World's big concerns revealed in Global Risks Report

World
Europe

01:28

Is the world sleepwalking into a crisis? That's the question raised by the World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Risks Report 2019. The report says global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking.

The WEF published the report in London on Wednesday against a backdrop of worrying geopolitical and geo-economic tensions.

The world is further divided, moving into a new phase of strongly state-centered politics, the report says. Worsening economies and political confrontation between major powers are fierce with nine out of ten respondents sharing concerns in those areas.

World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Risks Report 2019. /CGTN Photo

Meanwhile, the rate of global growth appears to have peaked. China's economic slowdown seems evident. The global debt burden is significantly higher than before the global financial crisis, at around 225 percent of GDP.

In addition, tightening global financial conditions are choking countries that built up dollar-denominated liabilities in a previous low-interest rate environment.

The report says that if unresolved, these tensions will hinder the world's ability to deal with all the challenges, from mounting evidence of environmental degradation to increasing disruptions to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Over a ten-year horizon, the report warns that extreme weather and climate-change policy failures are seen as the gravest threats.

It also examines a series of possible future shocks, in such uncharted territory as quantum computing, weather manipulation, monetary populism and emotionally responsive artificial intelligence – potential risks that could reshape the global economy but with uncertain costs.