As governments across the globe walk on tightropes amid economic weaknesses, the grave climate concerns that are plaguing the deteriorating environment might just end up being our undoing- de-railing decades of economic progress that has been brought at the hands of globalisation, warns the newly released Global Risks 2013 report.
"Two storms -environmental and economic- are on a collision course" cautions the World Economic Forums 8th annual Global Risks publication, which stresses that the world is at a greater risk as persistent economic disquiet continues to weaken our abilities to tackle the rising wave of environmental challenges that are set to be a part of this planets future.
Based on a survey of more than a thousand experts from the industry, academia, government and civil society who are asked to review a landscape of 50 global risks that might manifest within the next 10 years, the 2013 report has stressed on the need for global institutions to re-evaluate their coping strategies that are set to be sorely tested at the hands of the rapidly evolving and interconnected global risks.
According to the survey, the global risk that respondents rated most likely to manifest over the next 10 years is severe income disparity, followed closely by unsustainable government borrowings and chronic fiscal imbalances which are set to put great pressure on global economic systems worldwide.
Additionally, the same survey respondents also identified the failure of climate change adaptation and rising greenhouse gas emissions as among those global risks which were most systematically critical in nature.
Compared to last years survey, this years findings on the climate debate have shown a great paradigm shift, with the focus and intensity of the debate moving from the question of whether our climate is changing to the more grave questions of "by how much" and "how quickly".
While economic difficulties worldwide are continuing to make greater demands on political attention and financial resources, the report pushes for governments to make structural changes and strategic investments into measures that will be necessary to meet the environmental risks looming on our horizons.
After a year scarred by extreme weather events such as the Hurricane Sandy- which wreaked damage worth an estimated 70 billion dollars across American coasts- and the catastrophic flooding in China and Thailand, the writing seems to be on the wall.
Coupled with significant economic losses, an inability to effectively tackle such events will also translate mass displacement of populations, rising food insecurity and aggravated water scarcity, a prospect that can wreak serious havoc on weaker economies, says the report.
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