WEF:Global Risks Report,2020

News:The World Economic Forum has released the ‘Global Risks Report 2020’.

Facts:

About Global Risks report:

  • The report describes changes occurring in the global risks landscape from year to year and identifies global catastrophic risks.
  • This is the first time in the report’s 10-year-history that all of the top five issues that are likely to impact the world this year are environmental.

Top 10 risks:The report has listed top 10 risks over the next 10 years which are:

  • Extreme weather
  • Climate action failure
  • Natural Disaster
  • Biodiversity loss
  • Humans made environmental disasters
  • Data fraud or theft
  • Cyberattacks
  • Water crisis
  • Global governance failure
  • Asset Bubble

Other takeaways from the report:

  • It reports that Climate-related risks had the greatest likelihood of severe impacts.
  • It foresees a year of increased domestic and international political instability.The retreat from multilateralism has threatened the ability of the world to deal with global risks.
  • It also forecasts a year of economic slowdown.The International Monetary Fund had expected growth to be at 3% in 2019, which is the lowest since the economic crisis of 2008-09.
  • The Digital Technology is in its peak of evolution.However,the unequal access of the technology across the globe will increase.
  • The social demographic, environmental and technological pressure on health systems is growing.

Additional information:

About World Economic Forum(WEF)

  • WEF was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva,Switzerland.
  • The objective of WEF is to improve the state of the world by engaging business,political,academic and other leaders of society to shape global,regional and industry agendas.
  • The reports published by the WEF are (a)Global Competitiveness Report (b)Global Gender Gap Report (c)Global Risks Report and (d)Global Travel and Tourism Report among others.