 Welcome. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Jan Zopf. I'm the head of media at the World Economic Forum. Welcome to this press conference where we're going to launch the World Economic Forum Global Risk Report 2024 in collaboration with Marshmack Lennon and Zurich Insurance Group. I am here joined by our panelists. We're going to share the findings of this year's report. I have with me Sadia Sahidi, who is the managing director of the World Economic Forum. Karolina Klint is with us, chief commercial officer of Marshmack Lennon, and we have also John Scott, head of sustainability risk at Zurich Insurance. We're going to kick off with an introduction from Sadia, and we'll go into some specific topics. And in the second part of this press conference, we're going to go into a Q&A. Sadia, please. Thank you, Jan. And thanks to everyone who's joining us here. First of all, thanks very much to our partners for the long-standing collaboration on this report. And it really is derived out of nearly two decades of very rich data and of serving people around the world. This year, we had nearly 1,500 experts from across business, government, civil society, academics and others that responded to the questions. We also refresh to some extent the list of risks this year so that it is more apt for what is happening and unfolding today. And I think you can really start to see that coming out in the various results. I think as we enter 2024, fairly pessimistic outlook. So in terms of the overall outlook for the next two years and the next 10 years, we see that there's a progressive worsening of that outlook. So, for example, there's about half of the people that were surveyed felt that in the next two years we're sort of on the precipice of fairly severe risks. And another 30% that felt that we were on the precipice of catastrophic risks potentially unfolding. And when you look at 10 years out, that 30% grows to nearly 60%. So two thirds of the people are expecting that the outlook is incredibly negative in 10 years time. And that is to some extent not quite the full reverse but quite different from last year, where in the longer term there was still optimism whereas this year in the longer term there is pessimism. We also this year looked a bit differently at some of the things that in the past we have continued to examine as part of the risks list. This time we're actually thinking of them as longer term structural forces that are unfolding. So, for example, we're no longer looking at climate change as one of the risks. We are now looking at climate change as one of the structural forces that is already unfolding and within which the rest of the risks need to be analyzed. Similarly with geostrategic shifts, similarly with demographic changes, so aging societies in many parts of the global north, very young societies in many parts of the global south. So those are the, and of course, technological acceleration. So we see all of that as part of the background and then look at more specific risks. So within that list of more specific risks we have in the two year time frame missing this information as the number one risk, followed by extreme weather, followed by societal polarization, interstate armed conflict. That's the top five in the two year outlook, very closely followed by lack of economic opportunity, inflation, involuntary migration, and economic downturn and pollution. So a mix across all five types of risks, but very much driven by these concerns around what's happening in our societies due to miss and disinformation. Now in that said, in the ten year outlook, we are looking very much at climate related risks as still the number one concern. So top extreme weather, second concern around critical change to earth systems. This is a new risk and it comes in at number two in the ten year time frame followed by natural resource shortages, and then again the continued risk of miss and disinformation at number five, so still remaining within the top ten. Perhaps one final piece around the outlook in the report or the high level overview in the report, risks like the adverse impact of artificial intelligence are fairly low down in the two year outlook. So that's where we're seeing that as number 29 out of the 34 risks in the two year outlook, but it jumps up to number six in ten years time. So deep concern around the short term crisis that are absorbing leadership today simply not leading to the kind of planning that can deal with some of these longer term risks and things like artificial intelligence or the adverse impact of artificial intelligence jumping up into the top ten. I'll pause there and happy to share more later. Thank you very much, Sadia. Carolina, are you going to talk a little bit about AI disinformation but also global supply chains? Yes, thank you. In my conversations with the companies, two issues consistently come up as current key concerns and it's the impact of artificial intelligence and it is supply chain challenges. That's what companies are concerned about right now. And these are also notable risks highlighted in this year's global risk report. AI generated misinformation, cyber attacks and cyber insecurity have emerged as top risks across all time horizons and it's about time if I may say so because these risks have not been prominently featured in past years but I think it's surprising giving our dependency on technology but also the acceleration of digitization following the pandemic. And given the sudden accessibility of user friendly interfaces like chat GPT or larger scale AI models or synthetic content to manipulate public opinion it's no wonder that misinformation and disinformation is ranked as a top risk short term. The potential impact on elections worldwide over the next two years is significant and that could lead to elected governments legitimacy being put in question. And this in turn could of course threaten democratic processes lead to further social polarization, riot strikes or even intrastate violence. The use of AI comes with so many fantastic opportunities but businesses have to also consider the societal, economic and security implications of using AI. And the success of this will depend on regular testing, updating, verification and lots of upskilling and training. It's the only way that we can prevent strategic and tactical miscalculations by AI that could lead to catastrophic errors, reputational harm or even significant liabilities. We also have to realize that these advances provide cyber criminals with new tools and pathways to exploit in fact you don't even have to be smart nowadays in order to be a successful cyber criminal. AI can create advanced malware, it can impersonate others for scams, it can poison AI training data which is a very serious concern but on the other hand the good news is that AI can also be used to for better response to cyber attacks. It can process vast amounts of data detecting patterns that humans may overlook and AI can also automate many security processes such as patch management to fix bugs and close security holes. But we have to recognize the fact that everything we use such as water, electricity, the financial system, the communication systems, all of this is dependent on the integrity of incredibly complex networked computer systems. So cyber security is not about protecting a computer or protecting a file, it's actually more about making sure supply chains work and that society as a whole is up and running. So at this pivotal moment in the technological revolution businesses have to take a very proactive approach to assess vulnerabilities, stay informed about regulatory developments and implement robust cyber security and risk mitigation measures. But let's switch gears and talk a little bit about supply chains instead. Two of the highest ranked short-term risks in this year's Global Risk Report relate to climate change and geopolitics both of which impact global supply chains. Halfway through last year supply chains looked as if they started to stabilize after the pandemic and where companies had made shifts from a just-in-time strategy to a just-in-case strategy, we saw a more balanced approach develop. So we saw less stockpiling, smaller inventories and companies relying more on supply chains' ability to deliver. And then suddenly the world changed again. The attacks on container ships in the Red Sea has made passage through the Suez Canal both risky and very dangerous and at the same time on the other side of the world the impact of climate change and lack of rainfall has made passage through the Panama Canal really difficult because capacity has been significantly reduced and that means that it's a total crunch for companies trying to move goods around the world now and diverting container ships to avoid the Suez and Panama Canals is costly and it adds time. And with the price increases to offset these increased cost of shipping of course we may well spark another round of inflation. So businesses must again turn their focus on stress testing their supply chain investments and growth strategies against these potential new disruption scenarios because it's the only way that they can strike that balance between just-in-time and just-in-case. There are so many conflicting areas in need of attention and the current risk landscape it is like looking down in a big bowl of spaghetti everything is interconnected if you pull one strand everything starts moving around and it's not easy to figure out where to start to untangle this mess. As humans we are wired to look at what is exactly right in front of us but we have to find a better way of balancing the short-term view of risk with the longer-term view of risk we're entering into a new era of risk now and it's time to be a little bit more creative and collaborative in our approach to building resilience because only by working together only by working together we can reduce uncertainty improve risk investment decision making and responses and build that long-term resilience on a global scale so it's time now that we start thinking about collaboration resilience and how to address these risks for the common good. Thank you. Thank you Karolina. John you're going to develop a little bit further risk mitigation global risk mitigation. Great thanks and you know as we've seen from Sardinia and Karolina the global risk landscape is complex and fast-moving at the moment and there are some new risks the ones like artificial intelligence and misinformation and disinformation largely in the tech domain but there's also some rapidly developing risks which are more in the geopolitical arena so we see new wars new conflicts and in the past we've used global collaboration global cooperation really at an international level to address it was the main tool to address global risks but that's really largely and effective in today's fragmented and in flux world. So what's the good news? The good news is there are other ways of managing global risks and in fact we've been using them for quite some time and they're really about local strategies about international approaches about collaboration and about international cooperation. So let me take the first one with local strategies so it turns out that if you look at something like climate change and the physical consequences of climate change the things like floods and windstorms droughts and wildfires the things actually my industry spend a lot of time resolving with insurance these things are best addressed at a local level so if you think about flood resilience for example trying to build resilience to flood people build flood defences for example trying to move water away from populated areas we try and put in things like early warning systems to give vulnerable populations at risk of flood time to move away from the flood and save themselves and save lives these things are all intensely local actions it's true for a lot of global risks that it's the local actions that solve a lot of a lot of the problems so the other way you can do things is to work collaboratively and collaboration if I look back at recent history if you're going back into the years of the pandemic there's some really good examples of collaboration if you think about the vaccine development that was done so rapidly compared to the 20 years of normal vaccine development we were developing vaccines within a year and it was really as a result of collaboration between governments and business and in business in particular the pharmaceutical sector so governments bringing their strengths in terms of rapid approval regulatory approval of new vaccines bringing their finance capability and also bringing the ability to do mass distribution of vaccines once they were developed and of course in the business sector you know bringing the innovation and product development skills to really bring these new products new vaccines forward in a very quick time so working together creating a really good outcome enabling the lockdowns, the economic lockdowns to be stopped and to get us all back into work again and then I think of another great one which is of collaboration which is close to my heart actually it's around climate change back in 1998 the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program collaborated together to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the IPCC now the IPCC what they did amazingly was bring together climate science which until that time had been quite disparate and to bring it together with open source data which provided a compelling foundation which actually led to the Paris Agreement in 2015 at COP 21 and about four years later in 2019 actually came out with this 1.5 degree threshold of global warming beyond which irreversible transition points or tipping points happened so I think the IPCC and the vaccine development are great examples of collaboration we can do lots more of that another really interesting approach is individual and collective action now I know it's the new year and probably a lot of you have already made new year's resolutions perhaps some of you have changed your diet maybe you've moved away from meat maybe you're going to a lower carbon diet some of you maybe were making choices about your travel for the coming year reducing your carbon footprint that way maybe some of you have even thought about buying an electric vehicle all of these individually are just drops in the ocean but with critical mass this really starts moving the needle in terms of decarbonisation so consumer behaviour a very interesting risk mitigation and of course it's not just about consumers individual action can be in businesses as well so individual companies taking a different approach to their supply chains taking into account human rights issues for example can have a significant impact on reducing child labour and forced labour and removing those things from the world so I just want to go back to cross-border cooperation and international cooperation and we've just had the COP28 meeting at the end of last year and for the first time the final text agreement of the meeting mentioned a transition away from fossil fuel use I think that's a really good thing and in fact that's echoed by Fatih Birol the CEO of the International Energy Agency who said look this is good but actually not good enough and in fact that's right we need to do a lot more in terms of widening and deepening and speeding up emissions reductions around the world so my conclusion with all of this is that whilst there are many different approaches to managing risk there's no one silver bullet and in fact what we need to do is pull together all these different approaches whether they're local strategies whether it's about collaboration whether it's about international cooperation or whether it's about individual and collective action but if we do all of that we can move the needle and I think really the good news is that there really is in this fractured and fast-moving global risk landscape that we can see there is opportunity to address these risks for all of us but the fact is we're all going to have to take these actions Thank you John Before we jump into questions Satya anything you would like to add Yeah maybe one other element that we're looking at in both timeframes is what does that mean for the economic outlook and for the economic risks and on the one hand in the short term in the last few months it appears that we're headed towards a softer landing it's also very clear that quite a lot of the risks that started emerging over the last year around the economy were fairly swiftly handled and so didn't turn into anything with very severe consequences so there is a positive trajectory at the same time because of some of the geopolitical aspects because of cyber security risks and others it's very possible that there's an additional shock or a high risk of miscalculation so loosening policy too soon or too fast so there's that particular aspect that we're still watching and looking through for the next two years inflation continues to be a top 10 risk for the next two years in the longer term though what we're looking at is the divergence between developed and developing economies as well as between those that are on a lower income trajectory and those that are on a higher income trajectory within different societies and what that means for sort of the social contract within countries over the longer term especially if people cannot count anymore on the next generation doing better than what they are currently doing so that's two key elements we're looking at and we examined it in the report in part through a question around could we be looking at the end of development could we be looking at a scenario where the current level of living standards that have been achieved around various developed and developing economies do we in some sense get frozen here because we don't have the same kind of economic international cooperation as we had before we don't have the same kind of impetus and incentives for countries to be looking for greater growth and greater living standards and developing economies and simply not having the resources within those countries with already tighter fiscal space facing the highest impact of climate change and in addition to that not having the same kind of access to technology and to green technology that could be boosting the possibilities and opportunities for their populations so that's one key area that we're looking at that longer term divergence between developing and developed economies thank you very much Tanya so we have no time for questions so when we go to you for questions if you could please introduce yourself and tell us from which media organisation you are and then address your question so we start maybe from the back here Hello, Larry of The Guardian two questions, one given that the soft landing scenario looks a bit more likely than it did a year ago what do you account for the changing mood from optimism to pessimism over the last 12 months seems a bit strange in that context and the second question is how severe is the risk of elections this year and we've got crucial elections coming up in the UK, India how seriously should we take the risk that these elections are going to be disrupted by disinformation and misinformation thank you very much Larry I think the first question, Sadia if you want to take that and then maybe Karolina we talk about the election I can kick that off I think in a nutshell it's because economic hardship is still very high so we might be starting to control inflation but it still means that prices are a lot higher than they were let's say a year ago or two years ago so there continues to be economic hardship and then combine that with now increasing interest rates while the largest economies and the largest companies might be fairly insulated from the impact of that smaller businesses are not mortgages are not and so we're starting to feel that bite and I think that economic hardship is contributing to that gloomier outlook it's not the only reason by any means but I think that's one of the reasons that you have that gloomier outlook and I'm happy to get into the second question too maybe you want to go first I can make a brief comment yes it is a significant risk and something that we need to watch carefully and I think the accessibility to large scale AI models has made it so much easier to reach a large population of voters to also create content that looks and feels real even though it is not and I think it is the reason that we see this information and misinformation being ranked as the top risk short term because I think there's a level of awareness about how to get our arms around this and how to combat it sorry, elections, disinformation yeah so I think the results speak for themselves people are deeply concerned it's the first time we've had that risk explicitly spelled out in the report and it has jumped to number one in the two year time frame and it's number two in the 2024 time frame and in the next two years not such a large part of the world is going to be voting whether it's national elections, local elections it is a risk that has to be taken seriously and because the speed with which some of that synthetic content can be created and the fact that it is not tagged or watermarked in many parts of the world and combine that with the fact that most people are not educated at present as to the risks of some of that synthetically generated miss and disinformation together that's a very potent mix and throw that on top of a situation where there are already a lot of economic grievances and other things you're looking at a very difficult combination going into elections thank you we had a question here in the middle one, okay we start we come to you right after sorry, please thanks for allowing me to ask a question can I just ask a bit more sorry it's John Paul Ford Rockhouse from The Daily Mail can I just ask a bit more about the quite apocalyptic scenario you mentioned earlier about the risks of AI driven misinformation potentially causing riots strikes and even violence can you just unpack a bit about what you mean by that in terms of how that unfolds are we talking about things like deep fake videos that show a candidate doing something that they didn't really do and that presumably causing an election result a close election result to go one way rather than the other and then how you think that might end up resulting in legitimacy being questioned if you could sort of expand on what you mean by that, please I think you can imagine a whole plethora of scenarios and I think you're on the right track I mean it could be video content podcast material anything that you could possibly imagine and to Sadja's point putting that on top of already some years of economic hardship the fact that the pandemic actually redraw so many of our institutional the way we think about things healthcare, workforce planning everything is changing and now there's another wave of changes coming on top of that economic hardship and maybe some limited progress being made in a way that when a government is elected and you have that situation where you can start questioning you have societal polarization really being exacerbated by that which will create polarization it will create a dynamic that is not necessarily prone for peace and collaboration it is a very dangerous mix maybe just adding one additional sentence to that and also then how do for example governments react what is the space for them to act on you want to protect free speech in many parts of the world on the other hand there's also those governments that perhaps could over correct and could be seen as being repressive or could actually be using that in that way so there's also a concern around what happens next and how is it that authorities and others react to these risks of mismis and disinformation ok next question can you come here please in the middle on this side one rhyme, one we come the next gentleman, thank you hi I'm Laurie Gering from the Thompson Reuters Foundation I was curious to ask John about he's pointed to how collaboration can help us on climate change was it something that I work on but we have now had a situation where we've had the Paris Agreement we've had this agreement to walk away from fossil fuels but we've seen immediately in the wake of that a whole round of oil and gas auctions around the world and it's clear that whatever cooperation we're having is way behind the speed of the risks so how do you see real collaboration that keeps up with the pace of the risks happening given everything else that we're talking about here on climate change and I wanted to ask as well both Carolina and Saria this is a poll of some of the most powerful and smart people in the world and yet they're the ones with their hands on the reins of power and they still feel that we are going down a very very bad path in the long term how do you turn that around and why is that turn around happening given that we recognize this problem so let me start off on that one so I think it's just a reality that the world just doesn't get organized by international cooperation anymore you know it's fragmented it's in flux but for a long time and if we go back to the Paris Agreement the Paris Agreement wasn't a global agreement as such it was essentially the G20 nations saying we will determine our own reduction approaches and that's what it is and I think when we have these texts from the COP process that they're important because they send strong signals and there are actions that have come out of it especially in terms of financing or funding the transition and now more prominently adaptation to climate change so the two kind of go hand in hand but I think the reality is that these actions have to happen in individual countries and locally you know as I talked about in my intervention earlier it's not just all about global cooperation and agreements it's got to disintegrate into work you know something actually has to be done locally if you look around your own communities you know what's happening how resilient are you to the physical consequences of climate risk are you still in a flood prone area or is your local authority helping to flood waters somewhere else and then you know what's happening you see more solar panels on the roof are you doing that as part of the cost of living crisis most people's electricity bills are so high that they're desperate to find some way of getting off the grid or removing themselves from the cost of purchasing electricity so I think it's these kind of things that gives us some optimism actually that we can deal with some of these global risks when we see the global cooperation at an international level not really working so well for the second part of the question how do we turn that around I mean you say there is some hope in optimism maybe something around just the starting premise of your question absolutely these are some of the top experts around the world but the way we frame the questions is really asking them to analyse from a list of risks what may be happening in terms of the likelihood and the severity of those risks so it's framed within that context and that's where we find this so it's an assessment of how those risks may unfold rather than forecasts now that said a lot of these things carry with them the exact solution as well so for example is there a risk of artificial intelligence creating some of the problems we just discussed or having other adverse impacts that we can't right now predict yes but at the same time do we think that artificial intelligence can create a lot of economic productivity and most importantly help with basic services such as education or health or care or other forms of social infrastructure absolutely yes as well and so it really is about the decision making that happens today to use some of these things much more for the positive maybe another example building off of what John said it relates to the possibility of a green transition lowering prices and improving standards of living for many people beyond of course the very important impact that it needs to have on preserving our planet so much of this can be turned around it's about finding the coalitions and the decision making today and the mental bandwidth today for decision makers to actually think about what that medium to long term turnaround is Christina anything to add yes I think the last year's poly crisis mode where governments and businesses were really forced to focus on managing the crisis right in front of them of course prevented that long term horizon really thinking about the systemic risks the big picture where we really need to come together as a society to address these risks and I think for me looking at the results of this year's survey and seeing some of those risks really rise in rankings in the short term is actually quite helpful because now we are looking at environmental risks we're looking at those cyber threats also in the short term and then it will be easier to force conversations that are so needed in terms of how do we address this because both with cyber with AI misinformation disinformation climate change extreme weather events the risks not one stakeholder group can solve for this alone the only way that we are going to be able to address this is by coming together and collaborating and I think that cannot come as news I think that realization has sunk in by now thank you next question this gentleman here in the front we have a microphone yes good morning Bill Goodwin computer weekly two questions the first is on disinformation could you elaborate on where you see those disinformation threats coming from are you talking about hostile nation states like Russia interfering with western elections and could you elaborate on that and secondly as we become more dependent on AI we've you know we've seen with recent events the impact that relying on computer systems can have on people what are the longer term risks of becoming more reliant on AI I can start sure so I think it's a mix I think you can see international and domestic actors looking to interfere and leverage AI to produce content that will sway public opinion and interfere with election results so I think you can see it probably coming from both nation states but also certainly and domestically and the second question you know there are again I do want us to focus on the opportunities with AI because it is really amazing when you start looking at it the progress that we can make and how we can utilize it for good but I also think it is incredibly critical that we also understand that it will increase the pace of everything we've already had in this situation in the past number of years where cybercriminals had made developments really faster than our ability to imagine and come up with resolutions for how to fight back and with AI that is multiplying and I was looking at the Bangladesh Central Bank heist that took place in 2016 I don't know if you remember that but cybercriminals walked away with 81 million dollars they sent out 36 3 or clicked upon and they got into the system it took them a year to map out the security get past the network how it was wired to figure out how to do that took them a year so in 2016 they managed to conduct the attack had that been powered by AI would have taken two days but on the other hand the same is true for the response it took months and months to try and backtrack and figure out what had happened and how to stop it would have taken a couple of days so again it is we can use it for good but it can also be used to really disrupt and stress put stress on our systems to your point we are so dependent on technology we are all of us completely rely on technology today so it will and it can and it will impact the way we can access the things that we need for sure John you want to comment on that? Well actually just moving on to the second part of your question where does this go? I think for quite some time it has been clear that with Generative AI where that is going to go in the future we need to think about very carefully how to manage that at a global level and that may need global agreements international cooperation to make that happen but things like Saadia talked about watermarking content so that when you read something you know that it has been generated artificially that kind of thing would be really useful and I think in the longer term technology and it is not just information technology but it is biotechnology and so on all tremendously positive potentially but have dystopian consequences as well it is about actually managing the global governance around that and in some cases it is about addressing business models in terms of data and how data is monetized it is about the whole social media business model you know the ability to monetize people's likes the attention that people give to certain topics I think that is an incredibly interesting area an important area to address because it can no longer be the case that there is no editorial of information because if we carry on like that then we end up with a world where who to trust and what the content is that they are reading and how truthful it is and it feels to me a little bit like even we become like a global village I almost feel like sometimes we are in the middle ages again somebody was walking down the street and they said oh I saw somebody talking to a cat they must be a witch or a wizard or something we should kill them and it is almost like that level at a global level now about many many topics and somehow we have got to create a veracity some sort of arbiter of truth that we can understand individually and collectively what is real and what isn't real and I think that is where tech is going to go and that means there is going to be more governance in that space just one quick point I think some of this is also about all of you the media industry and some of the principles that can be taken forward by this group our media industry at the world economic forum recently put out a set of principles for how to manage mis and disinformation in this age of artificial intelligence and there will be some number of discussions about this next week in Davos as well and I think there is also nuance by different economies so at the back of the report you can also see what the top five risks are for each country and there you can also see what that means for different economies that will be having elections in the next couple of years whether that is the United States or India so for the US it doesn't show up in the top five at all for India it is the number one risk mis and disinformation so I think there is also nuance in different economies thank you Salih next question go on this side here in the front please hi I am Melissa Lawford from the telegraph you mentioned the risk that living standards in developed countries could become frozen do you think they will and what kind of timescale do you see that risk on and then I also wanted to ask you mentioned tighter fiscal space how big is the risk that we see government that distressed in developed economies and what would that look like Salih you mentioned living standards in the beginning kick off with that I think that is a concern that has been rising for some time inequality is on the rise and for some people that means that their living standards have started to fall in other parts of the world and in different societies it can simply mean that those that have have more and that is why inequality is growing so there is a lot of nuance depending on which country you are in but what we are looking at here is the longer term trends so for example do some developing economies will they receive enough finance to be able to adapt to the effects of climate change that they will be facing in the next decade while building in place energy systems that are greener or are we going to be looking at a situation where some parts of the world are asked to essentially freeze the outlook where it is where there hasn't even been basic electrification for 6 to 700 million people in Africa how do we ensure that that then not only happens but happens in a way that is greener so there is a number of trends underway that would point to the fact that we are not seeing the same level of investment in energy and health and education and climate adaptation and certainly that a lot of these governments will have to be making trade-offs if they do not get a lot more international support and investment a second element is related to technology will these countries have the same kind of access to technology and the same kind of talent and digital skills that are going to be required so that they can then grow in a way that allows them to function in this particular global economy where they are able to be part of digital trade markets as opposed to a traditional model that would have relied on lower wages and traditional manufacturing that's what's going to need to change and it isn't very clear that the trends are pointing in that direction John you want to come in? So I think this topic looks different whether you from the global south or whether you're from the global north I think if you look at the from the global south you're looking at this you know think about our structural trends or structural forces the demographic structural forces is a very powerful one which plays out obviously over time but if you're in Africa for example you're looking at Europe as an opportunity and I know that's uncomfortable for a lot of people because it raises big questions about migration which is top of the list of many politicians and electorates concerns coming up in this election year but I think there's a requirement with the demographics of these developed northern countries with ageing populations there's a requirement for health care systems for services of all kinds which actually the global south is quite capable of delivering and I think from what Saadia said about technology I think there's plenty of opportunities and examples of technology leapfrogging especially in Africa people moving away from landlines financial transactions very quickly over the last 20 years quicker actually than in the global north so actually I think it isn't all stasis I think this is opportunity for many people and just to pick up on your point about indebtedness at a nation level we have seen historically over hundreds of years with wars in particular that countries and nations become indebted and it takes a long time for that debt to play out and in fact the big tools is extending the tenor of the debt the big tools for the central banks is extending the tenor of the debt and I think actually it was only in the last 10 years that the UK paid off one of their last 200 year bonds related to the Napoleonic Wars so there are ways managing indebtedness I don't want to downplay it, it's obviously really important short term implications in terms of the costs of debt servicing especially when interest rates are now back at a more normal rate over the long run compared to where we've been in the last 15 years really since the great financial crisis of 2008 thank you John question here in the front please thank you, Michael Pech, Ubik Media I'd like to go back to talking about how to mitigate some of these risks and in particular whether there's specific technology I'm thinking here about supply chain issues in particular, so technology such as advanced manufacturing like additive manufacturing industrial freely printing or even the industrial metaverse which is something we're hearing a bit about this week what do the panel think about about technology can be applied to mitigate risks including the supply chain risk? I think there are plenty of opportunities and it will be really interesting to see how this evolves I think it's also important though to recognize that it's not easy to uproot the supply chain that you've built over years where you have suppliers dependent on other suppliers where you might be in a very advanced technological field where you're dependent on experts to provide support but on the other hand we have seen elements of nearshoring and other activities take place in order to maybe shorten the supply chain and gain better control also supported in some cases by governmental funding I mean the inflation reduction act has really pushed some of the production of semiconductors or electrical vehicles back stateside for example and I think we'll continue seeing that but I also think there's great opportunities to leverage some of the technological advances to really protect and improve and evaluate large data sets in order to really get a good handle on what are workable trade routes going forward how do we manage now if this is canal Panama Canal if those are no longer going to be viable alternatives how do we manage this so I think our imagination is not even creative enough to imagine what we can probably achieve and I think there's some other things around circular economy for example in last year's report about finite resources we clearly are getting to a point with 8 billion people on the planet our consumer behaviour is at a stage where we can't just rely on finite new minerals and metals to build whatever it is we want so I think the circular economy starts becoming really important in terms of thinking about how to recycle it's got a climate impact on it we've seen for example electrification of steel making with recycling of steel that has all sorts of other interesting challenges and liabilities about product liability for example if somebody refurbishes your white goods or whatever it is who holds the liability for when it goes wrong I think there's lots of interesting challenges but also opportunities in that space and there was a headline just I remember now a headline where AI has been used to analyse how to reduce the need for lithium in batteries for example data that would have taken us decades to sift through was analysed in a couple of weeks time and the result points to you know lithium need reduction of 75% or something like that I don't remember the exact number but those kind of advances and to reduce the need for precious metals or things that can be difficult to get by will also change the way we think about raw materials and things that we need I think we have time for a couple more questions yes another one here in the front please and we can come to the gentleman right behind Hi, good morning Rebecca Delaney from The Insurer in light of Marge McLennan and Zurich being the partners of this report what is it that the World Economic Forum wants to see from the insurance industry in terms of managing and mitigating these risks in the future thank you I think the insurance industry is a better place to answer that question but I think on at the World Economic Forum what we seek to do is less of an industry specific approach but more rather how do different industries work together how do governments work with business how do civil society and experts communicate for every single one of the topics that we've discussed in this report we have a coalition or an initiative that is bringing players from across those different sectors from across different stakeholders and that's really sort of our method for trying to drive forward impact but maybe you want to answer a bit more specifically from the perspective of your industry I would be happy to I think it's an excellent partnership in the way that the industry that John and I represent live and breathe risk this is what we do we understand risk identification risk mitigation risk management risk transfer all the different aspects of risk and resilience which has actually really risen to the top of agendas for very senior stakeholders around the world it is now a C-suite agenda point in a way that it's not been before because I think the realization is starting to sink in that if you don't connect risk with strategy if you don't make that connectivity between how am I going to invest in resilience you're not going to have ever resilient or sustainable business model in the long term and that's why it's also really fascinating and I do appreciate this opportunity to look at the big picture to look at those macro trends that are impacting all of us society as a whole I think there's four things really the insurance industry does and can continue to do and develop so one of them is about risk transfer that's everyone is familiar with that you can buy insurance and you can transfer the risk off your balance sheet whether it's your personal balance sheet and even in municipals can transfer those risks to an insurer's balance sheet and it really is a fantastic approach sharing the risks of the few amongst the many works extremely well and it's been the bulwark of stability in societies or developed societies for the last 150 years ever since life insurance became popular so if your main breadwinner and your family died it wasn't that you were destitute on the street or if your house burnt down then you weren't destitute so that's number one number two is we're very big investors so we do have an influence in the investing world and the investment universe is huge but we do have an influence as institutional investors and as asset owners so I think that's the second piece the third piece is we have an accumulation incredible accumulation of knowledge as Karadina was saying about risk and risk management and so we can provide a lot of risk management advice we're all about transferring risk to somebody else financially it's about how do you manage risk and I gave some of those practical examples earlier about building flood defences and so on and in fact the whole adaptation agenda at the COP process has come right to the fore and we saw last year the global shield agreement really as all part of loss and damage of trying to guide countries especially developing countries in emerging markets to use the modeling capabilities that exist in the insurance industry to do better analysis and better prediction of where natural catastrophes like floods and droughts will be and how to protect vulnerable populations and then the very last thing is we're a significant enough population and through our collaboration and partnerships with the World Economic Forum we do have an opportunity to influence policy with both business and political decision makers and I think that's really really helpful and we're beginning to see more as Caroline was saying that these leaders, both business and political leaders are coming to the insurance industry asking for risk management advice Thank you John I think we have the last question so gentlemen right behind, yes Hello, Damien McElroy from the National we've known 26 attacks on Red Sea traffic since November how do you see the crisis playing out? Wish we had a crystal ball I think we can expect it to continue I mean of course we don't know but there are no signs for it to calm down I mean the question is really how do we support the global shipping industry in addressing this and potentially identify alternatives because as a matter of fact it's becoming almost impossible taking container ships now through the Suez Canal without risking the lives of the crew without putting them in harm's way and of course that is a critical point because it's not only about protecting a big ship or protecting the containers but first and foremost of course it's the human lives at risk it is also becoming increasingly difficult because it's difficult to find an insurer that is willing to take risk on a ship that is moving through that canal as well the pathway and of course the jury is still out on whether or not this is state supported I mean these rebels have access to military grade missiles and drones that we haven't seen before in these kind of situations and that of course is also an indication that it might be something that is going to play out in a longer horizon than we might have initially anticipated it's almost like sanctions on Europe Thank you Karolina Before I close Sadiq anything else you would like to mention that you think that we haven't addressed today Yeah I think one please take a look at the report and especially some of the under the radar risks I think what we try to do is get some of the experts to analyse for us what they think will be the most complex risks for the world but there are risks towards the bottom of the rankings that are also incredibly important and we actually try to analyse one of those under the radar risks this year in the longer term outlook could we be looking at a situation where that toxic mix of the rise of negative artificial intelligence use combined with economic hardship combined with the distress that comes from climate change together what does that lead to in terms of a rise of criminality so those are the kinds of things we were also examining in the report so please do take a look at that and then I think the second point would just be that this is an outlook yes it's a very gloomy outlook but by no means is it a hard, fast set prediction of the future the future is very much in our hands yes there are structural shifts underway but most of these things are very much in the hands of decision makers across different stakeholders and that's where the effort really needs to be this should not be seen as a crystal wall thank you Sanya so you mentioned risk mitigation is a lot about collaboration as you all know we are going to be in Davos next week and this is where we bring the stakeholders together to discuss this risk and to discuss how to address the key challenges for the world so tune in on weforum.org next week and wish you a nice rest of the day thank you thank you