WHAT a difference a year makes. 2025 has not merely been eventful, it has been transformative. Many of us will be ending the year with firm beliefs that we may not have held at its outset. Rarely does a calendar year precipitate such fundamental reorientation. The outlook, unfortunately, is bleak. But the new year resolution is clear: accept, adapt, strive to survive.
Here are five things I believe at year end, that I didn’t 12 months ago.
1.5 is dead: As a mother with a perceived obligation toward future generations, I clung to my climate optimism as long as I could. But the UN Environment Programme this year confirmed that there is no plausible pathway to keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Despite talk of greenhouse gas emissions peaking, all credible models point to warming of between 2.6°C to 3.3°C this century if current climate policies persist. If G20 countries meet net zero targets by 2050, and devastating floods, droughts and hurricanes force a rethink among climate deniers, the best we can do now is 1.8-2.3°C — still catastrophic. In 2026, expect talk of climate adaptation to discreetly supplant mitigation ambitions.
A third world war is a real prospect, not a looming threat: Russian belligerence, Great Power competition, a renewed focus on defence expenditure across Europe, surging right-wing nationalism, economic protectionism, dwindling natural resources, global nonchalance to the immense human suffering and ravages of war, as evidenced in the reaction to Gaza — these are the ingredients of a global conflagration. What 2025 has clarified is that unlike previous global conflicts, this one will manifest as perma-conflict. Expect even more frequent conflicts (China vs Taiwan, US vs Venezuela, etc) that will morph into overlapping wars and intersecting proxy battles. Add to this cyberattacks, drone incursions, disinformation campaigns on social media, bio-warfare, and water conflict, and the myth that peace is the default state of the international world order will soon erode.
Expect even more frequent conflicts.
Democracy is done — for now: 2024 was the ‘super year’ of elections, with half the world’s population going to the polls. A UNDP Human Development Report last year found that nine in 10 people worldwide support democracy. And yet, in 2025 it is clear that democracy is no longer delivering for the majority of people around the world. The democratic toolkit — free press, independent courts, rights to peaceful protest, public accountability, regard for human rights, inclusion — is broken, and no longer fit for purpose in a world of strongmen, Big Tech and economic inequality. New grassroots movements rooted in concepts of justice, fair treatment and accountability will emerge, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better.
Globalisation will endure — in competing orbits: Since the pandemic, there has been talk of the end of globalisation. Trump’s Liberation Day on April 2 and the tariff wars anticipated thereafter were meant to mark the end of economic integration. But 2025 has confirmed that globalisation must endure in a world reliant on critical minerals, solar supply chains, semiconductor and logic chips and the energy infrastructure needed to support AI and crypto mining. Here’s the difference: international supply chains will fragment into geopolitical camps dominated by competing global powers. Countries like Pakistan will spend 2026 deciding which orbit to plug into, and whether it’s possible to juggle multiple orbits.
AI won’t steal my job, it’ll co-opt my mind: At the start of the year, I feared losing my job to an AI-enabled app. Through 2025, the consultant-speak mantra of ‘workplace efficiency and optimisation’ has sunk in, and unemployment concerns have subsided. I am now more worried about losing my mind. The rapidity with which we have outsourced even basic thinking to ChatGPT heralds widespread cognitive decline, diminished problem solving, memory loss, exacerbated social isolation and a greater tendency for bias. An MIT Media Lab study released this year found that ChatGPT users in a study had the lowest brain engagement, underperforming at ‘neural, linguistic and behavioural’ levels. Forget about people’s diminished capacity for critical thinking, 2026 will raise concerns about their ability to think at all.
It’s not all bad news, though. 2025 will also be remembered as the year that longevity became an expectation, not a wish. With each troubling headline has come news of miracle cancer cures, gene editing breakthroughs, weight-loss drugs, life extension treatments and another Tech Bro’s grant funding for a start-up promising to reverse ageing through cell hacking. Why anyone wants to live forever in the world we’re now resigned to creating is my Big Question for 2026.
The writer is a political and integrity risk analyst.
X: @humayusuf
Published in Dawn, December 22nd, 2025
