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The study is carried out every year on the eve of the Davos Economic Forum, canceled this year due to the Omicron variant. The World Economic Forum (WEF), however, publishes its 2022 report on global risks. Climate risk is at the heart of concerns this year once more, but not that… mental health has entered the TOP 10.
The climate is still among the first declared concerns of business leaders, in the short, medium and long term. For the coming years, the first five risks they point out are all linked to the consequences of climate change. The extreme weather events which are still at the top of this ranking are now part of our daily lives. And in front of all this, there is another risk, that of doing nothing … Climate inaction is once once more displayed as the risk with the greatest impact, in the medium as well as in the long term, by the leaders surveyed.
In this study conducted before the last top climate in Glasgow, respondents are divided on efforts to curb global warming. Some 77% of them feel that they are not enough. We have seen that many States, in order to revive their economy, in recent months, have favored carbon energies while others have accelerated their transition. The gaps are widening between states. Planetary challenges, in addition to the preservation of the environment, are not lacking and yet require cooperation. The regulation of space, the fight once morest cyberthreats which have grown with the intensive use of networks during the pandemic … These are all themes that respondents believe are not sufficiently taken into account by States. It must be said that some devote their current resources to trying to provide with great difficulty access to basic products and essential services for the population.
Services like health, also threatened, say executives interviewed
Yes, if the health of the planet worries the powerful of this world, it would seem that the health of their congeners has also appeared among their concerns. There is the Covid of course and the inequality of access to vaccines but also all the side effects. These patients who no longer have access to hospitals for the monitoring of their pathologies, in particular cancers and diabetes. Or the deterioration of mental health. It is estimated that since the start of the pandemic, more than 50 million more people have been living with severe depression. For businesses, this poses a challenge for employee productivity, but for states, the equation is even more complex.
Because their finances have been under pressure since the start of the health crisis
This is a risk in the short and medium term, estimate the respondents. The need to manage the pandemic has forced a large number of states to borrow heavily on the markets. On average, the public debts in the world reached 97% of the GDP in 2020. As the economies might not take off once more any time soon, the risk of an explosion of the sovereign debts will condition the capacity of action of the States. At least those who can still get into debt. An estimated 51 million more people are at risk of falling into extreme poverty. Respondents fear the “social fractures” that might result from all the transitions (technological, climatic or others) which are to be carried out with limited resources and in a climate of exacerbated tensions within societies as between States.
In short
The French group Vallourec is fined in Brazil for “environmental damage”.
The group specializing in steel tubes for the oil industry will have to pay the equivalent of 45 million euros to the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, a region where three years ago the rupture of a mine dam had killed 270 people and devastated the environment. Last Saturday, a sediment containment dike overflowed. Vallourec, which analyzes the notification of the fine, ensures that it spares no effort to limit the disturbances. So far, all mine operators in the region have been ordered to provide detailed data on the stability of their dams.
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