Global Risks Report 2017 Home Previous Next

Blogs and Opinions

  • How digital transformation can build more resilient businesses 

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools, hospitals, businesses and governments have depended on technological innovation more than ever before to keep their operations afloat. As nations work to rebuild and reinvigorate the global economy, recovery plans must focus on creating jobs, investing in infrastructure and driving innovation with sustainability at the very core.

  • How AI advances can enable medical research without sharing personal data

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) recently came under intense scrutiny when it announced plans to collect and share the GP records of over 55 million patients with third parties for research purposes. It was argued that virtually every sensitive detail of patients’ lives could be found in these records, including accounts of past abortions, marital problems, and substance abuse.

  • This is how much house prices are outpacing rents across Europe

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    House price growth is outpacing increases in rents in the European Union, according to statistics agency Eurostat.

  • COP26: IEA chief Fatih Birol talks energy and climate change on the Radio Davos podcast

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    Energy – the fuel we use for heating, cooling, manufacturing, transport and so on – accounts for a third of our greenhouse gas emissions.

  • Define, target, implement, track: A 4-step program to net-zero

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    To help prevent the worst effects of climate change, a growing number of companies are pledging to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. In fact, the percentage of companies declaring a net-zero target nearly doubled from 2019 to 2020.

  • How to protect Earth from incoming asteroids, according to experts

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    In February of 2013, skywatchers around the world turned their attention toward asteroid 2012 DA14, a cosmic rock about 150 feet (50 meters) in diameter that was going to fly closer to Earth than the spacecraft that bring us satellite TV.

  • Asia’s consumer class is growing. This chart shows how

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    Between the years 2020 and 2030, almost 76 million Indonesians will join the so-called consumer class, a group of people who spend more than $11 (in 2011 PPP dollars) per day. This will cause the country to become the fourth biggest consumer market in the world behind the giants of the field – China, India and the United States.

  • Drifting apart: Lockdowns have taken a toll on our close relationships, study shows

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    Many of us have been struggling with isolation and loneliness during COVID lockdowns, despite the increase in online interactions.

  • This is how much house prices have increased in countries around the world

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    While most economic indicators deteriorated last year, house prices largely shrugged off the effects of the pandemic. Of the over 60 countries that enter into the IMF’s Global House Price Index, three-quarters saw increases in house prices during 2020, and this trend has largely continued in countries with more recent data.

  • COP26, fossil fuels and flooding: Everything to know about the environment this week 

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    The European Parliament has asked the EU to legally require companies to fix methane leaks and impose binding targets on countries to cut emissions of the greenhouse gas.

  • COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus pandemic on 22 October

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have passed 242.4 million globally, according to Johns Hopkins University. The number of confirmed deaths stands at more than 4.92 million. More than 6.76 billion vaccination doses have been administered globally, according to Our World in Data.

  • How COVID-19 affected polio eradication and what we must do

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    Two years ago the world celebrated significant progress in ending polio. Thanks to a major global public health collaboration and mass vaccination efforts, the World Health Organization reported two of the three wild poliovirus strains had been eradicated.

  • Top work trends this week: Unpaid overtime, fertility perks and green pensions

    Friday 22nd of October 2021

    In the world of work this week… the exploration behind the trend: have we been steadily putting in too many unpaid hours? Research shows many workers put in hours of unpaid overtime, even prior to the pandemic.

  • How to tackle COVID-19 jobs crisis and climate change? Invest in clean energy

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Investing in clean energy can help economies recover from the slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as it will add more jobs than backing fossil fuels, researchers said.

  • How climate change could make some areas of Earth uninhabitable by 2500

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Unless CO2 emissions drop significantly, global warming will make the Amazon barren, the American Midwest tropical, and India too hot to live in by 2500, according to a team of scientists.

  • One species or two? Decade-old debate on coral might finally be over

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    A new discovery may settle the decades-long debate over whether a form of coral is one species or two.

  • COP26: What outcomes does Africa need from the summit?

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    The 26th session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties, popularly known as COP26, is happening at a time when the world has just experienced one of the warmest years on record. The year 2020 reached temperatures that were about 1.02°C warmer than average. These kinds of extremes, driven by climate change, are being felt intensely across Africa.

  • How the petrochemicals industry can reduce its carbon footprint

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Petrochemicals have played a crucial role in society for over 50 years and throughout that time the industry has constantly evolved, adopting novel technologies and processes to drive efficiency improvements and cost reductions. The focus is now on how to reduce the carbon footprint of the chemical industry, which is the third largest emitting industry behind the iron/steel and cement industries.

  • This is the state of the climate in Africa – and why it urgently matters to us all

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Within the next 10 years, Mount Kenya could become one of the first major mountain ranges in the world to completely lose its glaciers through human-induced climate change.

  • A kidney transplant from a pig to a human has worked. What you need to know

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Earlier this week, surgeons at New York University’s Langone Transplant Institute successfully performed a pig kidney transplant. This in itself would be unremarkable. What does mark the achievement as unprecedented is the identity of the donor – a genetically modified pig.

  • Prey to project: Fishermen and scientists have teamed up to save Bolivia’s pink river dolphins

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Fishermen who once angled for rare pink river dolphins are working with researchers in Bolivia’s Amazon jungle in a high-tech bid to assure the species’ survival and better understand their needs.

  • Why the world needs to embrace open science

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    The UN Secretary-General’s annual Sustainable Development Goals’ progress report states that by early 2020 the world was not on track to meet its 2030 targets. Alongside the devastating consequences of COVID-19, the report also cites the limited availability of quality data, including internationally comparable data on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as an impediment to effective decision-making.

  • This ‘smart’ walking stick works like a self-driving car

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    A new, affordable smart cane guides people with visual impairments safely and efficiently through their environments, say researchers.

  • How has COVID-19 hit Africa? Here’s what the data tells us 

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Early predictions of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by some public health scientists painted a gloomy picture for Africa. The continent was expected to suffer a huge burden of disease and death. These predictions have not held true. The continent has experienced fewer deaths than predicted.

  • China’s tier-one cities are the testing ground for robotaxis

    Thursday 21st of October 2021

    Tests with driverless taxi services have been underway in China’s major cities, also called tier one cities, including Beijing and Shanghai. Still a novelty today, robotaxis are expected to experience a quick rollout in China’s main metropolises. Numbers by McKinsey & Company show that less than ten years down the line, driverless taxis are projected to service between a fifth and a quarter of all kilometers passengers travel on shared mobility in those cities.

View more Risks posts
 

Back to Top