Global Strategic Challenges : Turning Societal Threats into Opportunities

From his position as a Senior Fellow, the author addresses in this book the structural challenges and difficulties that predate Covid pandemic: climate change, economic inequality and the demographic challenge. These challenges raise fundamental questions of equity both between and within generations. Their immediate effects are much weaker than their long-term effects, which encourages policymakers to delay. But the cost of meeting them increases over time. These menaces raise complex technical and economic issues; some decisions must be made under great uncertainty. For each of these challenges, solutions exist: why is there little progress and how to turning threats into opportunities?

In all cases, technological change is a central aspect, constituting both part of the problem and part of the solution. The solutions the author formulates are of two kinds: policy recommendations and exploratory strategic proposals. Some of the recommendations include measures that have been widely discussed but never implemented. The author wonders why these measures were never implemented? Some of the strategies are more exploratory in nature because they are new or their effects are less well understood, or because the risks associated with their implementation are significant. The author effectively analyzes the different options for exiting the crisis and explains how his proposals differ from the current reforms for global warming, inequality and population aging.