This photo taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows plumes of smoke rising from explosions above destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 13, 2025, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Menachem Kahane | AFP | Getty Images
Risk professionals identified armed conflict, extreme weather and disinformation among the biggest global risks for the coming year, according to a survey conducted by the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.
Nearly a quarter of respondents (23%) in the World Economic Forum's flagship Global Risks Report ranked state-based armed conflict as the most pressing concern for 2025.
Misinformation and disinformation were cited as the top risks over a two-year time period for The second year in a rowwhile environmental concerns such as Extreme weather events, Loss of biodiversity and Ecosystem collapse Control risk ratings for 10 years.
Extreme weather events, which include heatwaves, hurricanes and floods, feature prominently among short- and long-term risks. The climate crisis is causing extreme weather More frequent and more intense.
The report comes as nearly 3,000 leaders from more than 130 countries are preparing to participate in the conference Annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. The four-day event kicks off in the Swiss mountain village of Davos on Monday.
“Rising geopolitical tensions, the collapse of global trust, and the climate crisis are straining the global system like never before,” Mirek Ducek, managing director of the World Economic Forum, said in a statement.
“In a world of deep divisions and cascading risks, world leaders have a choice: strengthen cooperation and resilience, or confront worsening instability,” Ducek said. “The stakes have never been higher.”
The survey looks at risks in the short term to 2025, the short to medium term to 2027, and the long term to 2035. More than 900 global risk experts, policy makers and industry leaders were surveyed in September and October last year. To enrich the report.
“The world is in dire straits”
Armed conflict was overlooked as a major short-term risk two years ago, the World Economic Forum said, a development that reflects rising geopolitical tensions and an increasingly fractured global landscape.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres previously said this to caution The world is facing the largest number of conflicts since World War II, pointing to the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.
Some other short-term risks identified in the World Economic Forum's recent report include societal polarization, cyber espionage, pollution, and inequality.
“It is clear that the world is in a dire state and the global risk landscape is like a squirrel's nest where risks are interconnected, piling on top of each other, making the business environment very difficult to navigate,” Carolina Klint, chief commercial officer at Marsh McLennan Europe, told CN's Silvia Amaro. BBC in an interview on Wednesday.
World Economic Forum President and CEO Borg Brende holds a press conference to introduce the upcoming annual meeting of the World Economic Forum to be held in Davos, Geneva on January 14, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images
Clint said these risks do not necessarily reflect a new emerging trend, but rather one that is “becoming more aggressive.”
“I think we are going through an era now characterized by increased economic tensions,” Clint said. “And I think we have to realize that fragmentation is not a theoretical concern. It's something we need to confront today. So, it has led to a more complex and uncertain trading environment.”
