The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition

The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 finds that overall global cooperation has flatlined since 2020, remaining slightly above pre-pandemic levels. While cooperation in innovation, technology, and climate finance has shown growth, these gains are heavily offset by a severe degradation in global peace and security. The report warns that current levels of cooperation are insufficient to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals or net-zero targets, urging leaders to adopt 'planned opportunism' and flexible partnership models to navigate geopolitical fragmentation.

• Overall global cooperation has stagnated over the last three years, remaining barely above pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels. This flatlining is primarily driven by a significant decline in the peace and security pillar, which has pulled down the overall measurement.
• The peace and security pillar has deteriorated for seven consecutive years, with all metrics remaining below pre-pandemic averages. This is evidenced by the inability of multilateral institutions to prevent conflict and a record number of forcibly displaced people, estimated at over 122 million as of 2024.
• Cooperation in climate and natural capital showed modest improvement in 2023, driven by record heights in public and private climate finance and a 12% increase in trade of low-carbon technology products. However, absolute greenhouse gas emissions grew in 2023 and are expected to reach a record high in 2024.
• Climate finance remains critically insufficient, with capital committed as of 2023 representing only between one-tenth and one-fifth of the annual funding required to reach net zero by 2030.
• Innovation and technology cooperation has followed a positive trajectory since 2012, bolstered by the digitization of the global economy, increased cross-border data flows, and falling prices for lithium-ion batteries. Conversely, cross-border patent applications fell in 2023 and cross-border R&D fell in 2022.
• Trade and capital cooperation experienced a slight decline in 2023, largely due to a 5% drop in goods trade and reductions in exports from China and other emerging economies. This was partially offset by increases in labour migration (4.1%) and remittances (2.5%).
• Health outcomes such as life expectancy and child mortality improved in 2023, but cooperative actions—including pharmaceutical R&D and cross-border development assistance for health—have continued to fall since 2020.
• The rapid advancement of generative AI presents both a risk of a zero-sum 'AI arms race' and an opportunity for growth, with potential value generation between $2.6 trillion and $4.4 trillion across industries.

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Cooperation_Barometer_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Cooperation_Barometer_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition |date=January 2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Cooperation_Barometer_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2025global, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{The Global Cooperation Barometer 2025 Second Edition}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Cooperation_Barometer_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }