The biggest risk to our future is climate change, according to an insurance industry report that ranks future risks.
French insurance giant AXA released the list on Monday. Climate change is considered more risky than cybersecurity threats, geopolitical instability, and artificial intelligence.
“Extreme weather events, droughts, fires, biodiversity loss… the increasingly tangible aspects of climate change underline the urgent need for concrete action,” wrote AXA CEO Thomas Buberl in a foreword to the 10th edition of the Future Risks Report.
The report is based on a survey of 3,500 risk experts across 50 countries and a survey of almost 20,000 people in 15 countries. Climate change has topped the experts’ lists since 2015 — with the exception of 2020, when, understandably, pandemics and infectious diseases broke through to the top of the ranking — this is the first year the public has agreed.
After a year of climate extremes, from devastating floods to “impossible” heat waves, it is perhaps no surprise that those tasked with assessing future risks are concerned by the increasingly warming world. And the report comes hot on the heels of several other studies that suggest the Earth is closer to critical temperature targets than previously thought, that Antarctic and Greenland ice is in severe trouble and that a series of climate-related tipping points will be passed soon.
The insurance industry in the U.S. has taken notice. This year, extreme events like hurricanes and wildfires have roiled the major housing insurance markets in Florida and California.
“This year, more than ever, our survey results map out the contours of a world in ‘polycrisis’ where risks are now interconnected,” Buberl wrote.
“Digital transformation, global warming and geopolitical fractures are combining to create a permanent process of mutation in our economies and societies. Against this background, the concept of risk takes on a new dimension.”
