GLOBAL SCENARIOS

WHY SCENARIOS?

 Global scenarios are stories about how history might

unfold in this century. Beginning with contemporary
trends and driving forces, each embodies different
assumptions on the resolution of critical uncertainties
and human choice—thought experiments for
stimulating imagination, alerting us to dangers, and
inspiring corrective action. Exploring the frontiers of
the possible helps gives soul, sight, and direction to
the blind march of history.
Future Paths
The Global Scenario Group, precursor to GTI, introduced a simple and widely-used "taxonomy of the future" to organize the
possibilities. At the highest level, three broad channels—Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, and Great Transitions—radiate
from the present into the imagined future (see graphic).

Conventional Worlds are governed by today’s dominant forces of globalization: economic interdependence deepens,
dominant values spread, and developing regions gradually converge toward rich-country patterns of production and
consumption.

Barbarization explores the very real risk that Conventional Worlds strategies prove to be inadequate for addressing
mounting environmental and social stress, and problems spiral out of control, leading to a general crisis and the erosion of
civilized norms.

Great Transitions examine worlds that transcend reform to embrace new values and institutions in pursuit of a just, fulfilling, and
sustainable civilization.
NIC’s Global
Scenarios for
2040
 The NIC report begins by categorizing the “structural forces”—namely demographic, economic,
environmental, and technological—that shape all their scenarios. Along with these forces, the report identifies
five themes that also influence the scenarios:
• Shared global challenges, like climate change threats, disease spread, financial calamities, and technological
dislocation;
• Fragmentation, characterized by increasing connectivity that yields greater interdependencies, which can
paradoxically divide rather than unite societies;
• Disequilibrium, which can come about as a result of a natural collision of the first two themes
• Contestation, perhaps best thought of as a constant ebb and flow of wrangling within and among communities
and states with resulting and inevitable, and sometimes irreparable, fractures; and,
• Adaptation, in which the countries and societies that successfully thrive, rather than decline, do so based on
their ability to adjust, change, and revamp their strategies and approaches, while maintaining internal
cohesion. 
These structural forces and themes lay the groundwork for generating the NIC’s mostly self-descriptive global
scenarios: Renaissance of Democracies, A World Adrift, Competitive Coexistence, Separate
Silos, and Tragedy and Mobilization.
OECD’S GLOBAL SCENARIOS FOR 2035

The OECD scenarios work with six main drivers of

change, each of which encompasses multiple areas of
uncertainty that could shape the future of global
collaboration. As most OECD members are among the
strongest developed economies, “economics” features
prominently as a powerful driver of change for their
scenarios.
 • Digitalization is also high up on the “drivers of change” list,
 A second powerful driver, according
to the OECD report, are shifts in
governance and ideology. The OECD
also points to the rise in common risks
to humanity as a key driver.
and its impacts interlink with the influence of non-state actors,
as well as with shifting societal values. Digital access could
drive cross-border connection and global civic action, and
accelerate new production technologies such as distributed
manufacturing and 24/7 online skills training. On the other
hand, the world could also see an ominous wave of heightened
corporate power and/or state-based digital sovereignty that
divides countries and communities, along with misinformation
campaigns, restrictions on media/social media and intrusions
on basic citizen privacy.

WITH THESE KEY DRIVERS AND A FEW OTHERS IN HAND, THE OECD GENERATED
THREE GLOBAL SCENARIOS
 The first is a Multitrack World where division looms
large and countries have cleaved into five mostly
separate but parallel clusters, each revolving around
its own “data infrastructure and digital ecosystem.”
In the Virtual Worlds scenario, as the name implies,
there is a major shift away from physical encounters
(classes, meetings, office interactions, personal trade
and commercial interactions) to their virtual
equivalents, combined with a push by citizens for
greater and more sustained interconnectedness.
 The third OECD scenario, Vulnerable Worlds, is one
in which international collaboration on climate is
weak, and the private sector becomes the leader of an
effective technology-based push to carbon neutrality,
while at the same time allowing other destabilizing
threats to mount.