Even for the world's economic elite, the future is looking pretty bleak.
The World Economic Forum on Wednesday released its annual Global Risks Report, which found that global leaders are more concerned about issues such as inflation and food security than climate change.
Based on a survey of 1,200 risk experts and industry leaders, the report found that respondents identified climate change is the biggest challenge facing the globe in the longer-run, but that the cost of living is the more immediate concern for most countries. "Cost of living dominates global risks in the next two years while climate action failure dominates the next decade," read the report.
The two challenges are related. Failure to address more immediate concerns related to food security and inflation, the group wrote, could distract governments from seriously addressing climate change.
Indeed, four out of the report's top-10 long-term challenges were climate-related:
“A failure to mitigate climate change is ranked as one of the most severe threats in the short term, but is the global risk we are seen to be the least prepared for,” the report said.
The report stressed that countries might not be able to handle all of these challenges at once, forcing them to prioritize some and neglect others: “The coming years will present tough trade-offs for governments facing competing concerns for society, the environment and security."
None of this bodes well for the already high levels of economic inequality in the world.
“The resulting new economic era may be one of growing divergence between rich and poor countries,” the report said, “and the first rollback in human development in decades.”
The group released the report ahead of its annual gathering at the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos next week.
Israel rolled tanks into northern Gaza for what the military called a targeted raid aiming to destroy Hamas infrastructure. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council failed to pass two separate resolutions proposed by the U.S. and Russia on humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza.
Republican Mike Johnson is the new speaker of the House, but the ally of Donald Trump inherits many of the same political problems that have tormented past GOP leaders.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke out against retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. He also says he's redoubling his commitment to working on a two-state solution.
The U.N. warned on Wednesday that it is on the verge of running out of fuel in the Gaza Strip, forcing it to sharply curtail relief efforts in the territory blockaded and devastated by Israeli airstrikes since Hamas militants launched an attack on Israel more than two weeks ago.
The judge in Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial fined the former president $10,000 on Wednesday, saying Trump violated a limited gag order barring personal attacks on court staffers.
Republicans eagerly elected Rep. Mike Johnson as House speaker on Wednesday, elevating a deeply conservative but lesser-known leader to the seat of U.S. power and ending for now the political chaos in their majority.
With mail theft and postal carrier robberies up, law enforcement officials have made more than 600 arrests since May in a crackdown launched to address crime that includes carriers being accosted at gunpoint for their antiquated universal keys, the Postal Service announced Wednesday.
