Donations
Veridica.md
Extreme weather phenomena and disinformation are considered by experts to be among the greatest risks facing humanity in the medium and short term. There are also concerns about the risk of societal polarization and cyber security, according to the report on global risks drawn up by the World Economic Forum in Davos (WEF).
About 1,500 experts from academia, business, administration and civil society were consulted on the risks humanity faces in the short term - one and two years - and in the medium term, ten years.
In the short term, experts are concerned with already existing problems, so that, along with disinformation and extreme weather phenomena, interstate armed conflict, inflation or economic issues can be found among the top ten risks.
In the medium term, the four biggest risks are related to the planet and the impact that human activities have on it and include extreme weather events, the collapse of the global ecosystem and biodiversity, the depletion of natural resources. The medium-term risks also include - in sixth place - those related to the evolution of artificial intelligence systems.
The perception of inflation is interesting in the view of the 1400 respondents. The sociological study shows that inflation concerns will become less significant in the future. The WEF report places inflation at number 7 in the ranking of global risks for the next two years and states that in the next decade it will drop to 32. Instead, the cost of living as trigger of crises and cyber attacks remain major concerns in both the public and the private sectors.
Disinformation, the biggest short-term danger
Fake news and disinformation have become an increasingly active phenomenon over the past decade, marking or amplifying major regional and global crises—the war in Ukraine (starting with the invasion of Crimea and the Russian-backed insurgency in Donbas in 2014, to the full-scale invasion of 2022 and the ongoing large-scale conflict), the refugee crisis, the Brexit referendum, the Covid pandemic, climate change, etc. Efforts made to combat disinformation, rather timid so far, have not proven to be effective, so it is not surprising that experts see it as a risk in both the short and medium term. While in the long term disinformation is on the 5th place in a list of risks, in the short term – that is within the next two years – it is considered to be the main risk.
The explanation lies in the fact that 2024 is considered the biggest election year of all time, and "the widespread use of disinformation, as well as the tools to disseminate it, can undermine the legitimacy of newly elected governments."
"An unstable global order characterized by polarizing narratives and insecurity, the worsening impacts of extreme weather and economic uncertainty are causing accelerating risks – including misinformation and disinformation – to propagate”, said Saadia Zahidi, Director General of the WEF.
Against the backdrop of a difficult global economic situation, the grip of fake news and disinformation is increasing. The report also shows that there is a risk that government interventions will move too slowly, facing a trade-off between preventing disinformation and protecting freedom of expression, while repressive governments could use increased regulatory scrutiny to erode human rights.
Social media are identified as the main tools for disseminating increasingly effective fake news, being already created with the help of artificial intelligence. The difference between AI-generated content and human-generated content is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish, not only for the digitally literate individuals, but also for detection mechanisms. Which will make fakes more and more difficult to debunk.
The main purpose of disinformation and fake news, rolling online at an overwhelming speed, is voter manipulation. The debunking of these untruths often goes unnoticed or is, at best, questioned. The widespread use of disinformation can undermine the legitimacy of newly elected governments, fuel violent protests and even terrorism.
Bottom line: disinformation can radically disrupt electoral processes in several economies over the next two years. A growing distrust of information, and of media and governments as sources, will deepen polarized views, and this is a vicious circle that could spark civil unrest and eventually confrontation. In addition, there is a risk of repression and erosion of rights, precisely because the authorities are trying to curb the spread of fake news.
Disinformation is indirectly linked to another risk, the polarization of societies, which it has amplified during previous crises and may accentuate in the future. In the short term, the polarization of society is seen by experts as the third biggest risk, while in the long term it appears in the ninth position.
The report states that divisive factors reduce trust and the sense of shared values. Societal polarization, along with economic recession, is seen as one of the most central risks in the interconnected "risk web", with the greatest potential to trigger and be influenced by other risks.
Climate change might have an apocalyptic impact
Climate change caused by global warming is an issue for the whole of humanity. The year 2023 was the warmest in history, a record broken several times in recent decades. As many already anticipate, the effects of climate change will become increasingly severe.
One consequence of climate change is the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, which include killer heat waves, violent storms and devastating floods. In the short term, extreme weather phenomena are seen as the second biggest risk, but for the ten-year interval it ranks first, followed by three other risks, also related to the impact of human activity on the planet and global warming: a crucial change in the geosphere and biosphere, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem collapse, and finally depletion of natural resources. There are, indeed, great risks, which together (and some of them even separately) can create an image of the Apocalypse.
There are differences in the perception of environmental risks between generations and between those in the private and public sectors, the report also states. Younger people consider these risks to be of greater concern in the short term, the next two years, for example. Those who work in the private sector believe that environmental risks will materialize in a longer time frame than employees in the public sector or administrations think.
The WEF report shows that this is one of the reasons why decisions to combat global warming and protect the environment in general are taken with difficulty and in many cases too late.
