Global Risks Report 2025

Appendix C Executive Opinion Survey: National Risk Perceptions Table C.1 presents the list of 34 risks that were incorporated into the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Executive Opinion Survey (EOS), which was administered between April and August 2024. The risks are comparable to those in the GRPS 2024-2025 but are applied at a more granular level to reflect the possible short-term and country-level manifestations of global risks. To ensure legibility, the names of some of the global risks have been abbreviated throughout this report. The portion of the full name used in the abbreviation is in bold. National risk list FIGURE C.1 Risk categories Economic Environmental Geopolitical Societal Technological Source World Economic Forum Executive Opinion Survey 2024. Economic downturn (recession, stagnation) Labour and/or talent shortage Inflation Public debt Energy-supply shortage Crime and illicit economic activity Private debt (corporate, household) Asset bubble burst Attacks on critical infrastructure Concentration of strategic resources and technologies Biodiversity loss (marine, freshwater, terrestrial) Extreme weather events (floods, heatwaves, etc.) Food-supply shortage Non-weather related natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, solar flares etc.) Pollution (air, soil, water, etc.) Water-supply shortage Armed conflict (interstate, intrastate, proxy wars, coups etc.) Intrastate violence (civil strikes, riots) Biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons or hazards Societal polarization Chronic health conditions and decline in health and well-being (heart, cancer, diabetes, depression etc.) Erosion of human rights and/or civic freedoms Infectious diseases (COVID-19, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria, etc.) Involuntary migration Unemployment or lack of economic opportunity Poverty and inequality (wealth, income) Insufficient public services and social protections (incl. education, infrastructure, pensions) Adverse outcomes of artificial intelligence technologies Adverse outcomes of frontier technologies (quantum, biotech, geoengineering etc.) Cyber insecurity Censorship and surveillance Misinformation and disinformation Terrorist Attacks Geoeconomic confrontation (sanctions, tariffs, investment screening etc.) Global Risks Report 2025 81