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https://www.weforum.org/agenda/authors/antonio-guterres
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/these-are-the-global-priorities-and-risks-for-the-future-according-to-antonio-guterres/
António Guterres: Read the UN Secretary-General’s Davos speech in full
weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/these-are-the-global-priorities-and-risks-for-the-future-according-to-antonio-guterres
'We are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated, and the responses are more and more fragmented, and if this is not reversed, it's a recipe for disaster'
Image: swiss-image.ch
This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting
Thank you very much to all of you for being here.
If I had to select one sentence to describe the state of the world, I would say we are in a world in which global challenges are more and more integrated, and the responses are more and more fragmented, and if this is not reversed, it's a recipe for disaster.
Now, if one looks at global politics and geopolitical tensions, with the global economy, and the mega trends - climate change, the movement of people, digitalization - the truth is that they are more and more interlinked, interfering more and more with each other. And indeed the problems are global but the responses are fragmented.
Looking at the global economy - we are now growing still with a relatively acceptable GDP growth, 3.1% last year, but slowing down; and everybody agrees that there are dark clouds on the horizon, and there are risks. And if one looks at the risks, there is really an interrelation of those risks with all the other aspects of global international relations.
The first risk is probably trade tensions, and trade tensions are today essentially a political problem.
A second risk, of course, is related to the debt that is much higher than in the last financial crisis, and which is limiting the capacity to respond to any potential emerging crisis; and also, limiting the capacity of states to implement the projects that would be necessary to achieve the sustainable development goals. But in any case, it remains essentially an economic dimension of the problem.
Then we have the instability in financial markets, and clearly it's a matter of confidence, so political events have an influence on that; and if one looks at the shutdowns and the Brexit saga, there is a certain sense that political systems do not know exactly what to do when dealing with problems that have strong economic impacts. And so that is a factor of lack of confidence and a factor of lack of confidence creates or increases instability in the markets.
And then the climate risk, and I think the climate risk is the most important systemic risk for the near future. I believe we are losing the race. Climate change is running faster than we are. And we have this paradox: the reality is proving to be worse than scientists had foreseen, and all the last indicators show that. We are moving dramatically into a runaway climate change if we are not able to stop it, and at the same time, I see the political will slowing down. This when technology is on our side and we see, more and more, the business community ready to respond in a positive way, and the civil society more and more engaged. But the political will is still very slow, and we see lots of subsidies to fossil fuels, we see carbon pricing in a very limited way, and we see many still putting into doubt whether climate change is a threat. But in my opinion, it's the most important global systemic threat in relation to the global economy.