Environmental crises pose biggest threats to global population over next decade: WEF Global Risks Report 2022

What is the news?

The Global Risks Report 2022 has been released.

What is the Global Risks Report?

Global Risks Report is an annual report released by the World Economic Forum.

The report was based on a survey that tracks global risk perceptions among risk experts and world leaders in business, government and civil society. 

It examines risks across five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal, and technological.

What are the key findings of the report?

Biggest Threats: Climate action failure, extreme weather events and biodiversity loss were perceived as the biggest threats for the global population over the next decade.

Impact of Covid-19: The pandemic has compounded the threats of social cohesion erosion, livelihood crises and climate action failure the most. Apart from this, mental health deterioration, debt crises, cybersecurity failures, digital inequality and backlash against science were also exacerbated by the pandemic.

Economic Stagnation: The most serious challenge persisting from the pandemic is economic stagnation. The macroeconomic outlook remains weak, with the global economy expected to be 2.3% smaller by 2024 than it would have been without the pandemic. 

Global Economic Gap: The global economic gap will widen by 2024 when the developing countries will have fallen 5.5% below their pre-pandemic expected GDP growth and advanced economies would have surpassed the same by almost 0.9%.

Growing dependency on digital systems—intensified by the response to COVID-19—has fundamentally altered societies. At the same time, cybersecurity threats are growing and outpacing societies’ ability to effectively prevent or respond to them. 

Migration: Growing insecurity in the forms of economic hardship, worsening impacts of climate change and political persecution will force millions to leave their homes in search of a better future. 

Space Risk: ​​Humans have been exploring outer space for decades, recent years have witnessed an increase in private and public activity, both creating new opportunities and also signalling that outer space is an emerging realm of risk. The most immediate consequence of increased space activity is a higher risk of collision between near-Earth infrastructure and space objects.

Source: This post is based on the article “Environmental crises pose biggest threats to global population over next decade: WEF Global Risks Report 2022” published in Down To Earth on 13^th January 2022.