BRUSSELS: Armed battle is the most important threat this yr, a World Financial Discussion board survey warned on Wednesday (Jan 15), as political divisions and fragmentation deepen worldwide.
Revealed forward of subsequent week’s annual schmoozefest of enterprise and political elites within the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos, the survey’s respondents additionally warned of different threats together with excessive climate occasions, financial tensions and disinformation.
Almost 1 / 4 of the over 900 consultants surveyed recognized battle as the best threat in WEF’s World Dangers Report 2025.
“We’ve a report variety of conflicts, sadly, around the globe,” stated Mirek Dusek, WEF managing director, pointing to the “humanitarian emergencies and the struggling that comes with it”.
Political and enterprise leaders’ considerations over raging conflicts have proliferated after conflict solely ranked because the fifth largest international threat in 2024.
This yr’s discussion board begins on Monday, the identical day because the inauguration ceremony for incoming US president Donald Trump in Washington.
Trump is predicted to talk by video hyperlink through the discussion board on Jan 23 and can determine extremely in talks over what dangers his extra protectionist strategy to commerce might deliver for the worldwide economic system.
Commerce fears are additionally entrance and centre of enterprise executives’ minds.
“There’s widespread consensus that we’ve got moved right into a extra aggressive, geostrategic, geoeconomic atmosphere,” Dusek stated throughout a digital press convention.
“Dangerous new coverage interventions” rose from 600 in 2017 to greater than 3,000 per yr in 2022″, stated Carolina Klint, of consultancy Marsh McLennan, citing figures from World Commerce Alert, an organisation which assesses commerce insurance policies.
“I do not even wish to guess the place we’ll find yourself in 2025,” stated Klint, whose consulting agency which helped produce the survey with WEF.
Excessive climate topped the checklist of dangers over a 10-year interval and was named the second largest fast hazard, simply as main fires have devastated swathes of Los Angeles this month.
The final two years additionally noticed common international temperatures exceed a vital warming restrict of 1.5 levels Celsius for the primary time, Europe’s local weather monitor stated final week.
