The importance of long-term forecasts by financial institutions, industrial groups, or government bureaucrats may be water downed for being merely a tool of self-assurance. But they often provide useful planning guidance.
And while the forecasts may not turn out correct in toto, some, such as Goldman Sachs
ise of the BRIC in 2001, come true indeed.
A few of the oft-cited forecasts making circles in the past few months, include, crude oil hitting $200/bbl in 2035 (IEA), gold surpassing $2000 per ounce by 2020 (George Soros), and China crossing the US by 2019, according to The Economist, and in 2027, according to Goldman Sachs.
Now here comes another forecast, by HSBC, that might also make it to the drawing rooms pretty soon.
Titled The World in 2050, the report unveils that by 2050, the emerging world will have increased five-fold and will be larger than the developed world. Substantial progress up the global league tables will be made by a host of economies - most notably, Mexico, Turkey, Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia and Venezuela, according to HSBC.
Since one mans gain is another mans loss, Italy would be out of the top ten economies club in a major reshuffling that is expected to put China as the largest economy, and move India from being eighth biggest to third biggest surpassing Japan, according to HSBCs prophecies.
There is a possibility, therefore, that, for the first time in modern history, the worlds top economy won be a democracy. What kind of a spillover affect will it have on global politics will be intriguing indeed, but only for those who will not be in harms way of earths ecological wrath.
As income levels of the millions of impoverished people rise in India and China, they would want to start consuming as much as people in Europe or the US do now. And if they continue to consume as the developed world consumes today, the planet probably won have the capacity to sustain itself.
HSBC answers this question with a "cautious yes" saying that "the world economy can triple its income, but only if levels of
esource productivity are improved many times over". "Looking ahead to 2050, the major challenges for growth flow from climate change, as well as land and water availability for food production," the report added.
Global economys ecological footprint - a measure of human demand on the earths ecosystems - has already doubled since 1966, according to the environmental group, WWF.
By 2007, humanity was using the equivalent of 1.5 planets each year to support its consumption levels. And by 2030, the footprint is projected to have deepened to two planets worth of resources each year and to 2.8 planets in 2050.
Quite naturally, some 580 leaders and decision makers across the world, recently polled by the World Economic Forum, perceive environmental risks as very likely and high impact global hazards over the next ten years, with a combined potential economic impact of $1,750 billion.
In short, if global policy leaders don make all the right decisions and if
esource productivity does not improve, as HSBC hopes, the Malthusians might have the last laugh.
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