It's August 2024 – and our world is at a turning point. Here's what we should do now

The world is on fire. At no time since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 has the world looked so dangerous, nor has an end to its 56 conflicts - the highest number since the second world war - seemed so distant and so difficult to achieve. Distracted by domestic election campaigns, preoccupied by internal divisions and blindsided by the seismic geopolitical shifts happening beneath our feet, the world is sleepwalking into a "one world, two systems", "China v America" future. And the cooperation needed to firefight is proving so elusive that even now, an international agreement to prepare for…