Karen Ward presented her HSBC’s team important study on ‘The world in 2050’ at the Association of Corporate Treasurers Annual Conference in Glasgow on 14 May. The first conclusion in the report was that the emerging markets would power growth, see figure:

Source & Copyright©2014 - HSBC 

Their other overall conclusions were that:

‘rapid growth’ is expected by those with a low starting point but strong fundamentals - the Philippines, Egypt, Peru and Ukraine
‘growth’ economies have strong prospects but a higher starting point. Mexico, Turkey, Suadi Arabi and Nigeria stand out.
a ‘stable’ group, largely the developed world, has more limited potential for growth.

See figure:

Source & Copyright©2014 - HSBC

These are important and useful estimates of the dynamics of global economy and the society. However, the problem with forecasts, particularly such long range ones, is that events keeping changing the assumptions that they were based on.

The ‘holy shit’ moment in climate change that we are less capable of tackling

On Monday 12 May NASA hosted as conference to present their findings that “they had collected enough observations to conclude that the retreat of ice in the Amundsen sea sector of West Antartica was unstoppable, with major consequences – it will mean that sea levels will rise one metre worldwide. What's more, its disappearance will likely trigger the collapse of the rest of the West Antarctic ice sheet, which comes with a sea level rise of between three and five metres. Such an event will displace millions of people worldwide.”

This report produced quite some reaction, "This Is What a Holy Shit Moment for Global Warming Looks Like," ran a headline in Mother Jones magazine.” Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at NASA, ended his article in May 14 edition of The Observer with, “Whether we should do something about it is simple a matter of common sense. And the time to act is now; Antartica is not waiting for us.”

Terrifyingly, the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2013 report concluded that ‘the world is more at risk as persistent economic weakness saps our ability to tackle environmental challenges.’ In summary, the climate change challenge is growing, while economically we are getting weaker

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CTMfile take: Surely, some reworking of forecasts and basic business assumptions is required by all businesses and forecasters as a result of this ‘holy shit’ moment in climate change.