Leader: Winter sunshine

1 January 2011

Every day of this new year, some 200,000 people are likely to be lifted out of what the United Nations defines as extreme poverty: living on $1.25 a day or less.

Every day of this new year, some 200,000 people are likely to be lifted out of what the United Nations defines as extreme poverty: living on $1.25 a day or less. This remarkable pace of improvement will probably quicken over the rest of the decade. This is not due to any government development goal or charity outreach programme. It is driven by global capitalism, just like the transformation of India, China and other emerging markets. We are living in a golden age of poverty reduction, yet we seldom hear about it. Politicians and the media tend, for good reason, to focus on the world’s problems. This can often mean not enough attention being placed on what is going right. The new year is a good a time as any to take stock.

Let us start at home. The era of government cuts is upon us, but the degree has been much exaggerated. A simple figure puts the hyperbole into perspective. George Osborne is trimming government spending by just 3.3 per cent over four years, and is likely to cut the government payroll by some 330,000. But the same forecasts envisage 1.5 million new jobs will created in the wider economy, so the outlook is one of greater employment and prosperity. There are ways in which this recovery could be at risk, as Johan Norberg outlines on page 12. But this year still looks set to be the third most prosperous in British history, and the most prosperous for the world. It is an odd kind of financial calamity.

This prosperity is not coming at the expense of the environment, contrary to what many campaigners would have you believe. Britain is becoming cleaner, as can be seen in the air quality figures. The level of unpleasant chemicals in the atmosphere has fallen by a quarter over a decade, according to government measurements. Carbon, of course, is not pollution — but even if it was, the average person in Britain emits 20 per cent less of it than five decades ago, according to the World Bank. We jet around more, use dishwashers with abandon and build houses with twin garages, but the technology we employ is cleaner and greener. It uses less fuel because consumers like low running costs.

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