In the Global Risks Report 2023, respondents to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Perception Survey identify “failure to mitigate climate change” as the foremost long-term threat globally. It is deemed the risk with the potential for the most severe impacts over the next decade.
Parallely – global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, at a time when they need to be rapidly falling. Although COVID-19 lockdowns led to a temporary global decline in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, upward trends quickly resumed. In June 2023, a study in the journal Earth System Science Data warned that the world is swiftly depleting its “carbon budget” — the allowable amount of carbon dioxide emissions to stay within the critical threshold of 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.
