We can't restore the old order, but we can try to stop the new world disorder

David Miliband

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Britain needs to forge coalitions to thrive in a dangerous world. And that work starts with Europe

What will historians record about 2025? It won't all be bad. China has installed 250GW of solar power in the first half of the year alone - twice as much as the rest of the world combined. Capital investment in AI in the US has reached a staggering $500bn. Nuclear fusion has achieved a significant breakthrough.

But in a world with more resources to do more good than at any time in human history, the landscape is charred with damage. There are 60 active conflicts. The World Bank has revised up the number of people living in extreme poverty (less than $3 a day) to 830m. The Varieties of Democracy project says that for the first time in 20 years there are more autocracies than democracies. The UNHCR says there are 125 million refugees and internally displaced people. Famine has been recorded in Gaza and Sudan, with four other countries at imminent risk. Carbon emissions have breached last year's record and the target of limiting the rise in average global temperature to 1.5C has been torched.

And alongside damage there is danger. Climate change, AI, pandemics and the nuclear arms race all run the risk of crossing tipping points.

How did this happen?

Undoubtedly, policy mistakes spurred inequality and instability. But the changes that have ruptured the global order are more structural, and when combined create today's "polycrisis".

First, as a consequence of a more connected world, global risks have risen exponentially, far outstripping the ability of global institutions to manage them.

The Covid pandemic provides a telling example. The climate crisis even more so. So too the refugee crisis. In each case, international cooperation has been too weak to meet the challenges. Bloat and power in international institutions have been blamed, but it is their weakness, not their strength, that has been exposed.