Despite daunting challenges posed by global warming, water, energy, unemployment and terrorism, the world faces a brighter future with fewer wars, higher life expectancy and improved literacy, according to a report released Monday.
"Although great human tragedies like Iraq and Darfur dominate the news, the vast majority of the world is living in peace, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade," says the 2007 State of the Future report published by the American Council for the Tokyo-based United Nations University, a global think tank.
It noted that the number of African conflicts fell from a peak of 16 in 2002 to five in 2005 and that the number of refugees around the world is falling.
HIV/AIDS in Africa has begun to level off and could begin to actually decrease over the next few years, although it continues to spread rapidly in Eastern Europe and in Central and South Asia, it said.
Among other global bright spots, the report cited higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, increased literacy and increases in gross domestic products per capita and in the number of Internet users.
On the negative side, it pointed to hikes in CO2 emissions, terrorism, corruption, global warming and unemployment and a decrease in percentage of voting populations.
Persistent inequality was illustrated by figures showing that two percent of people own 50 percent of the world's wealth while the poorest 50 percent own only one percent.
The income of the richest 225 people in the world equals that of the poorest 2.7 billion or 40 percent of the global population, the report said.
It warned that unless key transnational challenges, including the gap between rich and poor, new or reemerging diseases and organized crime, are met, "the future could be bleak, marred by lack of water and arable land, mass migrations, turbulent climates, economic chaos and other disasters."
Solutions, it noted, include a "global energy development program led by the United States and China, breakthroughs in water desalination and the restructuring of educational systems to boost both individuals and collective intelligence."
More than 2,400 policy-makers, academics, futurists and creative minds from around the world have contributed to State of the Future reports over the past 11 years.
"This is the most vetted, longest lasting, cumulative integrated futures research project in history," said Jerome Glenn, head of the Millennium Project, which each year updates and expands the State of the Future.
"Done on a global basis on behalf of the globe, it (the report) offers collective intelligence for the planet," he added.
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