World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2020: World’s top 5 long-term risks are environmental

Since the beginning of this year, many major events have grabbed the public’s attention. Apart from the terrifying outbreak of COVID-19, Brexit has occupied the headlines and widely appeared on social media platforms, leading to a lack of news coverage of WEF this year. However, The Global Risks Report 2020, recently published by WEF, points out a non-negligible problem— over the past 14 years, the five biggest long-term risks in the world have no longer been “economic,” but rather “environmental.”

The world’s five biggest long-term risks over the past 14 years have no longer been economic (blue), but rather environmental (green)(source: The Global Risks Report 2020)

Environmental issues stand out for years in world’s risk assessment

The potential global risks over the next 10 years revealed by WEF this year include “extreme weather,” “failure of climate-change mitigation,” “natural disasters,” “biodiversity loss,” “human-made environmental damage,” “data fraud or theft,” “cyberattacks,” “water crises,” “failure of global governance,” and “asset bubbles.” If you take a closer look at the categorization made by WEF, you will realize that the first five issues are included in the “environmental” category.

In view of the WEF annual ranking in the past, “extreme weather” has been on the list for seven consecutive years and ranked top for four consecutive years. In addition, “natural disasters” has been ranked top three for the last four years. Considering the recent major disasters across the world, such as amazon rainforest fires and Australia’s bushfires, this report is extremely convincing, as these risks have actually happened and might get worse in the future.

As to the five most impactful risks, there are three risks related to the environment. Among all, “failure of climate-change mitigation” ranks top as to the severity of its impact over the next 10 years and ranks second as to the likelihood of it becoming a global risk. These results are not baseless: little progress has been made during the UN climate negotiations over the past years; countries have not achieved expected results when implementing climate measures. All these are largely harmful to global climate governance.

The potential global risks over the next 10 years predicted by the members of WEF this year are mostly environmental(source: The Global Risks Report 2020)

Climate change accelerates biodiversity loss

Meanwhile, climate change has become more severe and faster than expected. Looking back, the temperatures in the last five years were the highest ever recorded. When natural disasters have become more severe and frequent like last year, it means that the world is facing unprecedented extreme weather. What’s more astounding is that by the end of this century, the global average temperatures will rise at least 3°C—twice as high as the maximum 1.5°C warned by climate experts to prevent serious consequences. This will significantly affect global biodiversity.

Therefore, the report also lists “biodiversity loss” as the third most impactful risk and the fourth most likely risk over the next 10 years. Based on the statistics, the current level of biodiversity loss has been tens to hundreds of times higher than its average over the past 10 million years, and the loss is accelerating. Many scholars are worried that the global food and health systems will collapse, and the entire eco-system will be destroyed.

The five biggest risks rated by Global Shapers (source: The Global Risks Report 2020)

Youth participation in future risk assessment

The negative results of the report are alarming; yet, the report also has an interesting analysis that shows increased awareness of environmental issues among the new generation.

In fact, when assessing the global long-term and short-term risks over the next 10 years, WEF mobilized thousands of members including Global Shapers Community—an online network of young people across the globe. According to the survey, these young people rated each risk higher than people of other age groups, meaning that young people are much concerned about the future of the world.

In addition, regarding risks expected to increase this year, the top five risks chosen by young people are environmental, whereas “economic confrontations” was ranked top by the forum members in the past. Meanwhile, though “water crises” falls under the category of “societal risks,” it is still environment related. Apparently, young people have a stronger sense of urgency when it comes to climate crisis, and the drive behind all the climate initiatives nowadays should not be underestimated.

【Reference】
The Global Risks Report 2020