News Highlight
The World Economic Forum warned in its ‘Global Risks Report 2023’ that the Russia-Ukraine conflict might spark a polycrisis.
Key Takeaway
- The World Economic Forum released the Global Risks Reports 2023 ahead of this year’s meeting, warning that the world could face a “polycrisis” centred on natural resource scarcity by 2030.
Polycrisis
- About
- The word polycrisis was coined in the 1990s by French complexity theorist Edgar Morin.
- When several crises in many global systems become causally intertwined in ways that severely harm humanity’s prospects.
- These interlocking crises would do more harm than the real crises’ personal effects if their host systems were not so intricately linked.
- Former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker coined the term “polycrisis” to describe Europe’s explosive condition in 2016.
- It linked indebtedness with Brexit, climate change, and migration crises.
World Economic Forum on Polycrisis
- According to the research, the world is confronting a mix of hazards that feel both entirely new and strangely familiar.
- Older and known risks are becoming entwined with new and emerging risks, perhaps leading to a polycrisis.
- Older risks include inflation, cost-of-living crises, trade disputes, capital outflows from emerging markets, broad social upheaval, geopolitical conflict, and the threat of nuclear war.
- Recent developments: Unsustainable debt levels, a new era of low growth, low global investment and de-globalization, a reduction in human development, and the mounting pressures of climate change are among them.
Global risk
- About
- It is described as the probability of an event or situation occurring that, if it occurs, will have a significant negative impact on a considerable proportion of world GDP, population, or natural resources.
- The Global Risks Report series examines risk experts’ and world leaders’ opinions of global risks in the industry, government, and civil society.
- It examines risks across five categories:
- Economic
- Environmental
- Geopolitical
- Societal
- Technological
Global Risks Report 2023
- Key findings of the report
- Short-term risks include increased living costs, weak economic development, and limited global food and energy supplies.
- Long-term risks include failing to moderate climate change, adapting to climate change, extreme weather occurrences, and the prospect of species extinction.
- According to the research, these risks may converge into a polycrisis by the decade’s end.
World Economic Forum (WEF)
- About
- The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a non-profit organisation founded in 1971 in Geneva, Switzerland.
- The Swiss authorities recognise it as the international institution for public-private partnership.
- Aim
- Committed to bettering the world by bringing together commercial, governmental, academic, and other societal leaders to create global, regional, and industry agendas.
- Major reports published by WEF
- Energy Transition Index.
- Global Competitiveness Report.
- Global IT Report
- WEF, along with INSEAD and Cornell University, publishes this report.
- Global Gender Gap Report.
- Global Travel and Tourism Report.
Way Forward
- Given the unpredictability of global risk interactions, such foresight exercises might assist in identifying future links, focusing preparedness steps toward reducing the breadth and scope of polycrisis before they occur.
- In such a situation, many governments have shifted their priority to address short-term dangers such as food scarcity or energy shortages at the expense of disregarding climate change and global development when they are most needed.
- It also encourages leaders to cooperate forcefully and with a long-term perspective to design a path to a more positive, inclusive, and stable world.
Pic Courtesy: MaritimeCyprus
Content Source: Firstpost