Posted on January, 15 2025
15 January 2025: Responding to the publication of the WEF Global Risks Report 2025, WWF calls for transformative action to address the systemic drivers of global environmental risks.
The report, published ahead of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos next week, identified a range of global threats, with environmental risks dominating the 10-year horizon. The report found the top four most severe risks over the next ten years to be extreme weather events, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, critical change to Earth systems and natural resources shortages.
Daudi Sumba, Chief Conservation Officer, WWF International, said: “The environmental risks identified in this report are already a daily reality for millions of people around the world. The impacts of the interlinked climate and nature crises are destroying and destabilising people’s lives and livelihoods. Temperatures are at record highs and the natural systems our societies and economies depend on are being pushed to their limits. The window to prevent irreversible tipping points is rapidly slipping away. There is no choice but to act much faster to build resilience to these risks and tackle their root causes.
“The next five years are critical. By 2030 we need to see system-wide changes in how food and energy are produced and consumed, and in how finance is mobilised. Increased conservation and restoration efforts will also be vital in ensuring the decline in nature is reversed by the end of the decade. When governments set out their new national climate plans this year, they have an opportunity to establish a pathway for transformative action. We have the solutions, technologies and international agreements - we now need to urgently shift to implementation.
“The world has a clear pathway to address these risks and build a safer, more sustainable world. We call on everyone to play their part and take action now. Our futures depend on it.”
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NOTES
The WWF Living Planet Report 2024 shows a catastrophic 73% decline in the average size of monitored wildlife populations over just 50 years. Countries have agreed on ambitious global goals to halt and reverse nature loss (the Global Biodiversity Framework), cap global temperature rise to 1.5ºC (the Paris Agreement), and eradicate poverty (the UN Sustainable Development Goals). But the Living Planet Report says national commitments and action on the ground fall far short of what’s required to meet targets for 2030 and avoid dangerous tipping points.
The depletion of species can lead to the loss of the ecosystem services economies depend on and reduce resilience to the risks posed by natural and anthropogenic events like droughts, fires, floods, diseases, pollution and so on. For more information on the ways in which wild animals maintain our world please see WWF's Nature's Technicians Report.
WWF has developed key tools to enable the private sector to better understand their nature-related risks, which have already been used by more than 17,000 users to assess over 2 million sites. These tools provide clarity on what and where a company’s risks are, thus outlining a pathway for how to address them. Such efforts will be essential in achieving both resilient economies and a nature positive future.
WWF’s blueprint for credible corporate climate and nature action is available here and the NDCs We Want tool kit for ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions is available here.
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