WEF’s Global Risks Report: An Exclusive Comparative Overview from 2023 to 2025

Nations go through a convoluted trajectory in the aftermath of pandemic disruptions, armed conflicts, and accelerating technological upheavals. The World Economic Forum’s “Global Risks Report” series – spanning 2023, 2024, and culminating in 2025 (the 20th edition) – provides unique perspectives on these mounting crises.

Each annual release reflects a dynamic world grappling with challenges that shift in form and urgency.

Below is an integrated analysis we made of the most recent three reports outlining how core risks evolved from 2023 to 2024 and have now converged in the 2025 reality, where geopolitical fragmentation, conflicts, and digital misinformation dominate discussions.

Global Risks Report: The 2023 Baseline

The “Global Risks Report 2023” appeared at a moment of worldwide volatility. Economies wrestled with supply-chain snarls and post-pandemic inflation. The Russia-Ukraine war caused energy disruptions that fueled a cost-of-living crunch. Social unrest simmered in both emerging and advanced economies, as rising interest rates and expensive essentials spurred protests. Climate anxieties also surged in the face of heatwaves, floods, and the specter of global warming exceeding 1.5°C.

Key findings in 2023:

  • Cost-of-Living Crisis: Topped the two-year risk ranking, overshadowing other near-term concerns.
  • Failure to Mitigate Climate Change: Viewed as the primary long-term concern. “Extreme weather events” and biodiversity threats also ranked high.
  • Geoeconomic Weaponization: Trade wars, tariffs, export bans, and sanctions became regular policy tools.
  • Societal Polarization: Anger over inequality and governance was amplified by viral misinformation campaigns.
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Global Risks Report: Transition to 2024

As described in the “Global Risks Report 2024”, short-term developments caused some reshuffling of priorities. Inflationary pressures softened in many mature markets, although debt loads in low-income nations still ran high. The Russia-Ukraine war persisted, triggering waves of displacement and food insecurities. A new set of flashpoints emerged, pushing geostrategic and technological concerns to the forefront.

Key shifts in 2024:

  • Decline of Inflation Fears: Policymakers’ efforts to stabilize prices cut inflation from top immediate risks. Nonetheless, certain regions remained vulnerable.
  • Rise of Tech-Driven Tensions: Cyber espionage, data theft, and AI-enabled sabotage jumped in short-term risk rankings.
  • Climate Headaches, Real and Present: Heat records and powerful storms underlined the ongoing costs of climate inaction.
  • Growing Misinformation: Disinformation efforts multiplied, aided by generative AI. This fueled societal fractures, political gridlocks, and distrust in science and journalism.

Global Risks Report: The 2025 Inflection

According to the “Global Risks Report 2025” – the latest and focal edition – our world has become more fractured, with intensifying armed conflicts, entrenched social fissures, and sharper competition for resources. More crises converge in parallel, each feeding the other through feedback loops of mistrust, supply imbalances, and political brinkmanship.

Let’s go through the latest report.

1. Emergence of “State-Based Armed Conflict” at the Top

In 2023, risk experts pointed out the possibility of escalations from Ukraine and other flashpoints, yet the cost-of-living crisis overshadowed near-term worries. By 2024, geoeconomic confrontation moved higher, as trade constraints, sanctions, and resource protectionism gripped the attention of policymakers. Now, in 2025, “state-based armed conflict” ranks as the single greatest risk to global stability.

Active wars in the Middle East, North Africa, and the ongoing impacts from the Ukraine invasion show how armed engagements and proxy confrontations can upend economic progress and humanitarian safety nets. Multilateral institutions appear stretched or inactive in preventing, containing, or resolving conflicts. The UN Security Council, according to the 2025 analysis, faces waning influence, as states prefer unilateral or bloc-based moves.

2. Diminishing Multilateralism, “Geopolitical Recession,”

The 2023 and 2024 editions foreshadowed an era where national security trumps collaborative norms. The 2025 report cements this picture. Powerful nations turn inward, building alliances with a few trusted partners and bypassing broader international platforms. This “geopolitical recession,” as described, diminishes the clout of conflict resolution bodies and humanitarian agencies. Peacekeeping forces are reduced, and funding for aid craters. The resulting environment accelerates forced migration, famine, and radicalization in fragile states.

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3. Environmental Emergencies Intensify

Across all three reports, the climate threat never loosened its grip – only changed in perceived immediacy. In 2023, environmental problems were singled out as “long-range” catastrophes in the making. By 2024, frequent climate disasters – from floods in Asia to droughts in Africa – catapulted “extreme weather events” near the top of concerns. That alarm again appears in the 2025 edition, where “extreme weather events” remain among the most pressing short- and mid-term threats.

An added dimension is “pollution,” which climbed in salience. Beyond carbon emissions, microplastics, chemical runoff, and dangerous air quality are wreaking havoc on habitats and public health. Younger respondents to the 2025 survey express deep concern. They see pollution as a near- and long-term crisis needing immediate action, rather than a second-tier environmental worry.

4. Evolving Economic Tensions

The 2023 iteration spotlighted a cost-of-living spiral fueled by high inflation and commodity price hikes. By 2024, some advanced economies eased inflationary pressures, but debt worries and currency volatility lingered in vulnerable markets. The 2025 document shows the relative downgrading of inflation as an immediate global risk. Yet it points to “supercharged economic tensions” arising from competition over resources, “friend-shoring,” re-onshoring, and the weaponization of trade. “Geoeconomic confrontation” soared from a mid-tier concern in 2024 to a top priority in 2025.

Meanwhile, “economic downturn” and “inflation” recede from the top-tier landscape, indicating an expectation that while economic growth may be slow, it is not the primary destabilizing factor. Instead, supply chain disruptions, sanctions, and investment controls overshadow classic macroeconomic issues. That said, experts warn these tensions could morph into abrupt recessions if geopolitical escalations intensify.

5. Societal Fragmentation and Polarization

A key thread across all three years is the fragmentation of communities, rising distrust in institutions, and fierce polarization on cultural, political, and economic lines. The 2023 edition captured post-pandemic schisms – anger at perceived elitism, frustration at public health measures, and intense partisanship. In 2024, misinformation advanced from a secondary threat to one of the most pervasive short-term concerns.

Now, in the 2025 analysis, “societal polarization” and “misinformation and disinformation” stand out as top near-term risks.

Surging migration from conflict zones meets fragile host countries struggling with economic or demographic stress. Poverty, joblessness, and cultural differences spark local tensions. Meanwhile, “inequality” rises in the risk charts, forging connections to everything from intrastate violence to climate migration.

6. Technology as Amplifier and Risk Vector

Across these years, digital transformation has been a powerful current. The 2023 report portrayed “cybercrime and cybersecurity” as urgent threats. The 2024 edition confirmed that investment in AI, quantum computing, and biotech soared, even as guardrails lagged behind. The 2025 edition elaborates on how “cyber espionage and warfare” is now entangled with real-world conflicts, and how “adverse outcomes of AI technologies” – while ranking lower in the short term – are expected to climb swiftly in impact over a decade.

Generative AI democratizes the spread of fake videos, text, and images. This has fueled “misinformation and disinformation,” now the top short-term risk. Meanwhile, more advanced AI models could catalyze breakthroughs in biotech, spurring ethical dilemmas in genetic engineering and disease manipulation. That points to “losing control of biotech,” one of the 2025 report’s deeper concerns for the long horizon.

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7. Humanitarian and Governance Fallout

The 2024 publication already flagged a decline in humanitarian funding. By 2025, the gap has worsened, amid donor fatigue and more expensive domestic needs in advanced economies. Over 122 million people are forcibly displaced. Multiple hotspots require large-scale assistance – Sudan, Mali, Haiti, Middle Eastern conflict zones, and beyond. Yet the same polarizing environment that undermines conflict resolution also blocks cohesive humanitarian efforts.

This intensifies a vicious cycle: impoverished and desperate communities become fertile recruiting grounds for armed groups or extremist ideologies. The UN system, historically a bulwark for humanitarian relief, appears underfunded or constrained by vetoes in the UN Security Council, given broadening rivalries among permanent members.

8. Demographics, Ageing, and Future Pressures

Though not the immediate headline, demographics emerge as a potent undercurrent. The 2024 edition mentioned how some advanced economies face shrinking workforces and ballooning pension obligations. The 2025 report labels “super-ageing societies” a looming risk over a decade, with Japan, Italy, South Korea, and Germany grappling with workforce shortages, spiraling healthcare, and frail social safety nets. These demographics compound inequality and hamper economic dynamism, accelerating populist demands and cross-generational conflict.

9. Actions and Opportunities

While the 2025 environment appears bleak, all three reports champion resilience. Clear priorities can mitigate compounding risks.

  • Revitalize Multilateral Institutions: The “Global Risks Report 2025” strongly recommends rejuvenating or reforming the UN Security Council, WTO, and other platforms. Enforcing rules-based frameworks can reverse the slide into unilateral conflict expansions.
  • Bolster Humanitarian Systems: Enhance early-warning capacity for war and famine. Increase commitments to organizations that deliver on-the-ground services rather than unilateral, short-term relief.
  • Invest in Adaptation and Transition: Rapid climate adaptation measures – reinforced infrastructure, improved water management, and climate-resilient agriculture – should unify national budgets in the same way defense spending has.
  • Combat Misinformation: Both 2024 and 2025 reports urge urgent regulation of deepfakes, generative AI, and digital bot networks. Stakeholders must create labeling frameworks for AI outputs and penalize malicious campaigns. Civil society, tech firms, and governments could jointly produce real-time fact-checking protocols.
  • Promote Inclusive Growth: Addressing inequality means bridging wealth gaps, broadening education, and enabling local entrepreneurship. The 2025 edition highlights how failing to ease economic disparities can ignite even greater social chaos in an era of climate stresses.
  • Strengthen Cyber Governance: Introduce robust, universal standards for data security, cross-border data flows, and AI model releases. Incentivize the private sector to adopt recognized best practices. A universal definition of norms in digital espionage or sabotage is overdue.
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Global Risks Report Reflections

The 2023 report showed a fragile global recovery, the 2024 edition noted receding inflation but deepening political fractures, and the new 2025 report finds conflict, digital misinformation, and geoeconomic competition rising to the forefront. Climate extremes remain a persistent reality, as do high-risk technological leaps. Governance systems seem overburdened. Yet these trilateral insights also unify around the necessity of bold, collective solutions.

The cost of disunity is high. A world governed by unilateral strategies cannot respond to overlapping crises in real time. Conflicts spread, humanitarian needs balloon, and misinformation cripples democratic processes. However, each crisis also offers the impetus for change – peace deals to end violence, alliances to develop cleaner energy grids, legislation that fights fake news and AI-enabled propaganda.

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Ultimately, the “Global Risks Report 2025” does not merely catalogue risks. It acts as a final wake-up call in a decade that started with pandemic shocks and escalated through wars, climate chaos, and polarized societies. Leaders in government, business, and civil society must harness cross-sectoral teamwork for enduring, sustainable progress.