PARIS/VANCOUVER — Today's economic outlook is strangely contradictory. While global markets, led by technology and energy, have been ebullient over high short-term profits, the mood at the Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund last month was decidedly somber. Two global institutions that normally speak in banalities issued strong warnings about the growing risks of economic fragmentation.
With 'once-a-lifetime' floods, megafires, and droughts proliferating, many countries are at risk of destabilization within the next few years, and there is no global 'safety net' in place. Meanwhile, as Harvard's Dani Rodrik has pointed out, countries are competing for dominance in green technologies rather than working together to accelerate progress.