GENEVA
The biggest threat to world stability is the risk of international conflict over the next decade, the Global Risks Report released by the World Economic Forum said Thursday.
The report was launched ahead of the forum's annual meeting in the Swiss town of Davos scheduled between Jan. 21 and 24.
According to the report, international crisis with regional consequences was the number one global risk followed by extreme weather events.
The global risks were assessed for five categories, economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological. The year 2015 stood out as a year when geopolitical risks, having been largely absent from the landscape of leading risks for the past half-decade, returned to the fore, the report said.
"Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world again faces the risk of major conflict between states," Margareta Drzeniek-Hanouz, the forum's lead economist, said.
“However, today the means to wage such conflict, whether through cyberattack, competition for resources or sanctions and other economic tools, is broader than ever. Addressing all these possible triggers and seeking to return the world to a path of partnership, rather than competition, should be a priority for leaders as we enter 2015," Drzeniek-Hanouz added.
The report rated water crises as the greatest risk facing the world in terms of its potential impact.
Ten global risks in terms of likelihood were interstate conflict, extreme weather events, failure of national governance, state collapse of crisis, unemployment or underemployment, natural catastrophes, failure of climate change adaptation, water crises, data fraud of theft and cyber attacks.
Ten global risks in terms of impact were water crises, spread of infectious diseases, weapons of mass destruction, interstate conflict, failure of climate change adaptation, energy price shock, critical information infrastructure breakdown, fiscal crises, unemployment or underemployment and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.
