Quelle: www.risknet.de / World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2019
The world’s ability to foster collective action in the face of urgent major crises has reached crisis levels, with worsening international relations hindering action across a growing array of serious challenges. Meanwhile, a darkening economic outlook, in part caused by geopolitical tensions, looks set to further reduce the potential for international cooperation in 2019. These are the findings of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2019.
In the survey’s 10-year outlook, cyber risks sustained the jump in prominence they registered in 2018, but environmental risks continue to dominate respondents‘ concerns beyond the short term. All five of the environmental risks the report tracks are again in the high-impact, high-likelihood category: biodiversity loss; extreme weather events; failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation; man-made disasters; and natural disasters.
Environmental risks also pose problems for urban infrastructure and its development. With sea levels rising, many cities face hugely expensive solutions to problems that range from clean groundwater extraction to superstorm barriers. Shortfalls of investment in critical infrastructure such as transport can lead to system-wide breakdowns as well as exacerbate associated social, environmental and health-related risks.
Persistent underfunding of critical infrastructure worldwide is hampering economic progress, leaving businesses and communities more vulnerable both to cyberattacks and natural catastrophes, and failing to make the most of technological innovation.
This year’s report revives the Future Shocks series, which recognizes that the growing complexity and interconnectedness of global systems can lead to feedback loops, threshold effects and cascading disruptions. These „what if“ scenarios are food for thought as world leaders assess potential shocks that might rapidly and radically disrupt the world. This year’s sudden and dramatic breakdowns include vignettes on the use of weather manipulation to stoke geopolitical tensions, quantum and affective computing, and space debris.
Top 5 Risks by Likelihood
- Extreme weather events (e.g. floods, storms, etc.)
- Failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation
- Major natural disasters (e.g. earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, geomagnetic storms)
- Massive incident of data fraud/theft
- Large-scale cyberattacks
Top 5 Risks by Impact
- Weapons of mass destruction
- Failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation
- Extreme weather events (e.g. floods, storms, etc.)
- Water crises
- Major natural disasters (e.g. earthquake, tsunami, volcanic eruption, geomagnetic storms)
Top 5 Risk Interconnections
- Extreme weather events + failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation
- Large-scale cyberattacks + breakdown of critical information infrastructure and networks
- High structural unemployment or underemployment + adverse consequences of technological advances
- High structural unemployment or underemployment + profound social instability
- Massive incident of data fraud/theft + large-scale cyberattacks
- Failure of regional or global governance + interstate conflict with regional consequences
Top 5 Trends
- Changing climate
- Rising cyber dependency
- Increasing polarization of societies
- Rising income and wealth disparity
- Increasing national sentiment
Kommentar
Interessanterweise kommt zwar ein Infrastrukturausfall durch Cyber-Angriffe vor, jedoch nicht das Szenario Blackout. Scheinbar ist diese Möglichkeit unter den Experten nicht evident. Zum anderen gibt es auch einen Zusammenhang zwischen Extremwetterereignissen und Infrastrukturausfällen.
