 Welcome to this briefing on the World Economic Forum's 2023 Global Risks Report. My name is Adrian Monk. I'm with the World Economic Forum. Joining me here on stage, we have Sadia Zahidi, my colleague who leads the forum's work on global risks. I have Karina Klint from Marsh and John Scott from Zurich who've all been involved in producing this work. I'm going to hear a little bit from each of them and then we'll have time for some questions. But without further ado, I'm going to turn to you, Sadia, and ask you just to run us through the highlights and the key findings from this year's report. Thank you so much, Adrian. And thank you to our partners, Zurich and Marsh, for our 16th collaboration working together on the Global Risks Report. Now, what the report draws from is a global survey of about 1,200 experts looking at economic, societal, technological, geopolitical and environmental risks. And we tried to look at three different time frames. So what is currently unfolding today? Year zero, what do things look like in 2023? What's top of the agenda? What things look like two years out by 2025? And then what do things look like 10 years out by 2033? So that's how we've tried to analyze these risks, looking at at least 31 in total, but then of course looking at the interconnections between them. What we find is that when it comes to today, energy crisis at the very top, food crisis, cost of living. Two years out though, the experts are still expecting that the cost of living is going to be the number one risk on the global agenda. Ten years out, especially in the top 10, six of the top 10 global risks are dominated by climate and environmental related risks and risks that are associated with that. So for example, large scale involuntary migration makes it into the top 10 as well, in fact, the top five over the longer term. So that's how things play out, which means if we come back to today, leaders are facing multiple crises that are happening at the same time. So essentially, polycrisis and what that leads to in terms of the sort of overall optimism or pessimism about the state of the world. When we asked leaders what they're expecting to happen, well over 80% are expecting that we're looking at consistent, ongoing crises that are compounding each other in increasingly volatile trajectory. Although 10 years out, we're looking at that number going down to about 50%. So still a fairly negative outlook, even a decade out. So that's how things play out overall. And perhaps one more implication of that, we're looking at a situation where things are eerily familiar to some extent, a lot of older risks that have come back to the fore. Things that if we think back to the beginning of this decade, we were trying to be on a trajectory to solve, dealing with hunger, dealing with energy crisis. These were things that the world was trying to move towards and help solve through the sustainable development goals. Quite a different picture today with things like reemerging health crises and food crises and energy crises and the cost of living. And at the same time, some newer risks layered on top of that, that certainly today's generation of leaders has not had to deal with recently. So widely speaking, inflation, widely speaking, a potential recession on the horizon, trade wars at a time where just up until three or four years ago, we were in a very different picture around trade. So this combination of geopolitical and economic risks and then layered yet on top of that climate risks that haven't been so front and center as they are today. We did look at climate mitigation risks in addition to the risk of not acting fast enough on adaptation and both come out at the very top 10 over the next next 10 years. Stop there, Adrian. Thanks, Sadia. Cost of living crisis was mentioned as being right in the foreground for the next two years. Carolina, can you unpack a little bit of what the implications of that are for businesses, perhaps some of the other business focused risks that come out in the report? With pleasure. And Sadia, thank you. Your overview really paints a picture of a volatile and constantly changing risk landscape where risks are surprisingly interconnected and one will impact and exacerbate. And this will certainly have an impact in terms of how businesses look at their strategies and investment decisions going forward. And when I have conversations with companies about their own risk outlooks, I would say that the lists of concerns are growing longer and longer. And there are a couple of themes that stand out. And one is the navigating the inflationary environment and the cost of living crisis. But it's also about access to raw materials and components and of course securing up supply chains and making sure that those are a little bit more solid. And I think all of those concerns are closely linked to the compounding risks outlined in this year's report. And one example is food insecurity, which is increased due to major reductions in grain exports, lack of fertilizer and climate change events as well. No country is immune to social erosion caused by lack of affordability and availability of basic necessities. And that's really important for us to recognize. Cost of living pressures and food insecurity could provoke civil unrest and instability. Last year, for example, we saw the impact of the rising fuel prices that led to protests in a number of countries with strikes and political upheaval. So we have seen the impact already. And of course, businesses need to keep an eye on these political risk scenarios as well as the increased geopolitical tension in the world because it creates complexity in terms of managing risks in supply chains. And the war in Ukraine has impacted access to raw materials and minerals, but it's also led to sanctions and trade restrictions that has had an impact on other goods and services as well. And as a result of this, we now see how companies are turning from a just-in-time approach to a more just-in-case strategy. And that looks, we see that in terms of bringing production closer to home, near-shoring, French-shoring, stockpiling. But also we see a trend of vertical integration, meaning that companies are actually looking to acquire both suppliers and clients in order to take control of the whole chain. So that's an interesting trend to watch. And I think the relative predictability of the business environment has gone down, which is really forcing companies to allow more slack in the system and be able, be willing to invest a little bit more upfront in order to stay in business and build the needed resilience. Secure energy is, of course, also crucial for supply chain resilience, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine highlighted Europe's energy vulnerability. And many countries have increased their reliance on coal to keep lights on and factories running. But I think we're at the point now where we have to recognize that we're not going to be able to solve the energy crisis by next winter. And it's not about surviving this winter or next winter, it's about surviving the next five winters. And it's also about summers and extreme heat waves that can put pressure on power grids. And in all this, of course, we have to remain committed to long-term climate ambitions. And I think investments in speeding up the green energy transition should be central to enhancing energy security. Of course, we cannot forget about cyber risks as well, cyber attacks, because there are more entry points than ever before, as companies have continued to accelerate digitalization, automating their processes. And add to this, of course, the risk of cyber warfare that is highlighted in this year's report. This is an area where public and private partnership is incredibly important to provide better protection against these risks. So what do we do? Well, we need to take a step back and start planning for the unexpected. And I think generally speaking, most of the things that we worry about are too short-term and modest. So taking a long-term and holistic view at the risks on the risks horizon, making sure that we have diversity around the table when we talk about risk and resilience, to make sure that all different perspectives are being captured. Because I do think that if we work together, we are able to prepare for and respond to these compounding risks with better agility. We might even be in a position where we can create a more secure future. So I think those are my comments. Thank you so much. Thanks, Carolina. You very well expressed there the kind of short-term things on leaders' minds. Does that sort of mean that, you know, John, climate change is not now climate change? You know, we're too busy looking at other things and we put it off into the distance yet again? Well, Adrian, it's been 30 years since the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in 1992. And during that time we've seen intense climate diplomacy, climate activism. And yet here we are in today's world where we really just are not doing enough. We know that because COP 27, the UNFCCC issued a report that described a world where in the next seven years, by the end of the decade, we have a 50% chance of breaching the 1.5 degree limit which is enshrined or built into the Paris Agreement. So it feels like that we're really challenged in terms of achieving our climate objectives. And in fact, in the global risk report of this year, the failure of climate change mitigation is in fact one of the most highly rated risks. And even more concerning, it's not only the most highly rated risk, the one the most highly rated, but it's the risk that is the least prepared for with over 70% of respondents to the Global Risk Perception Survey rating mitigation of climate change as ineffective. And quite frankly, I think that's unlikely to change in the near future. And why is that? Well, we're living in a world right now where what's scientifically necessary and what is politically expedient don't match. And we see that with events. With the war in Ukraine, which Sardinia and Carolina have already referred to and the energy crisis and the food crisis that have stemmed from that. And not only that, but also at COP 27, unlike COP 26, where at least there was an agreement to phase down coal, thermal coal. At COP 27, we fail to agree on phasing out fossil fuels. And that's a missed opportunity. So really in conclusion with that, it feels like we're heading towards a much slower and more disorderly climate transition in reality. And it seems looking at the science that we have already 1.2 degrees of global warming compared to pre-industrial times already dialed into the system. And one of the big risks that was highlighted in the short term in the next two years in the Global Risk Report, it's number two actually on the list of risks by impact, is natural disasters and extreme weather events. And the two are intrinsically linked, it's warming and disasters. So that really leads us to a focus on moving more towards adaptation to climate change and the physical consequences of climate change rather than climate mitigation, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which is a real challenge and a real risk in the future because that should be our priority, reducing the emissions to reduce the warming and to reduce the physical consequences. But all these short term events that are going on make it look like that's not going to happen. So a hopes for a net zero future fading? Well, possibly. But the stakes are extremely high. And I think if you think back to the end of last year and the COP 15 biodiversity conference, the clear links between climate and nature and the way that nature provides services that are so important for us on this planet, whether it's for food and the links between coral reef, low latitude coral reef health, the nurseries, if you like, all marine life and marine food systems. If you think about forests and deforestation and wildfires and the effect that has on removing carbon from the atmosphere and actually causing a situation where basically we are not removing enough carbon dioxide from the atmosphere naturally because of the effects of climate change, then all of that makes us feel as though we have to spend more effort on climate mitigation and on nature. And in terms of how that might play out over the next 10 years, that could have very dramatic consequences, especially for the more climate vulnerable countries in terms of food and food supply and in terms of lives and livelihoods. But that doesn't have to be our fate, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. I think when we look at some of the actions going on at the moment around energy security and the energy transition, whilst they may seem divergent, actually in fact there's a lot of positive things going on. I think if I look at Europe with the Repair EU policy where there's a focus on secure, cleaner and cheaper energy and on energy efficiency, I have a lot of optimism. So just to conclude, climate change is still an existential risk for our planet and it will lead ultimately to greater crises and shocks than we're even experiencing today. So that zero future is still in reach, but the window of opportunity is closing rapidly to take action and the time for action definitely is now. John, thanks very much. Well, I'm sorry to give everyone such a gloomy start to their morning. If you've got a question, please tell us your name and where you're from. And we have, I think, some microphones available to make it a bit easier for us to hear from you. So please put a hand up if you have a question for the panel and we'll get a microphone to you. So shall we work our way across? Lady on the front, just there. Hi, I'm Laurie Gehring from the Thompson Reuters Foundation. I thought you remarked about the possibility of social unrest and things like that, not only in poor and more vulnerable countries, but in all countries as a result of some of these risks is really sobering and interesting. And I'm curious what you see, if anything, that can be done to try to stem those risks now. What are the things you would like to see happening that would help to reduce those risks? Thanks for that. Carlina, you mentioned that. Do you want to come in? Yes, sure. I think it is really about rebuilding trust in governmental systems and public. That's a big and important part of it, but I think it's not easy because governments are now battling and managing so many risks at the same time and of course focus needs to be on managing the crisis in the short term but I do think there are things that governments can do to reduce the cost of living crisis to mitigate for some of those impacts but at the same time the trade-off is that you then might lose sight of the longer term risks and I think that is the trick in balancing the longer term with the shorter term at this point in time. I do think it comes back to rebuilding trust and really making sure that because that is the foundation. So any of the other panelists want to come in? We've got quite a few questions to get through, Sadia. Maybe just adding a little to that. I think refocusing on building resilience in core systems that are important for society, education, health, basic aspects around job security and support for job transitions during the midst of this sort of economic transformation period all of those things are critical especially in some of the advanced economies where these things are getting weakened but equally so I think global cooperation is important even though these seem like very local risks because in many developing and emerging markets it is going to require international support to provide more of that stability especially with such a large number of countries in debt distress at present. Thanks, Pat. Working your way across. Gentleman on the end there. I jump on forward from today's email. Your press release mentions that one of the risks has been at war. Can you identify any hotspots? I think a lot of people I've spoken to recently talk about the risks of the war and Taiwan being a major risk and the good tip of things further is a more gloomy situation a year ahead. Thanks for that. Does anyone want to kick off on are there specific areas that are identified in the report? So we're actually looking at global risks broadly speaking and trying to understand where people are putting their relative severity and what's interesting is that the experts that have responded to the survey are actually putting traditional geopolitical risks such as traditional warfare further down than, for example, geoeconomic confrontation and geoeconomic warfare as well as cyber warfare. So I think the nature of how conflict happens is changing. That's one key thing that's coming out of the survey. And a second element at the same time is that that doesn't mean that we shouldn't at the same time be concerned because for the first time in a fairly long time military spending is seeing a small but pronounced uptick in many large economies and so there is possibly a future risk here that we do need to be thinking about. Yes, and if I can add, I also want to highlight the fact that infectious disease ranked so low both on short and long term risk and I think the link to war is that if infectious diseases were to be weaponized I think there's also a massive risk to see more in what that could look like in terms of the impact on the world. John? Yeah, and I think, you know, Sadi has pointed about the geoeconomic warfare. I think, you know, interstate war and a hot war it's clearly experiencing one in Europe right now the first time in 80 years but there are hotspots around the rest of the world but I think largely a lot of the competition between countries is geoeconomic. I think also in the technological space you know, we wrote last year in fact a lot about competition in space and actually the way that warfare can extend into domains outside of the obvious hot warfare in individual countries or regions. So I think that's the thing that has big risk implications especially in terms of cyber risk. Thanks for that. If we work back on that side I think we've just got a microphone behind you. Thank you. John got an emerging risk. I'd just like to ask the insurance team on the panel you mentioned climate change you mentioned the fact that it's moving from mitigation to adaptation but obviously for the insurance industry you know, we're seeing great severity, great frequency of major losses do you envisage a time if we are going to go down the adaptation rather than mitigation route that the insurance industry is going to have to draw a line and say I'm sorry but you know we are going to have to start marking some risks and some areas that are simply uninsurable? I think the insurance industry is really coming to the fore in fact the whole financial services sector in the last couple of cops and in particular in Shamal Sheikh in November there was a lot on the adaptation you can see the one with the headlines was the agreement on loss and damage but equally there was a lot of work with the insurance development forum, the IDF which is a group that was set up in 2015 after the Paris Agreement to really look at how to share some of the modeling capabilities that sit within the insurance industry to help not only companies but countries model natural catastrophe risks and how they may change over time and the influence of climate change so I think the whole adaptation agenda and the building of resilience is so much built into what insurance does I mean one of the purposes of insurance is to create resilience in societies and in all sorts of ways for individuals in life insurance for companies and for countries in terms of commercial insurance and municipal insurance so I think the whole resilience piece and the adaptation piece is an obvious place where the insurance industry can play its part and if I can just add a couple of comments on that my perspective is of course as a representative of a risk consultant and insurance broker but I would say that the whole chain the importance of the whole chain has really increased and what I mean by that is it's not only about the risk transfer piece but it's really about the risk identification the risk mitigation, the risk management the strategies, collecting strategy to risk and then at the end of it the risk transfer situation but I do think companies are starting to realize that the importance in making mitigating efforts in actually being willing to invest upfront in order to become insurable has increased over time and we see that in a couple of different areas and I would point to Natcat and Cyber for example where there's also a huge opportunity going forward for public-private partnerships although those protection gaps that have arised this and the impact of the fact that the world is so interconnected and incredibly volatile and dramatic Thanks for that Let's get away over the other side of the room shall we start on the gentleman at the front oh, we're starting at the back Thanks very much Richard Parton from The Guardian One of the speakers mentioned how we were living in a world where scientifically necessary and basically expedient don't match I wondered if you might add a third to that and what makes short-term business sense being part of the problem and the profitability for large corporations is an issue which can blind the needs to invest or mitigate climate change I give for example large dividends being paid out by energy companies and efforts by one particular company through the European Union over a windfall tax proposal are companies doing sufficient measures in the short-term to tackle climate change and would you not say that more needs to be done Thanks for that John, you actually made that point Yeah, so it's a great question and I think there's a lot of challenge at the moment around greenwash and greenhush companies not wanting to talk about what they're doing because they're afraid of litigation but I think the reality is solving climate change is kind of like the ultimate team sport it isn't just coming from one sector so it has to be governments it has to be business it has to be the finance sector working together to really address these really complex and systemic issues and what I observe is there's an awful lot of companies saying they're doing really good things they've got transition plans that they've published they disclose through the task-source-to-climate-related financial disclosures framework what they plan on doing and I think I have a lot of optimism that if those plans get implemented if government nationally determined reduction commitments are implemented and government long-term strategies are implemented that we will get to a world that is getting close to the 1.7 or below 2-degree objectives of the Paris Agreement that doesn't say we shouldn't be keeping up the pressure on companies to keep delivering and I think it's really important, I think the finance sector has a really important role here especially in the investment space to make sure that companies deliver on what they say they're going to do in their transition plans and Sondi we're seeing a little bit of pushback on me against that role that finance companies might be starting to play versus the energy sector if you look at the stakeholder metrics pushback is there a divergence between what companies ought to be doing and what they say they'd like to do I think it's again back to the sort of putting on the short and the medium term lenses I think overall the stakeholder capitalism ESG metrics movement has been incredibly incredibly helpful in getting people to think of non-financial metrics and think of those as also measures of success so that part is important I think with the disruptions that have taken place over the last year to your point has to some extent in some areas and some industries swung the pendulum back the other way and now there has to be sort of a refocus on there are ways to deal with the current energy crisis that can have terrible implications for the long term to John's point around mitigating climate change and there can be measures that are put in place today that can actually allow us to leap forward the good news is that in much of the advanced economies there is some of the investments that can allow us to leap forward coming from the private sector coming from incentives created by the public sector but less so perhaps in some of the emerging and developing economies and that's where that next focus needs to be just telling that Mike Farish we learned to industrial journalist Lord of Gloom what are the factors if any that give you grounds for optimism about the future we need a little bit of optimism this morning so I think we have to look a little bit beyond simply what is coming out in terms of what's at the top of the survey it's very clear that wave after wave of crisis this current poly crisis situation it is creating an incredibly challenging environment for leaders but let's look back also at the last couple of years while imperfect in many advanced economies some of the support that was given to businesses to keep things afloat some of the support that was given to households while now we are to some extent paying for some of the consequences of that in terms of the inflation that we've seen over the last year at the same time it has kept things afloat for many families many households and many particularly smaller businesses now that doesn't necessarily mean that it was perfect and certainly in many developing economies things do look grim but there have been efforts that have worked again imperfect but the development of a vaccine the collaboration that took place between the public and the private sector to make that work the distribution of that vaccine while partial again impacting very large numbers of people around the world and so there have also been examples of the efforts that have taken place maybe not going far enough but the intention to create a future loss and damage fund for the most impacted and the most vulnerable countries so there have also been movements forward what we have to do though is learn from some of those areas that have worked and do much more of that today the investment that is made in resilience today is critical because in this current extremely fragile environment we're there to be yet another shock like the one that we saw last year it may be unmanageable and so some of that medium to long term focus on resilience across multiple systems is critical and for business leaders I would just like to add that it's an excellent opportunity to move from risk management to more strategic resilience and with that connecting risk with strategy there's an opportunity to capture really the positives and the opportunities that come with the direction of change so staying in business remaining relevant adapting to a change in customer base all of those are actually really positive opportunities if you choose to look at it that way John what's on your optimistic so I think not not only these great examples like vaccine development would show this the appropriate application of where there's strengths in business and where there's strengths in government so harnessing the innovative capabilities of business with the ability of government to mobilise finance and operational activity to scale up production and actually equity distribute vaccines that was a good example of where the best use of each stakeholders capabilities really has a great outcome I think the other things that I see that give me optimism over the year it feels like it's been a really grim year for the world coming out of the pandemic and then with the war in Ukraine but actually there's been some amazing things out there in terms of democratic success there's been a number of elections that have run and run well we've seen candidates being accepted as a result of those elections that feels very positive to me I think we've seen the end of a long era of ultra loose monetary policy in response to the inflation especially in the G7 nations and central banks acting very very quickly to address that and I think that's a positive great encouragement to see that both in the finance and political worlds and in the business world that actually there are mechanisms that are working well to address risk Thanks Matt Thank you very much Paul Walsh from Gibson Media if we take the cost of living crisis which is seen as the most urgent short term riskiness from an insurance perspective what sort of risk do you think this pauses to the insurance sector and what sort of measures can the sector take to address those well let me take that one or start on that one and then I can hand over to Karenina but yes I think one of the biggest challenges and it's not just for the insurance sector is inflation and social inflation so what I mean by that is that when you think about it when an event happens your house burns down or your factory burns down or you're flooded or one of these awful events happens which insurance is fantastically well positioned for people with finance and good risk management advice and great claim service to get people back into their normal lives again actually the cost of all the components if you think about in a car manufacturing it's been well understood that the lack of semiconductors some of the supply chain tightness post pandemic and the cost not alone the access but the cost of these components has really gone through the roof of actually fixing someone's car or rebuilding their house just the price of the basic commodities of lumber and cement and so on have really gone through the roof so that's a real challenge to manage the cost of the inflation increases in terms of the cost of claims but that is manageable and I think the really important thing is that we're there for our customers to actually get them back to where they were before they event I agree I think the business insurance perspective on that is really making sure that your values are up to date and that you don't end up in a situation where you suffer a loss and then all of a sudden insurance will not respond because your values are out of date so that would be the main focus area gentlemen there and then gentlemen there thank you very much William Goodway from Computer Weekly so this question is in two parts about actually the report refers to and it's been mentioned today about cyber risks being more impactful potentially or being a greater greater risk than conventional warfare how might that actually play out in the next 10 years and the second part of the question is technology as well as being a risk could that also be a way of mitigating in some way some of the crises that businesses and governments are currently facing and if so how Karolina do you want to kick off with that? Yes absolutely and I think to your first question around how cyber warfare could look I think there's a real risk that cyber attacks might be targeting critical infrastructure healthcare public institutions I mean there's such a broad array of different areas that that could potentially impact and of course that would have dramatic ramifications in terms of the stability but also again back to the earlier question around trust in government and public institutions so I think that's really something to keep an eye on and then to your other question which was about technology Technology Are there developments that give us reason for optimism? There are developments that give us reasons for optimism and I think technology can play an incredibly important part in solving for some of the vulnerabilities that we see in healthcare systems for example or education upskilling workers so absolutely and I also think there's an excellent opportunity for collaborative efforts and public private partnerships just thinking in terms of how we respond to cyber risks and that opportunity for platform providers, cloud providers to partner with law enforcement, with governments with insurance companies that can provide some guidance on what good resilience measures look like and what we've experienced and if we come together and address this collectively I think there's a much better risk of actually addressing some of those emerging threats. John before we came on this morning you were talking about some of the reasons that we can be optimistic in terms of technology and some of the changes that are giving us reason for hope. Yeah I think it depends on what sector you're talking about. If you're talking specifically about information technology I think there's just as Karen in was saying there's real opportunities in we see it with faster and more efficient semiconductors that can lead to more powerful and more power efficient devices and I think that just creates great opportunities in terms of understanding data and monitoring things like the progression of climate you know I mentioned earlier about space being a new frontier if you like I think that's the ability to monitor what goes on on the earth and provide services on the earth from space, whether that's communications or observation I think that's going to transform many industries I mean for ourselves in the insurance sector you know that makes it much easier to understand the consequences of major events like hurricanes where the floods have happened where to send support to help people who need that help. So I think you know there are real opportunities and I think the other thing I mean it's slightly tricky because it's a two-edge sword but in terms of social media and data and communicating to people I think that when I say it's two-edge sword there's great to get transparency and information about what's going on from people you know on the spot and it's so different from how it used to be many years ago where it was just a journalist like yourselves being on the spot and giving an edited version of what's going on. Of course nowadays you don't get the edit which is a shame in many ways because it's very difficult for people to discern what is really the truth and that's the challenge and of course when that gets manipulated by governments for their own purposes that becomes even more confusing for people but I think there's a huge role and opportunity in fact in the tech sector to be the group that helps drive a better understanding of what is the truth and to help people address many of the really big issues that are out there that we refer to in this global risk report. Sandy anything on cyber that you want to come in on? I'll just add one more point here I think there are a lot of technologies that already exist that could for example reduce food waste and increase crop yields. These are fairly basic sets of technology that exist already but tend to receive far less investment than some of the more sophisticated, interesting early stage technologies. We need both and we need investment in both areas and especially technologies that exist already and then actually scaling them into markets that function actually scaling their use in agriculture or health or education or care that's where there is a sort of collective failure of imagination and investment and that's where a lot of the focus needs to go because the solutions do exist. Lady on the front, gentleman over there. Thank you. Adam R. U. Sibula from Heads and His Hand on the Newspaper Finland Many people and party leaders in Finland are saying now that European political leaders have been too naive with everything you know about Russia, about energy supply about cooperation they have been just too optimistic so I was wondering how do you see those past mistakes? What went wrong in European landscape and what kind of political leadership is needed in the future in Europe? Thank you. That's a very good question what kind of leadership is needed given the risks that we see outlined in this year's report? One that probably looks at both short term and long term risks and doesn't put one ahead of the other perhaps. Let me just start with one general point. There is no such thing as 100% preparedness and I think that's one of the key messages of this report over the last 18 years that we have to get much better at foresight, we have to get much better at risk identification, we need to have basic aspects of resilience in place, we need to have plans ready or made ready once a shock unfolds we need the sort of team sport mentality for many things, but I just want to make that general point. I think there is no such thing as 100% preparedness. That said, one of the key things that the report is pointing to is that we are in the midst of poly crisis and probably Europe is one of the areas where those set of poly crisis are the most visible and so having this sort of short term long term dual approach today taking a very different time horizon on risks, it's not that we can solve today for short term gas supplies and not think about what that means for greener energy in the future and that is very much what leaders in Europe are doing today, trying to take that dual lens and build some longer term solutions while trying to have the sort of short term preparedness in place and I think that dual lens is probably something that applies around the world, emerging markets, advanced economies, they will all have to do this because collectively we are facing an era of turbulence and likely poly crisis for some years to come and if I, oh sorry I was just going to add a comment. I was just trying to get through our questions in our allotted time so I was just going to pass it over to the gentleman there but Carolina if you want to I just wanted to add a quick comment on that because last year's report was published before Russia's invasion in Ukraine and looking at the risk ranking geopolitical confrontation I want to say was ranked 27 on an aggregated view. However if you were to look at the country surrounding that area, the Baltics the rankings was much higher and what that tells us is that we need to make sure that we ask the people that actually know something about the risk and what that implies in terms of leadership for coming years is that I think we need to have leaders that embrace diversity that makes sure that we have different perspectives represented around the table when we talk about risk resilience because otherwise we're not going to be able to pick up on everything that's moving towards us on the horizon. A join our squad for LECO in Brussels in the 2020 report a few weeks before the pandemic infectious diseases were classified as the 10th biggest risk and they are not mentioned in this year's report. Why? Yeah good question and I think a month or two months before we'd actually gone through a pandemic preparedness exercise which if I remember the forum colleague who organized it said to me, no one listened to me tend it took a pandemic for people to listen to me now but yeah it's an excellent point we're warning about these things, is anyone actually paying attention in places that matter? It's one of the things that's coming out very clearly in the report that we're at a sort of a matter risk of panic neglect. So when a risk is unfolding lots of concentrated action and then as other things are emerging there's a sort of certain set of neglect. Now that's not wholly fair because I think at the same time one of the reasons infectious diseases have gotten pushed down the list both today and two years out is exactly because so many other things have emerged and because we are in this sort of poly crisis state. So 10 years out actually infectious diseases go back up the list and higher than they are in year 0 and higher than they are in year 2 so there is concern around that and what we try to deep dive into in the report is the resilience of health systems because whether it is this particular pandemic or whether it's a future health crisis it's clear that health workforces are worn out it's clear that overall the investment that has gone into trying to just sort of make things moving is not quite the same as what needs to happen in terms of building out future health systems resilience and many parts of the world are facing aging populations and chronic diseases and other aspects that are not quite the same as infectious diseases and are going to need long term support so there has to be a reinvestment and it again ties back into the point around building out societal resilience. John? Yeah I think that's you know we've warned many times about health issues in the global risk report over the last 15 years from Ebola to before Ebola SARS and MERS, Ebola in 1415 and as Adrian was saying you know that had an impact because there were organizations like the Global Vaccine Alliance and the Centre for Epidemic Preparedness put in place to help organizations like the World Health Organization and the Centre for Disease Control in individual countries to actually deliver the right information as to how to address infectious diseases and you know I think that did work during the pandemic it was in a lot of countries there were some political challenges in the sense that not everybody wanted to listen to that very good advice from those organizations but eventually yes we did get the vaccine development in place we did do the incredible collaboration in the pharmaceutical industry in particular to look through the long lists of drugs to see whether any of them would have some effect on reducing the symptoms of Covid-19 so I think that all of that is still in place but I think it's very only natural for people once they feel the problem is solved and especially when they've got other issues in their face like the energy crisis and the food crisis to kind of think we've got that sorted but as Sadio was saying I think over the long run what we've all learned from this pandemic is that pandemics don't just come and go they come and go and they come back again and so we should be prepared for that Caroline do you want to comment on that I think it's a very astute observation and I think it is human nature to look at what's exactly in front of us of course that we're not learning the lessons from this pandemic that we've been through and that we might not even be out of the woods of yet I mean just look now when China is opening up we don't really know what impact is going to be on that so as a risk professional I'm always concerned about the things we don't pay attention to so I agree with you we need to pay attention to pandemics going forward as well let me just get a sense of if there's any unanswered questions or hens that have been up and haven't had a chance to come back to before we draw things to a close gentlemen Darren perhaps Laurie again Hello the question is just about climate change and the role of central banks yesterday Jerome Bout the government of the chairman of the Federal Reserve talked about central banks needing to stick to their needy and concentrate on monetary policy in terms of profitability and it seemed that it was taking a push back against the idea that central banks would be involved in climate change I wonder if any of you thought that was an irresponsible thing to say let me perhaps pick up on that one it's without doubt incredibly important that financial regulators and central banks in all countries have front of mind that their key statutory tasks in many places that's macro and micro and prudential oversight making sure that companies are solvent and are going concerns and that at a macro level that doesn't systemically affect not only the economies of their countries that they're based in but in a global sense and that's partly the role of the financial stability board which was set up as you know after the great financial crisis in 2008 and in addition there's another set of important roles for regulators and central banks around consumer protection and that's also extremely important so but when you think about the risk like climate change I think it was very clear that after the Paris agreement when the G20 finance ministers got together and thought about well okay how's the transition going to work and what are the systemic consequences of these changes in the global economy to move towards a low carbon economy it was very clear to see that some sectors and some companies could be really really badly affected and it could also have a big systemic impact on the financial system so I think it's that's why central banks took it upon themselves as a result of the work that the FSB instigated with the setting up of the task force to climate related financial disclosures to get companies to disclose how they were going to manage the transition and so investors and other stakeholders could make decisions on how to finance the different companies because of the systemic impact I think it is important that central banks have an overview or a sight of some of those systemic consequences which really feed into their macro-prudential responsibilities Question just there Hi it's Laurie Gehring again from I had two quick things that I wanted to know about that we haven't talked about fully yet. One is when we have climate change and conflict and debt crisis creating this food security worry around the world how do you see that? What do you see as effective systemic or structural ways to address that? I mean including things like speculation trading of some things in food I'm curious what you see working I know Sadie mentioned that some basic investments and things we already have would help and secondly around this question of sort of disinformation and misinformation which I think gets at government trust and is certainly behind a lot of the problems we've seen I'd argue including what we just saw in Brazil on the weekend. How do you begin to deal with these kind of problems? Are they something that shows up in the list and how tied into solving the rest of the problems? I think disinformation came up in 2012-2013 back in the day as a kind of initial warning of problems ahead Sadie do you want to just elaborate a little bit on what Laurie was talking about? Sure. So I think one is really those basic investments using technologies we do already have has got to be critical to food security I think second there is obviously a need for international cooperation when it comes to providing support to countries that are facing multiple crises so for example just this Monday the support that was given to Pakistan with food security crisis with climate crisis with a number of things that have come together and obviously facing a high amount of debt distress that kind of support needs to continue but I think in the longer term I would really just go back to that focus around using technologies where they can be deployed and where they can be invested in to build overall much more stability and resilience. Around your question on misinformation, disinformation societal polarization has continued to increase it continues to creep up in the list of risks overall across various timeframes and it is dovetailing with misinformation and disinformation and it's very clear that those two things are feeding each other and creating sort of a new emerging poly crisis there one of the other aspects that comes out is just how extreme that polarization is becoming there is less centrism there is much more division and both sides are becoming extremes regardless of the specific political spectrums in both autocracies and democracies so that is very much coming out Caroline you touched on information warfare and we've seen some state sponsored activity on issues from vaccines to climate change coming into it. That's right and misinformation and disinformation are huge issues and it actually made me think about the social erosion angle of it and how it impacts trusting governments again and the role that private companies had had to play all the sudden because what happens is that the public is looking to private companies for answers and for information that they can trust and believe in and I think that's definitely something for businesses to keep in mind in terms of their reputational risk and the responsibility they carry because it looks very different today comparing to just a couple of years ago John one of the most effective strategies presumably for any state actor is to destroy the enemy from within rather than from without I mean are you seeing misinformation disinformation as being something that's going to rise up the risk list? Yes I think it's part of the geoeconomic warfare and the cyber warfare I think that's clear we've seen before any major conflict a cyber pre-war if you like and in fact I think it must have been about four years ago NATO actually had a war game to prepare for that kind of event I just wanted to pick up your point about or your question about food and food security as well and I think that's a really important one from a climate perspective because about 30% of global emissions come from food and we have more agriculture and we have more than 8 billion people on the planet since the end of last year and that's growing and so it's an enormous challenge to create enough food to feed everybody and we see that one of the major bread baskets in the world becomes inaccessible as we've seen with the war in Ukraine then that creates tremendous challenges so I think there's a huge opportunity to change the way we feed the world in the past there's been this huge focus on yield an oil based agricultural system with pesticides and agrochemicals driving yield and actually I think there's a big shift moving now towards quality and more locally sourced food and it kind of goes with changing supply chains if you like so it's not entirely a global world it doesn't make sense that you go to your local supermarket and buy a product that comes from 20,000 miles away when you can have something that's local seasonal and I think we watch so many celebrity chef programs on TV nowadays I think there's a silly thing but actually changing people's habits of what they cook and how they cook and how they feed their families and how they source that food and being more concerned about how farmers and how the agricultural system as a whole operates I think there's great opportunities there to build greater food security into the global food system Thanks Phil I think we're nearly running out of time so we could probably have like a one word response Juliette from Agente F spends international needs on it and says what could this do to reduce the risk of economic warfare and the proliferation of conflicts in the next decade Probably a one line answer from each of our panellists I think there has to be a renewed focus on trade and investment and cross-border investment One line Global collaboration around systemic risks and really capturing that opportunity to work together I might be quite old and I remember the Beatles but I think the phrase would be give peace a chance Thanks to everyone for joining this morning for the briefing on today's 2023 global risks report and thanks to Dow Jones for hosting us here in London Thanks to John Scott from Zurich to Karina Clint from Marsh to my colleague Sadia Zahidi and her team who prepared the report you've heard a lot about polly crises this morning I hope we can all emerge in 2023 out of the polly tunnel and with that terrible pun I will say thank you very much and I hope to see you in Switzerland next week Thank you