Daily Times

2019 is coming to an end and, with it, the entire decade of the 2010s. It is now time to welcome 2020 and a new decade. Many of us are full of speculation of what the 2020s will be like. The past decade has been so eventful that it feels like a distinct period in history. The 2020s might be just as eventful. The 2010s brought us significant economic, technological, and cultural developments, but also political and social struggles that have made it a very turbulent period in history.

It may be unfair, though, to brand the 2010s an exceptionally turbulent time, given that preceding decades have arguably been even more tempestuous. The 2000s, for example, began with the 9-11 attacks, which destroyed the political optimism of the new century and unleashed the global War on Terror. The decade ended with a severe financial recession in western countries. Before that, the 1990s witnessed the end of communism and the Cold War and severe conflicts raging in several countries across the globe, such as Balkans and Africa. In the preceding decade of the ‘80s, the Cold War entered a new phase with Reagan’s stance against communism and the brutal Afghan war, before coming to an end with the fall of the Berlin Wall and anti-communist revolutions across Eastern Europe. And don’t get me started on the ‘70s and ‘60s, not to mention the ‘50s. The ‘40s went off the scale with the Second World War and its aftermath, and so on. Peer back into the past and you see an endless sequence of world-shaping upheavals.

In comparison, it appears the world has suffered less traumatic changes during the 2010s. Yet, we feel it has been a wild decade.

What went on in the last ten years to justify this perception? First of all, we reaped the consequences of the War on Terror while big changes gripped the Muslim world. The decade began with the Arab Spring, which many viewed initially as a “fourth wave of global democratization,” but which led to prolonged conflicts in many countries, especially Syria, where ISIS rose as bad news. This resulted in an influx of refugees into developed countries, inflaming socio-political debates over immigration. America saw a profound political shift when the presidency of Barack Obama gave way to that of Donald Trump, while the 2016 election which oversaw it was one of the most divisive and bitter in recent American history. The Trump era indicates the emergence of a new age for America and exemplifies a rising tide of rightwing populism across the West, resulting in Brexit from the EU. All sorts of social and political movements have been raging in the West and beyond, all through the decade, such as Occupy Wall Street and #MeToo. Throughout the decade, India and China emerged as newly rising global economies, but this distinction comes alongside growing tensions on the domestic and foreign front for both, such as Kashmir and CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) for India and Hong Kong protests, US Trade war, and the South China Sea dispute for China

The world no longer experiences tempests as profuse as those that were once a fact of life, such as the Cold War, the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, the Vietnam War, and the bloody Partition of India. But we have seen in the last ten years that the world continues to change dramatically. If the events of the 2010s do not match up to previous eras in terms of how seriously they have impacted people and changed societies, they are still critical, because they take place in a highly advanced world and a period of unprecedented instant connectivity, with 24/7 news disseminated through sources available at one’s fingertips. This has brought limitless individual opportunities that did not exist in prior times.

The developments of the 2010s have likely laid the ground for struggles and shifts in the 2020s, as the world’s technological, economic, and demographic growth continues to spiral upwards. Even if many of our current social, political, and economic issues (like immigration and inequality,) reach a settlement, there is one arena in which everything is certain to get worse with the passage of time –  the environment.

Civilization’s impact on nature (deforestation, pollutions of waters, global warming, glacial melt, sea-level rise, etc) undermines the unprecedented benefits for modern humanity. Climate change is fast emerging as the top challenge of our times. Little wonder the rise of a grassroots climate protest movement in 2019 marks the end of the 2010s. We have every reason to believe that environmental issues will take center-stage in the 2020s, as climate change struggle deepens. The next decade may just be when climate struggle becomes the major preoccupation of our world. We have to brace ourselves for the battle over climate change getting more and more intense as attitudes polarize over available solutions.

Simultaneously, climate change and environmental impacts will themselves get more and more intense. People have feared climate change for a long time, but the 2010s was the time when its effects finally started to play out. The decade was the hottest on record.  Many catastrophic weather-related events raged across the globe, with unusual frequency. More are likely to follow in the 2020s.

As the degradation of Earth intensifies, global issues will inevitably get entangled in the confrontation between humanity and ecology. More wars and conflicts could be caused by ecological collapse. Refugees will be forced to leave their homelands due to nature turning violent upon them. The world’s poor will bear the brunt of climate change, exacerbating economic inequality and boosting ideologies like socialism. The growing strength of environmental movement could boost right-wing ideologies in retaliation (remember how Nazism grew strong in Europe in response to communism).

As we welcome the 2020s, there is a lot to be optimistic about, yet also a whole lot to be anxious about. Let us hope that the next ten years will bring us many more opportunities to better humanity’s lot, though we must brace for the enormous slew of challenges ahead.

For now, let us wish each other a Happy New Year and a Happy New Decade!

The writer is a director at Pakistan’s People-Led Disaster Management