Again this year, world leaders gathered at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland to wax poetic about global problems. A major topic of discussion at this year’s event was climate change. Climate change and its impact are a key cause of economic uncertainty and a threat to global security. That is evident from the list of top global risks that was announced:
1. Fiscal crises in key economies
2. Structurally high unemployment/underemployment
3. Water crises
4. Severe income disparity
5. Failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation
6 .Greater incidence of extreme weather events
(e.g. floods, storms, fires)
7. Global governance failure
8. Food crises
9. Failure of a major financial mechanism/institution
10. Profound political and social instability
As you can see, climate change (5) and its immediate effects including the greater incidence of extreme weather events (6), water crises (3), and food crises (8) make up a substantial section of the overall list. The secondary effects of those problems can spiral into other listed risks including political and social instability (10),income disparity (4), and global governance failure (7). As evidenced by recent storms like Typhoon Haiyan-Yolanda, the poor are often affected the most by high-impact weather events and gains toward minimizing income disparity can be lost in the aftermath of the storm. Those people who have nothing more to lose are increasingly likely to promote social unrest. When access to food, water, and shelter are threatened, overall governance is harder to maintain and political systems come under threat.
Building resilience in the face of chaos is a new kind of solution. We cannot prepare for every possible hazard or event, but we can learn to be adaptive in our attitude toward effects. A unified international approach to designing resiliency is critical to combatting a backslide against our recent gains in the battle against global poverty. It is critical that our world leaders design a framework for resiliency policy that can be implemented over the next decade.
Edgewood Insights 