Global living standards are moving in the wrong direction

LIFE IN THE 2020s is tough. In most developed countries the pandemic created the biggest fall in life expectancy since the second world war. A deadly conflict in Ukraine is pushing up the cost of everything from energy to a loaf of bread. And amid all of the acute challenges, long-term ones have not gone away: climate change is a growing threat, as record droughts, heatwaves and floods in various parts of the world show.