The Global Risks Report 2025

The Global Risks Report 2025 identifies a world of growing divisions, where state-based armed conflict is the primary immediate concern for 2025 and misinformation remains the top risk for 2027. Over a 10-year horizon, environmental risks—specifically extreme weather and biodiversity loss—dominate the landscape. The report highlights a 'geopolitical recession' characterized by waning multilateralism and rising unilateralism, alongside structural threats from super-ageing societies and the acceleration of biotech and AI technologies.

• Misinformation and disinformation is the top-ranked risk for the two-year horizon (to 2027) for the second consecutive year, driven by the ability of Generative AI to produce false content at scale.
• Environmental risks are the most severe long-term concerns for 2035, with extreme weather events ranking first and biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse ranking second.
• The world is experiencing a 'geopolitical recession' marked by a decline in the effectiveness of multilateral institutions like the UN Security Council and a rise in unilateral national security decisions.
• Inequality is identified as the most central and interconnected risk, acting as both a trigger and a result of other global risks.
• Geoeconomic confrontation is rising as a short-term risk, with concerns over broad tariff-based protectionism and decoupling between the US and China.
• Super-ageing societies (where over 20% of the population is over 65) face acute long-term risks including pension crises and severe labour shortages in the long-term care sector.
• Biotechnology presents high-impact long-term risks, including the potential for AI-driven creation of more potent bioweapons and the crossing of ethical boundaries in human genome editing.
• Pollution is an under-appreciated risk that is particularly concerning to younger generations, with those under 30 ranking it as the third most severe risk for 2035.
• Global military expenditure has increased for nine consecutive years, reaching $2.4 trillion in 2023, reflecting the dominance of national security in government agendas.

APA

World Economic Forum (2025). The Global Risks Report 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2025.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. The Global Risks Report 2025. 2025. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2025.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=The Global Risks Report 2025 |date=January 2025 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2025.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2025global, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{The Global Risks Report 2025}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2025}, month = jan, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2025.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }