For 1st Time, Davos Global Risks Perception Survey Dominated By Environmental Problems

So, it took until 2020 for the captains of industry to figure this one out? Yay, private sector!!

The World Economic Forum’s annual conference in Davos, Switzerland, opened this week with the 15th edition of its Global Risks Report. The top 2 risks on the list are the climate crisis and biodiversity loss, two matters inextricably bound up with each other. And in struts Donald Trump playing pitchman for fossil fuels and taking swipes at climate activism.

From the executive summary of the report: For the first time in the history of the Global Risks Perception Survey, environmental concerns dominate the top long-term risks by likelihood among members of the World Economic Forum’s multi-stakeholder community; three of the top five risks by impact are also environmental (see Figure I, The Evolving Risks Landscape 2007–2020). “Failure of climate change mitigation and adaption” is the number one risk by impact and number two by likelihood over the next 10 years, according to our survey. Members of the Global Shapers Community—the Forum’s younger constituents—show even more concern, ranking environmental issues as the top risks in both the short and long terms.

The Forum’s multi-stakeholder network rate “biodiversity loss” as the second most impactful and third most likely risk for the next decade. The current rate of extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average over the past 10 million years—and it is accelerating. Biodiversity loss has critical implications for humanity, from the collapse of food and health systems to the disruption of entire supply chains.

Said Trump: "We urge our friends in Europe to use America's vast supply and achieve true energy security. With U.S. companies and researchers leading the way, we are on the threshold of virtually unlimited reserves of energy, including from traditional fuels, LNG [liquefied natural gas], clean coal, next-generation nuclear power, and gas hydrate technologies. [...] But to embrace the possibilities of tomorrow, we must reject the perennial prophets of doom and their predictions of the apocalypse. They are the heirs of yesterday's foolish fortune-tellers -- and I have them and you have them, and we all have them, and they want to see us do badly, but we don't let that happen." Not quite Trump directly calling the climate crisis a hoax as he has so often in the past, but close enough—especially since his words came after earlier remarks to the gathered leaders by Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who called for immediate action.

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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/01/22/1913276/-Trump-pitches-fossil-fuels-in-Davos,-as-report-puts-climate-crisis-as-worlds-No-1-risk