The World in 2030

32 The World in 2030
25 per cent, and, based on existing trends, will rise to 34 per
cent by 2030.
World income has itself doubled since 1980 because of
globalisation, and almost half-a-billion people have been
lifted out of poverty since 1990! According to current trends,
adds the World Bank, the number of people living on less
than the equivalent of $1 a day, will halve from today’s
one billion to 500 million by 2030. This will take place as a
result of growth in Southeast Asia, whose share of the poor
will halve from 60 per cent to 30 per cent, while Africa’s
share of the world’s poor will rise from 30 per cent to 55 per
cent. This represents a continental inequality which carries
significant dangers to world stability.
By 2030 the world’s richest nations will either be pursuing
ethical, sustainable globalisation – by which I mean fair trade
with proper concern for those with whom we trade and the
environment in which we trade – or we will be manning the
barricades against those who we have dispossessed.
As James Canton puts it in ‘The Extreme Future’:
In its crudest sense, globalization is either going to
be the most successful revolution to accelerate global
democracy, free trade, and open markets, or it
will victimize the poor nations of the world… This is
perhaps the greatest challenge facing our civilization
today. People without a future are the most dangerous
people in the world. They will do anything to get
a future – or to destroy those who they believe are
robbing them of that future. 59