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This photo taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows plumes of smoke rising from explosions over destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip on January 13, 2025 in the middle of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
Menahem Kahana | Afp | Getty Images
Risk specialists have identified armed conflict, extreme weather and disinformation among the main global risks for the coming year, according to a survey by the World Economic Forum (WEF) published on Wednesday.
Almost a quarter (23%) of respondents in the WEF’s “Global Risks Report” ranked state-based armed conflict as the most pressing concern by 2025.
Disinformation and misinformation were cited as the main risks over a two-year horizon for the second consecutive yearwhile environmental concerns such as extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem collapse it dominated the 10-year risk rating.
Extreme weather events, which include heat waves, tornadoes and floods, feature prominently among short- and long-term risks. The climate crisis makes the weather extreme more frequent and more intense.
The report is close to 3,000 leaders from more than 130 countries are preparing to participate in the The annual meeting of the WEF. The four-day event begins on Monday in the Swiss mountain town of Davos.
“Rising geopolitical tensions, a fracture of global trust and the climate crisis are straining the global system like never before,” said Mirek Dušek, director general of the WEF, in a statement.
“In a world marked by deepening divides and cascading risks, global leaders have a choice: foster collaboration and resilience, or face compounding instability. The stakes have never been higher,” said Dušek.
The survey considers risks in the short term to 2025, the short to medium to 2027 and the long term to 2035. More than 900 global risk experts, politicians and industry leaders were surveyed in September and October of last year to inform the report.
“The world is in a terrible state”
WEF said armed conflict was overlooked as a top short-term risk two years ago, a development that reflects escalating geopolitical tensions and an increasingly fractured global landscape.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has already done so warned that the world is facing the highest number of conflicts since the Second World War, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as conflicts in the Middle East and Africa.
Some of the other short-term risks identified in the latest WEF report include social polarization, cyber espionage, pollution and inequality.
“It is clear that the world is in a terrible state and the global risk landscape is like a squirrel’s nest where risks are interconnected, layered on top of each other, making the business environment very, very difficult to navigate,” Carolina Klint, commercial manager. official of Marsh McLennan Europe, told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro in an interview on Wednesday.
The President and CEO of the World Economic Forum Borge Brende holds a press conference to introduce the next annual meeting of the WEF held in Davos, Geneva, on January 14, 2025.
Fabrice Coffrini Afp | Getty Images
Klint said these risks don’t necessarily reflect a new emerging trend — but rather one that is “becoming more and more aggressive.”
“I think we’re moving into an era now marked by increasing economic tension,” Klint said. “And I think we have to recognize that fragmentation is not a theoretical concern. It is something that we need to confront today. Therefore, it has resulted in a more complex and uncertain business environment.”
