Source
https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2026/ — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Summary
The Global Risks Report 2026 (21st edition) presents the annual World Economic Forum assessment of the global risk landscape, based on the Global Risks Perception Survey (GRPS) 2025–2026. It analyses 33 risks across five categories (environmental, geopolitical, societal, technological, economic) through three time horizons: 2026, 2028, and 2036. The defining theme of 2026 is “The Age of Competition” — cooperative multilateral frameworks are crumbling as geopolitical confrontation intensifies and as-yet-unresolved structural risks compound.
Key claims
The macro backdrop for self-sufficiency
- 50% of 1,300+ experts anticipate a turbulent or stormy global outlook over the next 2 years (up 14 percentage points from last year); 57% project the same over the next 10 years; only 1% anticipate calm across either horizon. OT_014
- 68% of respondents characterise the 10-year global political environment as “multipolar or fragmented”; only 6% expect reinvigoration of the US-led, rules-based international order. OT_014
- Geoeconomic confrontation ranked #1 current risk (18% of respondents) and #1 two-year risk; cooperative mechanisms described as “crumbling” — the multilateral system “under siege.” OT_014
- Long-term top 10 (10-year horizon): Extreme weather events, Biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, Critical change to Earth systems, Misinformation and disinformation, Adverse outcomes of AI technologies, Natural resource shortages, Inequality, Cyber insecurity, Societal polarization, Pollution — five of ten are environmental. OT_014
- Environmental risks have been reprioritised downward in the 2-year outlook despite worsening long-term absolute severity — close to three-quarters of respondents selected turbulent or stormy for the environmental 10-year outlook, the most pessimistic of all five risk categories, yet short-termism creates a structural governance bias away from addressing them. OT_014
Geoeconomic fragmentation and supply chain weaponization (I06)
- “Weaponization of supply chains” is the 2026 framing for what COVID-era literature treated as unintentional disruption — sanctions, capital restrictions, trade barriers, and strategic industrial policy now deliberately deployed as geoeconomic instruments. OT_014
- Panama Canal drought 2023–2024: falling water levels forced a one-third reduction in ships transiting → rising shipping costs, fruit and vegetable shortages in UK markets; supply chains permanently re-routed — concrete demonstration that freshwater scarcity translates directly to global food supply chain disruption. OT_014
- Rhine and Danube river low-water events (2018, 2022, 2025) slowed deliveries of raw materials to Western European industrial hubs, in some cases permanently re-routing supply chains — extreme weather as supply chain weapon without any geopolitical intent. OT_014
- “Disruptions to a systemically important supply chain” is the leading consequence of critical infrastructure disruption (GRPS 2026 risk interconnections map) — the two risks are structurally linked. OT_014
Critical infrastructure vulnerability (I06)
- Critical infrastructure disruption ranked #22 short-term (up 4 positions) and #23 long-term; appears in top-5 national risks in 13 countries and top-10 in 39 countries. Geoeconomic confrontation “likely to amplify existing challenges to critical infrastructure in the physical, cyber and cyber-physical realms.” OT_014
- OECD critical infrastructure was largely built in the post-WWII decades and is now 50–70 years old — designed for a different risk landscape; increasingly fragile; urgent maintenance and upgrade needs are being deferred during fiscal austerity. OT_014
- Indirect critical infrastructure damage from extreme weather events “is potentially even a much larger risk than the direct effects themselves” — when flooding causes failure of utility services, knock-on economic and societal consequences dwarf the direct physical damage. OT_014
- Firms in low- and middle-income countries lose at least $300 billion/year due to unreliable transport, electricity, and water infrastructure — quantifies the recurrent annual cost of centralised infrastructure dependency. OT_014
- Climate costs rising: extreme heat strains energy grids, damages solar panels, melts roads; rising sea levels risk permanent coastal infrastructure loss; cities are literally sinking in some locations; economic losses from natural disasters tracking upward ($200–500B/year trend, 2000–2024). OT_014
- Cyber-physical infrastructure risks growing: in 2024, vulnerabilities in solar energy systems could have compromised 4 million installations in 150 countries; in April 2025, the Bremanger dam in Norway suffered a cyberattack causing unplanned water release — critical infrastructure is increasingly a target for state and non-state adversaries. OT_014
AI disruption and societal impacts (D09)
- Adverse outcomes of AI technologies ranked #30 short-term but #5 long-term — the largest upward shift across all 33 risks; AI has shifted from a frontier technology to “a systemic force shaping economies, societies and security.” Global AI market:
280 billion (2024) →3.5 trillion (2033). OT_014 - “Jobless productivity” scenario: AI could create 170 million new roles and displace 92 million globally (net +78 million) but gains are concentrated in high-skill, high-productivity workers; one estimate projects 50% of US entry-level white-collar jobs could be eliminated within 5 years, driving unemployment to 10–20%. OT_014
- Labour displacement → inequality → societal polarization is identified as a reinforcing loop in the GRPS interconnections map; inequality is the most interconnected risk for the second year running. OT_014
- “Purpose in drift”: occupational identity crisis emerging in AI-disrupted sectors — social withdrawal, mental health decline, anti-technology backlash; may drive “a generation of university graduates” to gig-economy work and some towards antisocial extremism. OT_014
- AI adoption divide: North America (27% of working-age population) versus Sub-Saharan Africa (9%) — access gap may amplify global economic power shifts and “drive localized power shifts, create internal migration pressures and destabilize national cohesion.” OT_014
- Generative AI models consume up to 4,600× more energy than traditional software; AI-related infrastructure can result in degraded air quality and e-waste pollution; data centre water use for cooling is a rising water-security concern in regions with significant buildouts. OT_014
Economic instability (I01)
- Total global debt: $251 trillion (235% of GDP, 2024) — rising in both advanced and developing economies; nearly 45% of OECD countries’ sovereign debt is maturing 2025–2027. OT_014
- IMF projects 3.1% global GDP growth in 2026, below the 2000–2019 average of 3.7%; key risks include policy uncertainty from protectionism, labour-supply shocks, and financial market corrections. OT_014
- Economic downturn (#11 short-term, up 8 positions) and Inflation (#21, up 8) show the sharpest collective ranking increase of any risk category in 2026 — macro economic fragility is growing faster than other risk categories in expert perception. OT_014
Neobiome Intelligence relevance
- I06 Resistance to external shocks — supply chain weaponization, infrastructure fragility, and compounding climate events provide the global macro context for why community self-sufficiency is structurally rational, not ideological.
- I01 Financial & economic sufficiency — global debt burden and rising economic risk rankings contextualise why local financial self-sufficiency is a hedge against macro economic shocks.
- D09 Digital Intelligence & Connectivity — AI risk landscape provides the essential downside context for AI deployment in community systems; D09 tools must be designed to augment, not replace, community labour and decision-making capacity.
Research targets
No specific documents identified for retrieval from this source.
Connections
Referenced by
SSI indicators (2): I01: Financial & Economic Self-Sufficiency · I06: Resistance to External Shocks
EDT domains (1): D09: Digital Intelligence & Connectivity