Avian Flu Diary: Global Risks Report: 2013

# 6832

The World Economic Forum is a Geneva based non-profit foundation, originally called the `European Management Forum’ when it was created in 1971 by a business professor at the University of Geneva. In 1987, the foundation was renamed as they expanded their scope beyond Europe, to include broader global issues.

Late each January, the WEF invites more than two thousand select business, political and NGO leaders, academics, intellectuals, and members of the media to meet for 5 days in Davos, Switzerland to discuss the most pressing issues facing the world, and each January we get a new Global Risks Report.

The 2013 Global Risks Report is more ambitious, and more accessible, than ever before, with an interactive website, videos, along with the detailed report.

I’ve only just started to examine this data-heavy report, but wanted to provide the links, and some highlights, to my readers.

First some excerpts from the press release:

World More at Risk from Markets and Mother Nature – Global Risks 2013 report

Rim El Habibi, Media Associate, Tel.: +41 (0) 79 531 3111, rim.elhabibi@weforum.org

Persistent economic malaise coupled with frequent extreme weather events an increasingly dangerous mix

National resilience is crucial to tackle unpredictable global threats; new country rating system launched

Health and hubris, digital wildfires and environmental/economic stress are the three risk cases for 2013

The report analyses 50 global risks, with breakdowns for China, Middle East/North Africa and Latin America

Read the Global Risks 2013 report in full at http://www.weforum.org/globalrisks2013

London, United Kingdom, 8 January 2013 – The world is more at risk as persistent economic weakness saps our ability to tackle environmental challenges, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2013 report.

The report highlights wealth gaps (severe income disparity) followed by unsustainable government debt (chronic fiscal imbalances) as the top two most prevalent risks, in a survey of over 1,000 experts and industry leaders, which reflects a slightly more pessimistic outlook overall for the coming 10 years.

Following a year scarred by extreme weather, from Hurricane Sandy to flooding in China, respondents rated rising greenhouse gas emissions as the third most likely global risk overall, while the failure of climate change adaptation is seen as the environmental risk with the most knock-on effects for the next decade.

“These global risks are essentially a health warning regarding our most critical systems,” warned Lee Howell, the editor of the report and Managing Director at the World Economic Forum. “National resilience to global risks needs to be a priority so that critical systems continue to function despite a major disturbance,” he added.

Axel P. Lehmann, Chief Risk Officer at Zurich Insurance Group, said: “With the growing cost of events like Superstorm Sandy, huge threats to island nations and coastal communities, and no resolution to greenhouse gas emissions, the writing is on the wall. It is time to act.”

Global Risks 2013 analyses three major risk cases of concern globally:

1. Health and Hubris

2. Economy and Environment under Stress

3. Digital Wildfires

(Continue . . .)

Beyond the serious economic and environmental concerns expressed in the 2013 edition, the authors also focus on global health, and the risks of complacency in Health and Hubris. Again from the press release:

Huge strides forward in health have left the world dangerously complacent. Rising resistance to antibiotics could push overburdened health systems to the brink, while a hyperconnected world allows pandemics to spread. This risk case draws on the connections between antibiotic resistance, chronic disease and the failure of the international intellectual property regime, recommending more international collaboration and different funding models.

While it is impossible to accurately predict future crises, or their timing, the authors - in collaboration with the science Journal Nature – also consider a set of five X factors that may be on the horizon, including:

Runaway Climate Change
Significant Cognitive Enhancement
Rogue Deployment of Geoengineering
Costs of Living Longer
Discovery of Alien Life

The annual meeting at Davos, and the release of the WEF Global Risks report, is not without controversy.

There are many who perceive the World Economic Forum to be secretive, elitist, and as driving the world towards greater globalization. It has been targeted by many of the same groups who protest The IMF, The World Bank, and the G7 meetings.

Regardless of how one views the source, the issues raised in these Global Risk Reports are serious ones, and are deserving of our attention.

While the specifics may vary, in general terms they often match up with other `think tank’ concerns we’ve seen in the recent past.

A few examples include:

Black Swan Events -"Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds

UK: Civil Threat Risk Assessment

OECD Report: Future Global Shocks

The world is an increasingly crowded, and dangerous place, with new risks emerging every year. Threats that once might only have endangered a country or a region, can now spread globally.

While this report focuses on national resiliency issues, true resiliency must flow from the bottom up, not just from the top down.

Resilient families make resilient neighborhoods, which make for resilient communities, and from that we get resilient states. Which is why FEMA and Ready.gov stress the importance of individual and family preparedness.

While as individuals there isn’t much we can do about many of the global threats in this report, we can be as prepared as we can to deal with whatever comes along. A few links to help you along the way include: