Climate Crisis, Biodiversity Loss, Top Long-Term Global Concerns, WEF says

The consequences of the climate crisis and biodiversity loss are seen as the greatest global risks over the next decade among experts across the private and public sectors, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum (WEF).

Extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, critical change to Earth systems, and natural resource shortages ranked as the four top long-term concerns, as the impacts of environmental risks have severely worsened over the past two decades, the Global Risks Report said.

Conversely, only two environmental categories - extreme weather events and pollution - were among the top 10 risks over the next two years, which were instead dominated by societal and geopolitical problems such as misinformation and disinformation, armed conflict, societal polarisation, and cyber espionage.

The report was based on a survey of 900 experts across academia, business, government, international organizations, and civil society.

"The impacts of environmental risks have worsened in intensity and frequency since the Global

Risks Report was launched in 2006," it said.

"Moreover, the outlook for environmental risks over the next decade is alarming — while all 33 risks [in the report] are expected to worsen in severity from the two-year to the 10-year time horizon, environmental risks present the most significant deterioration."

Overall, as the effects of climate change-induced events have become more visible over time, and public awareness of their impact has risen, the rankings of environmental risks have continued to rise, said the report.

BIODIVERSITY-RELATED CONCERNS INTENSIFY

Looking at specific categories, while extreme weather events were top-ranked in the 10-year list for the second year running, concerns related to nature loss intensified compared to 2024.

However, the biodiversity crisis was seen as among the risks to have the biggest chances of being effectively addressed by global treaties by 2035, according to WEF.

"[The report also] shows generational divergence when it comes to risk perceptions related to environmental issues, with younger survey respondents being more concerned about this over the next 10 years than older age groups," it added.

Pollution, for example, ranked as the third-biggest risk in 2035 among under 30s, the highest of any age group surveyed.

"There is also divergence in how pollution is ranked by stakeholder, with the public sector placing [it] as a top 10 risk in the 10-year ranking, but not the private sector," the report said.

The report's release comes ahead of the WEF's annual meeting in Davos, to be held over Jan. 20-24, where strategies to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises will be among the key topics of discussion.