets out the current global context for energy system developments, outlining the essential trends of global energy supply and demand, and atmospheric emissions, from the past and going forward, and their driving forces. Part II explores the options and choices, covering both energy demand and energy supply, facing national and international policymakers as they confront the challenges of the global context outlined in Part I. Part III of the book brings together the discussion in Parts I and II with consideration of possible global energy and environmental futures, and of the energy policy choices which will determine which future actually comes to pass.
The tourism industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with more people from all cultures and nationalities choosing to spend their leisure time traveling and visiting new locations. To exploit this burgeoning market, tourism agencies must carefully consider the desires and goals of travelers from around the world. The Handbook of Research on Global Hospitality and Tourism Management contributes to the body of knowledge on travel and tourism by presenting a global view of the hospitality industry, including theoretical research into industry trends as well as case studies from around the world. This handbook provides travel agents, owner-operators, and students and researchers in the hospitality industry with the latest research, findings, and developments in the field. Within this handbook of cutting-edge research, readers will find chapters and cases on topics such as travel and tourism in a global economy; local, glocal, and international hospitality; challenges in environmental management; cultural cuisine; and destination management, among others.
