User:Sm8900/Global societal issues of the 2020s

Global societal issues of 2020s refers to a confluence of issues affecting global society as a whole, that reached a level of critical importance, to a large extent due to the widespread worldwide Covid-19 pandemic; as well, there were other issues of global concern, some long-standing such as climate change, some new such as George Floyd worldwide protests, and various economic crises arising from other issues, such as the 2020 stock market crash.

Elevated levels of crisis
The IMF noted that the Covid-19 pandemic was a "crisis like no other." The IMF noted that it had to expand its economic aid programs to record levels to meet the new demands for international aid. The IMF stated:

The outlook is dire. We expect global economic activity to decline on a scale we have not seen since the Great Depression. This year 170 countries will see income per capita go down—only months ago we were projecting 160 economies to register positive per capita income growth.

One editorial in The Guardian noted:

No country is emerging unscathed from the Covid-19 pandemic, but the impact on the world’s poorest countries is especially severe. Extreme poverty is on the rise and underfunded health systems are woefully ill-prepared to cope with the virus. The number of children in Africa dying of preventable diseases is increasing. The gains made in development since the turn of the millennium are being reversed.

The international community is well aware of what’s happening. More than 100 countries have sought financial help from the International Monetary Fund. The IMF’s sister organisation, the World Bank, says emerging market and developing economies will shrink by 2.5% this year, their first collective contraction in 60 years. The G20 – the body that brings together the biggest players from the developed and developing worlds – has recognised that oppressively high debt levels make it impossible for low-income countries to boost health spending.

The response to this unfolding human tragedy has been inadequate in every respect. The IMF has nothing like the bare minimum of $2.5tn it says is needed to meet the demands for help. A debt-relief deal agreed in April excludes money that poor countries have borrowed from China and the private sector. The G20 has no meeting planned until November, fully justifying the accusation by Gordon Brown that it has gone awol – absent without lending.

The situation today is far more serious. Pandemics are nothing new, nor are global recessions. What makes the current crisis unique – and so terrifying – is that never before in the modern age have both occurred at the same time. Debt levels were smaller and more manageable for low-income countries in 2008. China’s subsequent strong growth boosted demand for the commodity-producing nations of Africa and Latin America. Above all, there was a willingness to cooperate [in 2008, which is much diminished now].

Economic downturn
The 2020 stock market crash is an ongoing global stock market crash that began on 20 February 2020. On 12 February, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the NASDAQ Composite, and S&P 500 Index all finished at record highs (while the NASDAQ and S&P 500 reached subsequent record highs on 19 February). From 24 to 28 February, stock markets worldwide reported their largest one-week declines since the 2008 financial crisis,  thus entering a correction. Global markets into early March became extremely volatile, with large swings occurring in global markets. On 9 March, most global markets reported severe contractions, mainly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and an oil price war between Russia and the OPEC countries led by Saudi Arabia. This became colloquially known as Black Monday. At the time, it was the worst drop since the Great Recession in 2008.

On 28 February, stock markets worldwide reported their largest single-week declines since the 2008 financial crisis,  while oil futures saw their largest single week decline since 2009 and the yields on 10-year and 30-year U.S. Treasury securities fell to new record lows at 1.12% and 1.30% respectively. Outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney stated that the British economy (which saw stagnation and car manufacturing declines in the 4th quarter of 2019) was being impacted by the outbreak because it relies heavily on tourism revenues and international manufacturing supply lines. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated that the outbreak was posing "evolving risks to economic activity" and that the Federal Reserve would use monetary policy to "act as appropriate to support the economy" but that "The fundamentals of the U.S. economy remain strong." Outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad announced a RM20 billion fiscal stimulus package.

Ultimately, from 24–28 February, stock markets globally plummeted several percentage points, while on Wall Street the indices were down at least 10%. It was the fastest correction in market history from all-time high, taking merely six days to enter into correction territory. The sudden drop in late February was attributed to fears that China could produce a global economic shock, primarily due to quarantines imposed by the state to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, which at the time was classified as an epidemic. Within weeks, stocks fell sufficiently enough to enter bear market territory. Concerning reports of the viruses spread in South Korea, Italy and Iran also prompted fear in investors, mounting to a mass sell-off in Asia-Pacific stock markets as well as European ones.

Three days after Black Monday there was another drop, Black Thursday, where stocks across Europe and North America fell more than 9%. Wall Street experienced its largest single-day percentage drop since Black Monday in 1987, and the FTSE MIB of the Borsa Italiana fell nearly 17%, becoming the worst-hit market during Black Thursday. Despite a temporary rally on 13 March (with markets posting their best day since 2008), all three Wall Street indices fell more than 12% when markets re-opened on 16 March. At least one benchmark stock market index in all G7 countries and 14 of the G20 countries were declared to be in bear markets.

During March 2020, global stocks saw a downturn of at least 25%, and 30% in most G20 nations. On 20 March, Goldman Sachs warned that the US GDP would shrink 29% by the end of the 2nd quarter of 2020, and that unemployment could skyrocket to at least 9%. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called the looming economic crisis 'akin to the Great Depression'. On 26 May 2020, the Dow Jones Industrial Average eclipsed 25,000 points for the first time since the previous March, and by the beginning of the following month, the S&P 500 eclipsed its 200-day moving average while the NASDAQ-100 rallied 42% from the three indices most recent local minimum on 23 March. The rally was motivated by news of potential coronavirus vaccines and economic recovery, but many economists have warned that it could be a "bear market trap" and in June, long-short momentum will plummet at similar levels seen in 2002 and 2008 and that global markets could continue to crash into July.

Global wave of protests, 2019-2020
The Protests of 2019, also known as the Global Protest Wave of 2019, is a term used to describe the abnormally large number of high profile protests that happened during 2019 and have continued into 2020; protests classified in the "wave" included those in the Arab world, Iran, Hong Kong, France, Catalonia and Latin America. The mainstream media has described them as having many causes in common,   as influencing each other   and as having many differences in specific causes.

According to Jackson Diehl of The Washington Post, these protests made the year 2019 into "the year of the street protester" and were defined by other journalists and academics in similar terms. Julie Norman of University College London described 2019 as historically notable because of "the degree of mobilization," Michael Safi of The Guardian described the protests in late October 2019 as "protests raging today and in the past months on the streets of cities around the world [that] have varying triggers [and] fuel [that] is similar", Le Monde defined the 2019 protests as "a wave of popular protest [shaking] the world" and Elise Lambert of France Télévisions defined the 2019 protests as "a burst of uprisings [that] has engulfed the planet over the past several months." Historian Mathilde Larrère of University of Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée claimed that "all the [2019] protests refer to each other" and that,, the protests had created an "insurrectionary mood" (climat insurrectionnel). Larrère described the 2019 protests as having historical precedents including the 1820, 1848 and 1989 revolutionary waves, the protests of 1968, and the 2011 wave of the Arab Spring. Larrère claimed that the differences in triggers for the various protests were misleading for understanding the nature of the protests, favouring rebellion against economic austerity programs and calls for more democracy as underlying causes.

Regional conflicts
As of June 2020, the ongoing conflict in the Syrian Civil War seemed about to go over a precipice of societal collapse, as highyl detrimental punitive sanctions by the United States under the Caesar Act seemed likely to critically damage Syrian society, spreading hardship and privation and accomplishing nothing whatsoever in regards to any effort to improve conditions either politically, socially or economically.

Refugee crises
The greatest number of refugees fleeing to Europe originate from Syria. Refugees of the Syrian Civil War are citizens and permanent residents of Syria, who have fled their country over the course of the Syrian Civil War (begin:2011). Since the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011 more than six million (2016) were internally displaced, and around five million (2016) had crossed into other countries, with most seeking asylum or placed in Syrian refugee camps established in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, and EU. Detected illegal border crossings to the EU by Syrians was 78,887 in 2014, 594,059 in 2015, 88,551 in 2016, and 19,452 in 2017.

Syrians established diaspora in Denmark, Finland, Austria, Germany, Greece, Norway, Sweden and United Kingdom. Their migration stems from severe socio-political oppression under Bashar al-Assad. Civil war ensued with clashes between pro and anti-government groups. In 2011, a group of pro-democracy Syrians protested in the city of Daraa. Al-Assad responded with force and consequently, more protests were triggered nationwide against the Assad regime. By July 2011, hundreds of thousands of people were protesting against President Assad. An early violent crackdown was enacted in an attempt to mitigate the uprisings, only to be met with more unrest. By May 2011, thousands of people had fled the country and the first refugee camps opened in Turkey. In March 2012, the UNHCR decided to appoint a Regional Refugee Coordinator for Syrian Refugees—recognising the growing concerns surrounding the crisis. Just a year later, in March 2013, the number of Syrian refugees reached 1,000,000. By December 2017, the UNHCR counted 1,000,000 asylum applications for Syrian refugees in the European Union. As of March 2018, UNHCR has counted nearly 5.6 million registered Syrian refugees worldwide.

Anti-government forces were supported by external governments (including the US, UK and France ) in an effort to topple the Syrian government via classified programs such as Timber Sycamore (begin: 2012 or 2013 end: 2017) that effectively delivered thousands of tons of weaponry to rebel groups.