The Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria [16]
Not all resource-rich countries are rogues, and the climate of good economic management has led some to use their riches more wisely than before. Canada is becoming a major power, and yet acting extremely responsibly. The Persian Gulf, where so much of the oil revenue flows, is investing more of its profits in infrastructure and industry, rather than in Swiss bank accounts and Monte Carlo casinos (though there is certainly much of that as well). Dubai has become a business-friendly entrepôt, a Middle Eastern Singapore. Other Gulf states are now trying to emulate its success. Saudi Arabia, which for decades has mismanaged its vast fortune, plans to invest $70 billion in new petrochemical projects, aiming to become a leading petrochemical producer by 2015. The Gulf states made $1 trillion in capital investments between 2002 and 2007, and McKinsey and Company estimates that they could invest another $2 trillion over the subsequent decade. This is a state-directed form of capitalism, which is likely to result in narrow development and unlikely to produce self-sustaining growth (although there are strong state-directed elements in European and East Asian capitalism as well). But it is much closer to the global capitalist norm than the economic systems in these countries—from Russia to Saudi Arabia—a generation ago.
Over the long term, the most acute problem of plenty is the impact of global growth on natural resources and the environment. It is not an exaggeration to say that the world is running out of clean air, potable water, agricultural produce, and many vital commodities. Some of these problems can be fixed—by improving efficiency and developing new sources of supply—but progress has been far too slow. Agricultural productivity, for example, is rising. But feeding a global population of eight billion, which we will get to by 2025, will require crop yields to reach four tons per hectare from only three tons today. Similarly, our ability to manage and conserve water is not growing nearly as fast as our consumption of it. World population tripled in the twentieth century, but water consumption increased sixfold. Americans use more than four hundred liters of water a day to drink, cook, and clean themselves. People in poorer countries today are lucky to get forty, but as they get richer, their rising demands will cause greater stress.5 Violent clashes over water have already broken out in Africa and the Middle East. Historically, populations have moved to find water; if water sources dry up in the future, tens of millions of people will be forced to start moving.
Over the last decade, many predictions about the effects of climate change have proven to be underestimates because global growth exceeded all projections. The most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was released in mid-2007. By the year’s end, scientists had shown that the polar ice caps are melting twice as fast as the report expected.6 There is greater demand for electricity, more cars, and more planes than anyone imagined fifteen years ago. And it keeps growing. The McKinsey Global Institute projects that, from 2003 to 2020, the number of vehicles in China will rise from 26 million to 120 million. And then there’s India, Russia, the Middle East—the rest.
Demand for electricity is projected to rise over 4 percent a year for decades. And that electricity will come mostly from the dirtiest fuel available—coal. Coal is cheap and plentiful, so the world relies on it to produce most of its electricity. To understand the impact on global warming, consider this fact. Between 2006 and 2012, China and India will build eight hundred new coal-fired power plants—with combined CO2 emissions five times the total savings of the Kyoto accords.
The Rise of Nationalism
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