E3G

World Economic Forum: world is more vulnerable to global risks

By Marina Brutinel

An indicator of 21st century success

The Report on Global Risks echoes this concern, highlighting the fact that:

Climate change is now seen as one of the defining challenges of the 21st century and as a global risk with impacts far beyond the environment.”

Given the interconnected nature of global risks, successful action to mitigate global warming could also improve economies’ resilience to oil price instability by shifting the energy supply of developed countries to low-carbon sources. But equally, in the absence of successful action, climate instability is likely to trigger major civil and interstate wars within the next 50 years.

As a consequence, the report doesn’t shy away from stating the importance of climate change over the coming decades:

The way in which climate change is dealt with at the global level will be a leading indicator of the world’s capacity to manage globalisation in an equitable and sustainable way.”

Progress – but how much?

Although it is somewhat reassuring for policy makers to see businesses turning to acknowledge the significance of the climate change risk, it is hard to assess to what extent any tangible advances are effectively coming out of the WEF in terms of impetus for international action. The announcement last week of the new US Climate Action Partnership between businesses and NGOs seems more like concrete progress on that front.

As always, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. We’ll be watching with interest to see whether actions on the top issues of climate change, global trade and globalisation really do flow from WEF members over the coming year, as was pledged in the closing session:

We are the epicentre of world engagement. It’s not just the results of the four days that flow out of here. The initiatives will continue so when we are back here in 2008 we can say something really did happen,” concluded E. Neville Isdell, Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company.