Politics:

- Trump will get reelected, but the next US president will be a democrat.

- In Europe, although the last 10 years were led by the rise of extreme right and conservatives, socialists and ecological parties will take the lead in most countries.

- China will keep being very conservative and totalitarian and most people will just accept it. As the economy keep slowing down there will be more dissents, but there will be no civil war in this decade.

- China won’t be able to fix its global lack of soft power, except in Africa, and the belt and road initiative won’t be a success.

- I’m going to be bold and say that Xi won’t be reelected in 2022, however he will stay close to the power in the shadow and his successor will follow the same tracks.

- Hong-Kong will keep having it’s own system like now. There will be more protests against incoming pro-Beijing bills.

Environment/Energy:

- There will be only few consequences due to global warming in this decade : more forest fires, a few more species will disappear, but no massive sea-level rise, no big population move, no infrastructures or agricultural lands in danger.

- There will be much less skepticism about global warming and climate change, but some people will embrace it and even try to accelerate it, mostly for profit.

- There will still be plenty of oil reserves, but, as the demand lower, and the extraction becomes harder, prices will greatly increase in the end of the decade, accelerating the rise of electric and fuel cells vehicles.

- The public opinion will increasingly support nuclear energy, both fission and fusion

- There will be no breakthrough in fusion in this decade, but major advancements like the completion of ITER

- However, photovoltaic panels will keep becoming more efficient and profitable, greatly increasing their rise.

- The rise of air travel will be mitigated by the rise of rail, especially in China.

- China will keep moving to renewables at a slow/moderate pace in the first half of the decade, but foreign policies like the EU border carbon tax will force them to accelerate.

Technology:

- There will be growing concern about people’s privacy, even in China (where nobody cares now). There will be many software/devices sold to help protect privacy (like some kind of masks or special clothing to avoid facial recognition)

- Supersonic commercial flights will appear again in the second half of the decade, and people will very slowly adopt them as they become cheaper and more convenient.

- US and… Africa will mostly use their phones to pay commodities by the end of the decade, many people in Europe will be reluctant.

- China will launch its own cryptocurrency and it will be greatly adopted, but only in China. Cash won’t disappear anywhere in the world though.

- No human will walk on Mars in this decade.

- Space-ISP like Starlink will be a niche market, eventually failing.

- Gene-editing experiments on humans will keep being publicly blamed and governments won’t encourage them (even China)

- There will be many level 4 autonomous cars on our roads in 2030, but not level 5.

- We won’t have incredible I-Robot kind of AI, but the one existing will be powerful enough to depreciate several human jobs and will require political changes.

Misc:

- Fully remote jobs will keep increasing and more people will prefer living in mid-size cities or in the countryside

- Population in Europe will start decreasing

- These 2 predictions will lead to a decrease of the real estate market in big European cities.

Many things about China, because I’m living there (although I’m french). I tried to not be too safe and kind of specific because I like to play. I hope many of these predictions won’t come true.