The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2025

The 20th edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report reveals that state-based armed conflict is identified as the most pressing immediate global risk for 2025, with nearly one-quarter of respondents ranking it as the most severe concern for the year ahead.

The report highlights an increasingly fractured global landscape, where escalating geopolitical, environmental, societal and technological challenges threaten stability and progress. While economic risks have less immediate prominence in this year’s survey results, they remain a concern, interconnected with societal and geopolitical tensions.

Misinformation and disinformation remain top short-term risks for the second consecutive year, underlining their persistent threat to societal cohesion and governance by eroding trust and exacerbating divisions within and between nations. Other leading short-term risks include extreme weather events, societal polarization, cyber-espionage and warfare.

Environmental risks dominate the longer-term outlook, with extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, critical change to Earth systems and natural resources shortages leading the 10-year risk rankings. The fifth environmental risk in the top 10 is pollution, which is also perceived as a leading risk in the short term. Its sixth-place ranking in the short term reflects a growing recognition of the serious health and ecosystem impacts of a wide range of pollutants across air, water and land. Overall, extreme weather events were identified prominently as immediate, short-term and long-term risks.

The long-term landscape is also clouded by technological risks related to misinformation, disinformation, and adverse outcomes of AI technologies.

Global risks ranked by severity – short term

Global risks ranked by severity – long term