As McKinsey marks its 100th year, we reflected not only on past progress, but also on what might be achievable. In our new book, A Century of Plenty: A Story of Progress for Generations to Come, we ran the numbers.
Switzerland has a gross domestic product per capita of about $82,000, alongside very positive social outcomes. We imagine a world in which even those born in the poorest countries enjoy at least the living standards of today’s Switzerland by 2100—not only Swiss-level incomes, but also access to health care, education, safety and opportunity.
A world of plenty in 2100 requires growth. We estimate that global GDP would need to be eight-and-a-half times larger than today. This may sound like a tall order, but it implies global per capita income growth per annum of 2.6% through 2100, not hugely faster than the 2.3% over the past 25 years. There are skeptics who argue the planet cannot support such growth. But our feasibility stress test shows it can—even for a population of 12 billion (from 8 billion today).
This much larger world economy would require sufficient supply of energy, metals, minerals and food. We can deliver all of those, but it will require innovation and building the infrastructure and systems to produce them.
Daunting but Doable Deployment
Take energy. We would need two-to-three times today’s total energy and around 30 times more clean electricity to reach our 2100 goal. Talk about an “energy transition” seems inadequate. We need to build a much bigger energy system that is beyond fossil fuels to deliver. That is daunting but doable with existing technologies deployed at scale. China has expanded electricity generation 25-fold over the past 40 years, much faster than needed to achieve plenty by 2100. Nuclear fusion at scale, alongside renewables supported by storage, grids and other sources of firm power, will be essential.
Sweeping electrification and digital infrastructure, alongside housing and manufacturing, will require several times more minerals and bulk materials than today. The higher the need, the stronger the incentive to look for more. Take lithium, central to batteries and energy storage. Recoverable reserves have more than doubled since 2010—that’s triple the pace needed for a world of plenty. Again, innovation helps. We doubled the energy density of lithium-ion batteries between 2010 and 2023.
For centuries, doubters have argued the world cannot feed an ever-growing population, but, overall, that has not happened. Between 1961 and 2020, for instance, the global population increased two-and-a-half times, but 3.7 times the amount of food was produced. The trick? Using innovation to raise yields. Our calculations suggest the Earth can feed 12 billion people plentiful, protein-rich diets—without encroaching any further on forests—with annual increases in yields of 0.2% to 1.3%—far smaller increases than we have seen since the 1960s.
But wouldn’t all of this further degrade the environment and the climate? While net zero by 2050 has slipped out of reach (even in a lower-growth scenario), we argue that a world of plenty—full of innovation, high economic growth and new modern forms of energy—is much better positioned to tackle climate change. Growth provides more capital for grids, renewables, batteries, (small modular) nuclear reactors and faster R&D, and for climate adaptation tools like air conditioning and irrigation systems. So long as the fruits of growth are used to accelerate the decoupling of emissions from GDP—as many countries are already doing—we could land at warming to about 2 degrees Celsius even while making millions more people better off.
The vital final piece is productivity, which needs to accelerate to about 2.7% annually, powered by relentless innovation and investment. AI could potentially be the game changer. Combining generative AI with all other automation technologies could add 0.5 percentage points to 3.4 percentage points annually to productivity growth, far more than past general-purpose technologies such as the steam engine (0.3 points) or the IT revolution (1.5 points). Breakthroughs in space, biotech, energy, materials and robotics can push the productivity frontier, while emerging economies have substantial room to catch up.
Conclusion
This may all seem like a large agenda, but look back at the staggering advances of the past 100 years and it seems feasible. Global per capita GDP rose sixfold. With more wealth came better nutrition and medicines, and life expectancy rose by 40 years. Extreme poverty once encompassed about 60% of humanity, but has fallen to below 10%.
We know what drove this unprecedented progress—a combination of more workers with more skills, astonishing innovation, investment (capital per worker is about nine times higher than it was 100 years ago), a huge expansion of the energy system, the largest migration in human history from farm to city and the unleashing of global trade. The path of progress was not smooth—there were crises and wars, but none derailed the progress machine permanently, and human ingenuity prevailed.
Some of these engines of progress are under strain. Fertility rates are below replacement in two-thirds of countries. A larger energy system has come with carbon emissions and climate change. Geopolitical fractures threaten global cooperation.
These challenges are of our own making, and we can solve them so long as we believe in growth. We need a new story: that growth is a positive sum, that innovation is our ally, that prosperity can reach everyone. The limits on our potential are not physical, but in our hearts and minds. A story of decline breeds paralysis; a story of possibility mobilizes effort.
This article originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal.