Executive Summary

The pressures shaping the global economy are increasingly converging. Extreme weather is altering agricultural output, sanctions and war are redirecting energy flows, infrastructure bottlenecks are changing the value of trade routes, and countries are competing to secure investment without becoming overly dependent on any single partner. The result is a system that remains highly interconnected but is becoming more circuitous, costly and politically conditioned.

Agriculture illustrates the transformation. Extreme weather across the Northern Hemisphere has damaged crops and livestock, but it has not produced a generalized global food shortage. Certain crop yields have declined in some regions but remained relatively stable in others. Russia, Kazakhstan, Canada and Ukraine have been particularly helpful in offsetting the losses.