2024 As old conflicts rumble on, and new threats emerge, one image, more than any other will be replicated around the globe In a year that will see the biggest display of democracy in history what else will the next 12 months bring? Here are some of the stories set to shape the world ahead 2024 will be the biggest election year in history More than half of the world’s population live in countries holding national elections But there are two elections in particular that could have huge repercussions worldwide One is the most powerful democracy in the world The other is a small, self-governing island less than 200km off the coast of China The election in Taiwan in January matters because the island’s future is so uncertain According to US intelligence, President Xi Jinping wants his armed forces to be ready for an invasion by 2027 Taiwan is a geopolitical flashpoint An invasion by China could lead to war with America So the stakes are high for whoever wins power in both Taiwan and America The strategy they pursue could deter a Chinese invasion— or hasten it On the island itself the threat—for some—is already tangible More than half of Taiwanese citizens do not have confidence in their government’s ability to defend against an invasion from China Well of course you have to know what the wound is to treat it Some citizens are even taking civil-defence workshops, including 22-year-old Chen Buo Yen With regard to the possibility of war, it’s best to be as prepared as you can be It would be a lie to say that I am not afraid but I am prepared And those concerns will be at the forefront of Taiwanese voters’ minds when they head to the polls in January Voters will be faced with a choice between the current ruling party which emphasises Taiwanese self-rule and the need to resist Chinese bullying And two opposition parties, keen to pursue warmer relations Supporters of the current government claim the opposition would make it easier for China to ultimately take over Taiwan And on the other hand, the opposition camp thinks that the DPP government is going to take Taiwan towards a path of legal independence And that will be a path to eventual war with China The likelihood of war won’t just depend on what happens in Taiwan’s election, but in America’s too Would you send the US military into Taiwan if President Xi were to invade? President Biden says he would I won’t say, I won’t say A second Trump presidency would spell unpredictability and mounting levels of risk And not just for Taiwan, but for America and the rest of the world In July, all eyes will be on Paris for the 2024 Olympic games But while athletes battle it out on the ground, spectators’ eyes might be drawn to the skies above At first glance, it might be mistaken for a helicopter But this is a supersized drone And it could be the future of public transport Known as eVTOLs electric vertical, take-off and landing They run entirely on batteries making them a sustainable way to fly Five years ago eVTOLs were only known to a very small group of people that were really aviation geeks tinkering on new technologies Over the last year or so, we’ve seen a lot of public test flights and next year commercial service is the milestone If all goes to plan, the Paris Olympics will mark the start of commercial eVTOL flights Volocopter, the company running the flights, is hoping to transport tourists along five different routes at speeds of up to 110kph We believe if we can fly in Paris, we can fly anywhere This is also a start into a new area of mobility Allowing quiet, safe and sustainable vehicles to enter the city centres, which other vehicles can’t The technology is evolving so rapidly that aviation regulators are struggling to work out how to certify flights Volocopter has had to roll back on its original plan of pilotless, self-flying eVTOLs to try to appease the authorities I think the only way to get certified right now and for the years to come is by offering a piloted version It’s not technology that hinders us to go towards autonomy It is certification and public acceptance Volocopter is not the only company hoping to take off in 2024 Across the world, other companies are racing to the skies in a market that could be worth $1trn by 2040 But while much of the industry will be commercial, some companies will be catering for those who prefer to go private We’ve got two large wings you’re getting all your lift from In 2024, Palo Alto startup Pivotal will be launching an eVTOL anyone with deep enough pockets, can purchase and pilot themselves With just one seat, it’s more of a flying motorbike than a flying taxi The feeling is pretty hard to describe to see the world from up there The company provides a few weeks of training but you don’t need a pilot’s licence As long as it’s only flown over rural land and during daylight The Helix will be one of the most easy-to-learn-to-fly vehicles ever made You need to use a single joystick to do everything the aircraft can do from takeoff to landing, to hover, to forward flight Although, with a price-tag of $190,000, they’re not cheap There is no denying that it’s going to be used principally for recreation to start but it will grow from there and it will become a new form of transportation that we take for granted someday I’m Tom Standage, editor of<i> The World Ahead</i> To read about the prospects for the coming year, and get a head start on more of the trends and themes to watch, why not take out a subscription to<i> The Economist</i> which includes full access to <i>The World Ahead</i> 2024? To get the best offer, click on the link In 2024 the focus on AI won’t just be on what it can do but how humans might control it Some people are worried that if you impose strict rules too early you stifle the technology and other people are worried that if you don't move now then there could be dangerous consequences So far, much of the discussion around regulation has been on the most powerful AI, known as frontier models, and the risks they could pose to humanity But there's a danger that decision-makers are looking the wrong way We should be focusing on the real immediate potential but also the real immediate risks of this technology which aren’t about killer robots they’re about things like bias and discrimination Many governments are less than transparent about how they deploy AI in decision-making In London, the charity the Public Law Project has been trying to uncover how the British government is using algorithms So we can see 28 tools that are currently being used by the Home Office One of their projects examines the British government’s use of machine learning, a form of AI, in its investigation of welfare fraud People who were applying for welfare support, all of the same nationality background, they were having their benefits suspended for a really long period of time We were really concerned that some of these systems might be operating in a way that’s discriminatory There is precedent for this In 2021, an AI welfare scandal brought down the Dutch government The tax service here in the Netherlands was wrongfully accusing tens of thousands of families that they were frauding with child benefits And Australia's “Robodebt” scandal led to at least two suicides Driven to despair by a soulless, automated debt collector and a government who called them welfare cheats There has been some movement in an attempt to mitigate near-term risks The EU is expected to bring in its AI Act in 2024 There will also be two AI safety summits One in South Korea and one in Paris But if they are anything like the first safety summit at Bletchley Park in 2023 their focus will be mostly on frontier models and existential risk I think talking up these existential, theoretical future risks is really just a way of hyping the technology overall Elon Musk would like to sell you a self-driving car that uses AI to drive itself but he also says that AI is really, really dangerous If we are not careful with creating artificial general intelligence we could have potentially a catastrophic outcome Some people go as far as to say that this is actually a deliberate sort of decoy trying to distract attention from the real existing harms of AI systems And it’s also a way of drawing attention for the people who work in the field to just how powerful and wonderful they are They’re really saying “I made this thing that could destroy the world Aren’t I clever?” In 2024 one of the world’s overlooked greenhouse-gas emitters will finally be in the spotlight Until now, governments’ focus has been on cleaning up the most visible polluters like energy and transport But in the coming year, attention will turn towards industry and the production of materials central to modern everyday life Industry is often out of sight unlike the cars we drive or the electricity that powers our homes But, in fact, almost everything that we need in our lives is made by industry Factories and other industrial facilities belch out vast amounts of greenhouse gases Nearly 29% of all emissions That’s the same amount as electricity generation and almost double transport A big part of the problem is that some industrial processes need high temperatures, which at the moment rely on fossil fuels, like coal and natural gas That's been a real challenge But that’s also turning into a real opportunity for some innovators Coolbrook is a Finnish startup developing technology it thinks can bring the world one step closer to green industry Their rotodynamic heater generates high temperatures using electricity <i>This really is the heart and soul of the installation</i> <i>The gas goes around the doughnut multiple times</i> <i>and then exits from the other side</i> Which means with the use of renewable electricity, it can power industry with entirely sustainable energy What we want to do is that we replace majority of fossil fuels in the industry, and that is very much doable After decades of development, 2024 is the year this technology will start being shipped to factories It’s absolutely exciting times The last ten years have been already the time of intensive development, and last two to three years have really been the game-changer for us What we have now seen is that the heavy industry is really starting to move Industry might be more willing to decarbonise because of incoming regulation In 2023, the European Union introduced a carbon tax on imports We’ll see how it actually plays out in 2024 We’re likely to see other big economies the United States, the UK and Australia come up with their own versions of a carbon tax And this kind of regulation has spurred the creation of other decarbonising technologies A few startups have come up with new ways of containing renewable energy in sometimes what are called “rocks in a box”, sort of small packages that get very hot, retain the heat and can release it on demand when a factory needs it But industry can sometimes drag its feet and questions remain about whether it can change fast enough One of the obstacles to decarbonising heavy industry is that the processes are very complicated It can be expensive and involve investment in new capital equipment which industry does not want to do Factory bosses don’t like to shut down their factories and replace the kit that they use because of the dreams of environmentalism It’s a bit like changing the wheels on a bus while the bus is moving at full speed, but that’s kind of what we have to do In 2024, the American-led world order is going to be challenged again as a bloc of non-Western nations gets bigger The BRICS, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will add five new members Individually, the BRICS are some of the most exciting and biggest economies on the planet China is the world’s second-biggest economy India is growing rapidly In 2024, the club of five will be joined by Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates Argentina was also slated to join, but that now looks unlikely under its new president, Javier Milei On paper, BRICS+ seems a formidable outfit Together, its members account for nearly half of the world’s population and their share of GDP is around 20% more than the G7, a group of rich democracies allied to America But in reality, their power will depend on how well they get on They don’t seem to have that much in common They are very, very different economies India is on a huge kick about green minerals China seems to be driving its economy towards consumption rather than investment What’s more, there have been recent skirmishes between China’s and India’s armies across their shared border There’s also a chance that we’ll have found out that the BRICS mean very little other than a club for people to discuss things But what’s really interesting about all these countries that are joining next year is that they’re the countries that have had some of the most strained relations with the West and its financial order This global financial system was created in the ashes of the second world war At Bretton Woods, 44 nations gathered to establish a new international monetary and financial order with America at the helm What’s significant about the expansion of BRICS is that it challenges this American-led world order The most important thing about the BRICS has always been that America isn’t invited and there are ways in which the BRICS are using that American-dominated financial system and trying to twist it to their own advantage The BRICS have created their own alternative to the World Bank and their own currency swap lines in which countries agree to swap different currencies, countering the influence of the IMF and its currency of choice, the dollar And it’s not just America’s global economic influence that is being challenged by the rise of middle powers The world is changing and America’s influence is declining America is also a security power, and its military is far superior to any other countries in the world But increasingly, there are several smaller, rich countries that are playing the role of the world’s negotiator In the war in Ukraine, much of the mediation has been done by Turkey And in the war in Gaza, by Qatar America’s power is unlikely to be eclipsed anytime soon Its network of allies is still much bigger than China’s But in 2024, expect the world to become more multipolar as middle powers flex their muscles Thanks for watching To read more of our coverage of the coming year, click the link and don’t forget to 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