Based on the opinions of 12,000 experts and leaders, the 2023 Davos Forum report also identifies cybercrime and mass migration as emerging perils.
The cost of living crisis. Faced with geopolitical tensions or climatic disasters, it is the risk perceived as the one that will have the greatest impact in the world, in the short term, according to the report on global risks published this Wednesday by the World Economic Forum, at five days of its Davos meeting.
More than 12,000 risk experts and government and business leaders around the world are consulted to gather their perception of global perils over the two-year horizon. But also in the medium term, on the horizon of ten years. One “overall riskis defined in the study as an event or phenomenon that may have a significant impact on global GDP, population or natural resources.
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To tell the truth, the cost of living crisis is already largely established since the resumption of inflation from the second half of 2021 fueled by soaring energy prices. But decision-makers find its political and social impacts worrying. In second place, short-term risks, the report places natural disasters and extreme climatic events with which the year 2022 was largely punctuated. In third position comes thegeoeconomic confrontationwhich includes sanctions, trade wars and restrictions on foreign investment. Growing tensions between China and the United States are fueling this fear among policymakers.
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The cyber threat is rising
Two phenomena have risen to the top of the top ten concerns this year:involuntary mass migrationsand cybercrime. The fear of attacks on strategic infrastructures by hackers and data theft is spreading among experts and leaders.
Beyond the simple classification, another trend is accentuated in this eighteenth edition of the report on “global risks» from the Davos Forum: «Global risks as a whole are more interconnected than in the past, their effects are compounding, with a lot of uncertainty», Comments Fabrice Domange, president of Marsh France. Marsh, a subsidiary of Marsh McLennan, the world’s leading insurance brokerage and risk consultancy, present in 130 countries, is the “strategic partnerof the World Economic Forum for writing this annual report.
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The report also mentionspolycrises“. Crises have always interacted, but the perception by decision-makers that they are even more interdependent than in the past is evident. Fabrice Domange cites examples of these interconnections: “Climate change and natural disasters can lead to supply disruptions which can cause social risks “. Or “digital inequalities lead to misinformation that weakens social cohesion “. On Tuesday, Klaus Schwab, presenting the program of the Davos Forum 2023 organized next week in the resort of the Swiss Alps, evoked “a future characterized by unprecedented multiple crises […] uncertain and fickle“.
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If we consider the less immediate risks, therefore on the ten-year horizon, environmental issues dominate. First and foremost is the failure to mitigate climate change, followed by the failure to adapt to climate change. Then come natural disasters and extreme climatic phenomena and in fourth place the destruction of biodiversity. Four risks identified in the report as distinct but intimately linked.
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The sample consulted by the teams of the World Economic Forum and Marsh McLennan is large enough to distinguish nuances from one country to another on the perception of major risks. In France, a country where public opinion does not seem to be flagrantly concerned about this subject, it is the debt crisis that comes first before the price shock on raw materials. Debt is also a primary concern of American experts and leaders when the Chinese are focused on “the geoeconomic confrontationand natural disasters. Indians or Congolese (from the DRC) consulted for this report, for their part, mention digital inequalities as the number one risk.
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