Author: Oliver Cann / Source: Big Think
Even the optimists among us would have to admit 2018 was a challenging year. The fractured world that became the focus of our 2018 Annual Meeting a year ago came under further pressure from populist rhetoric and rising nationalist agendas. At the same time, the urgent need for coordinated global action in areas such as climate change, inequality and the impact of automation on jobs became more intense.
It might be easy, then, to take a dim view of our world’s prospects in 2019. But the new year brings opportunities, too; opportunities that – through a combination of innovation and responsible leadership – have the potential to make our societies stronger and our world more sustainable. Some of these opportunities have been made possible by the World Economic Forum’s platform for public-private cooperation. Building on the progress made in the past 12 months, here are some of the bright spots for the year ahead.
1) Saving our oceans: The world is waking up to our ocean plastic crisis. In response to our 2015 research predicting more plastic than fish in our oceans by 2050, many countries are now working on introducing bans on single-use plastic, including the EU which announced a ban on 10 items in late December. Since then, our focus has been on finding ways to stop the plastic that is produced from finding its way into the sea in the first place. Backed by a coalition of government and business as well as the World Bank, our Global Plastics Action Partnership will launch pilots in Indonesia and other countries in 2019 aimed at putting this expertise into practice.
2) Helping humans win: There’s a lot of justifiable fear out there that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to a further hollowing out of the jobs that can only be performed by humans.
The reality, according to our latest Future of Jobsresearch, is more nuanced. There will be widespread displacement as a result of AI and other emerging technologies, but there will also be more jobs created; provided we can find the people with the right skills to perform them. In 2018, the Forum’s Closing the Skills Gap initiative, backed by 26 founding partners and a technology platform developed by Tata Consultancy Services, announced an aim to provide new skills to 10 million workers by 2020. Will this target be met? Expect an update on progress this coming month.
3) Living longer: it’s been estimated that 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions arising from human activity come from livestock production, with 40% of this alone coming from cows raised for either beef or dairy farming. What if we could reduce the environmental impact of the industry, reduce human deaths, improve the lives of the hundreds of millions of people worldwide that rely on livestock farming for a living and provide consumers with more choice? Groundbreaking research we will publish on January 3 will show us how.
4) Drones to the rescue: Unmanned aerial vehicles are now as synonymous with saving lives, boosting food security and driving economic growth as they are with their use on the battlefield. Rwanda is…
The post 10 reasons to be optimistic in 2019 appeared first on FeedBox.