Climate risks among top concerns of WEF leaders

Poll shows business chiefs also worry about data theft, worsening state of global relations

A view of the congress centre, the venue of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan 15, 2019. PHOTO: REUTERS

LONDON • The risks of catastrophic weather and flooding from climate change are exercising business leaders heading into next week's World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, the organisation said yesterday.

An annual WEF report - based on a survey of about 1,000 respondents drawn from the Davos community of business leaders, politicians, civil society and academics - shows climate change has become the dominant concern for three years running.

Data theft and cyber attacks have joined climate change in the top tier of worries, but respondents also pointed to anxiety about worsening international relations and the risk that poses for the world economy.

Just under 90 per cent of people in the survey, held last September and October, expected international trading rules and agreements to weaken further, as US President Donald Trump's "America First" agenda undermines the architecture on which global trade has been built.

"With global trade and economic growth at risk in 2019, there is a more urgent need than ever to renew the architecture of international cooperation," WEF president Borge Brende said in a release accompanying the 114-page report.

"We simply do not have the gunpowder to deal with the kind of slowdown that current dynamics might lead us towards. What we need now is coordinated, concerted action to sustain growth and to tackle the grave threats facing our world today," he said.

The growing risk of Britain crashing out of the European Union without a Brexit deal in late March is also worrying global institutions and will figure at the meetings next week in the Swiss Alps, with a number of British and EU officials attending.

Fully 90 per cent of the respondents expected "further economic confrontation between major powers in 2019", although the survey was conducted before Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed last month to try to negotiate a peace pact on their tariff war.

Mr Trump has also withdrawn the US from the Paris agreement on climate change.

While other countries agreed at UN talks last month on a common action plan, the most vulnerable states along with environmentalists warned that the pact lacked the ambition needed to restrict carbon emissions.

The WEF report showed mounting alarm about the risks of extreme weather and a failure to take mitigating action as temperatures rise, detailing the possibility of many low-lying cities in Asia, Europe and North America being wiped off the map by flooding.

China alone has more than 78 million people in cities at risk of inundation, a number increasing by 3 per cent every year, the report said, citing World Bank research.

Zurich Insurance Group chief risk officer Alison Martin said last year was already marked by historic wildfires, heavy flooding and rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"It is no surprise that in 2019, environmental risks once again dominate the list of major concerns. So, too, does the growing likelihood of environmental policy failure or a lack of timely policy implementation," Ms Martin warned in the WEF press release.

For environmentalists, such a policy failure has been made more likely by the election of the far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro as Brazil's president. He is due to address the annual WEF gathering.

Like Mr Trump, Mr Bolsonaro is a climate sceptic. But the two populist leaders will not get to rub shoulders in Switzerland after the US President cancelled his trip owing to the Budget crisis in Washington.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on January 17, 2019, with the headline Climate risks among top concerns of WEF leaders. Subscribe