The Global Risks Report 2016

The Global Risks Report 2016 identifies the failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as the most impactful global risk. It highlights a 'resilience imperative' to address interconnected threats, including large-scale involuntary migration, cyberattacks, and social instability. The report explores the evolving international security landscape through three future scenarios and analyzes regional business concerns, noting a divergence between global environmental priorities and national business concerns.

• The failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation is perceived as the most impactful global risk for the coming decade, followed by weapons of mass destruction and water crises.
• Large-scale involuntary migration is rated as the most likely global risk to occur, driven by conflict, disasters, and economic or environmental reasons.
• Global refugee flows have reached unprecedented levels, with 59.5 million people forcibly displaced in 2014, significantly exceeding the 40 million displaced during World War II.
• Climate change is expected to severely impact food security by slowing yield growth and increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, which can trigger local food crises and systemic international price spikes.
• The 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' presents risks including changing employment patterns, widening income inequality, and rising cyber dependence, with an estimated 47% of US workers facing a high probability of job automation by 2022.
• Cybercrime is a major economic threat, costing the global economy an estimated US$445 billion in 2014.
• The international security landscape is being transformed by the vacuum created by frail states, which allows armed non-state actors to rise, and the return of strategic competition between strong states.
• The report identifies a 'resilience imperative,' arguing that global risks cannot be managed centrally and require multistakeholder collaboration across countries and sectors.
• There is a notable divergence between global risk perceptions and business priorities; while climate failure is the top global impact risk, no business executive in the survey rated it as the number one risk for doing business in their specific country.
• Economic risks, specifically unemployment/underemployment and energy price shocks, are the most cited concerns for doing business globally, appearing as top risks in half of the 140 economies surveyed.
• The report proposes three future security scenarios for 2030: 'Walled Cities' (fragmented societies and gated communities), 'Strong Regions' (regional spheres of influence), and 'War and Peace' (a major conflict leading to a stripped-down global system).
• Drug-resistant strains of HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria could cost an additional 10 million lives annually and US$100 trillion in lost output by 2050 if no action is taken.

APA

World Economic Forum (2016). The Global Risks Report 2016. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR/WEF_GRR16.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. The Global Risks Report 2016. 2016. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR/WEF_GRR16.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=The Global Risks Report 2016 |date=2016 |url=http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR/WEF_GRR16.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2016global, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{The Global Risks Report 2016}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2016}, url = {http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR/WEF_GRR16.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }