2024: A gloomier world?

As economic woes and geopolitical tensions loom, brace for impact on climate, politics and beyond

For the third year in a row, world economic growth will do worse than in the previous year. At least according to the latest, and very similar, projections from the IMF (October) and OECD (November) summarised in the table. According to the IMF, global growth, which dropped to 3 per cent in 2023 in purchasing power parity terms (2.5 per cent when aggregated at market exchange rates) is expected to be a little lower in 2024, despite a small recovery in Europe and the avoidance of the long-predicted recession in the US. Growth in advanced economies, as a group, is