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We have serious challenges regarding climate change, unsustainable use of natural resources, water scarcity, loss of biodiversity, forests and farmland. Not to mention the huge inequality still prevailing in several parts of the planet.

The world's biggest problems are the world's biggest market opportunities. And that's a huge thing. Solve hunger, literacy and energy problems, get the gratitude of the world and become a billionaire in the process.

In sum, as we enter the 21st century, the Euro-Atlantic community - North America and Europe together - has to face some tough challenges when it comes to improving our capability.

The biggest single challenge to America and our future is income inequality. We've got to fix it.

Globalisation has made us more vulnerable. It creates a world without borders, and makes us painfully aware of the limitations of our present instruments, and of politics, to meet its challenges.

The trends that are shaping the twenty-first-century world embody both promise and peril. Globalization, for example, has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty while contributing to social fragmentation and a massive increase in inequality, not to mention serious environmental damage.

The world is richer than ever, and the gaps between rich and poor are wider.

Today, the biggest challenge we must meet is the one we present to ourselves. To not become a nation that places entitlement ahead of accomplishment. To not become a country that places comfortable lies ahead of difficult truths. To not become a people that thinks so little of ourselves that we demand no sacrifice from each other.

Global challenges also require global solutions, and few indeed are the situations in which the United States or any other country can act completely alone.

Lack of understanding of interrelatedness has caused numerous divisions and conflicts that are the cause of many major challenges in the world such as war, violence, terrorism, economic disparity, and exploitation.