Drawing on nearly two decades of original risks perception data, the World Economic Forum (‘WEF’) Global Risks Report 2024 warns of a global risks landscape in which progress in human development is being chipped away slowly, leaving states and individuals vulnerable to new and resurgent risks. Against a backdrop of systemic shifts in global power dynamics, climate, technology and demographics, global risks are stretching the world’s adaptative capacity to its limit.
These are the findings of the Global Risks Report 2024 which argues that cooperation on urgent global issues could be in increasingly short supply, requiring new approaches to addressing risks. Two-thirds of global experts anticipate a multipolar or fragmented order to take shape over the next decade, in which middle and great powers contest and set – but also enforce – new rules and norms.
The report draws on the views of over 1,400 global risks experts, policy-makers and industry leaders surveyed in September 2023. Results highlight a predominantly negative outlook for the world in the short term that is expected to worsen over the long term. While 30% of global experts expect an elevated chance of global catastrophes in the next two years, nearly two thirds expect this in the next 10 years.
The report calls on leaders to rethink action to address global risks. The report recommends focusing global cooperation on rapidly building guardrails for the most disruptive emerging risks, such as agreements addressing the integration of AI in conflict decision-making. However, the report also explores other types of action that need not be exclusively dependent on cross-border cooperation, such as shoring up individual and state resilience through digital literacy campaigns on misinformation and disinformation, or fostering greater research and development on climate modelling and technologies with the potential to speed up the energy transition, with both public and private sectors playing a role.
To read the full report click on the link above.