Global Risks Report 2026 Warns of a More Uncertain, Competitive, & Fragmented World

Key Takeaways

• Instability Is the New Normal: Most experts expect a turbulent global outlook in both the near and long term, suggesting uncertainty has become a permanent feature of the global landscape.
• Economic Rivalry Tops Crisis Risks: Geoeconomic confrontation has overtaken armed conflict as the most likely trigger of a global crisis in 2026, reflecting a shift from cooperation to competition.
• Economic and Social Pressures Are Converging: Rising risks tied to economic downturn, debt, inflation, and inequality are compounding societal strain and testing institutional resilience.
• Technology Risks Are Accelerating Faster Than Oversight: Misinformation, cyber insecurity, and adverse outcomes of AI are climbing rapidly, with AI-related risks becoming far more severe over the next decade.
• Environmental Risks Are Deferred, Not Diminished: While deprioritized in the short term, climate and environmental risks dominate the long-term outlook, led by extreme weather events.

Deep Dive

The world is entering the second half of a turbulent decade with little sense of calm on the horizon. That is the underlying message of the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2026, which paints a picture of rising uncertainty, weakening cooperation, and intensifying competition across geopolitics, economics, technology, society, and the environment.

Based on responses from more than 1,300 experts worldwide through the Global Risks Perception Survey 2025–2026, the report assesses how risks are expected to evolve in the immediate term (2026), the short to medium term (to 2028), and the long term (to 2036). Across all three horizons, the prevailing mood is one of instability.

Half of respondents expect the global outlook over the next two years to be turbulent or stormy, reflecting a sharp deterioration in sentiment compared with last year. Looking further ahead, pessimism deepens, with 57% expecting upheaval over the next decade. Only 1% of respondents anticipate a calm global environment at either time horizon.

While long-term expectations have marginally improved compared with last year’s survey, the report makes clear that uncertainty has become a defining feature of the global risk landscape. Governments are increasingly retreating from multilateral cooperation, and trust (described as the “currency of cooperation”) is eroding at a time when collective action is most needed.

Economic Rivalry Eclipses Other Immediate Threats

Geoeconomic confrontation has moved to the forefront of global risk concerns. Nearly one in five respondents identified it as the risk most likely to trigger a material global crisis in 2026, placing it ahead of state-based armed conflict. The risk has surged in prominence compared with last year and now dominates both the immediate and short-term outlooks.

The report situates this shift within a broader trend toward protectionism, strategic industrial policy, and tighter government control over critical supply chains. In a world already strained by prolonged conflicts, fragile supply networks, and geopolitical rivalries, escalating economic confrontation is seen as a destabilizing force with far-reaching consequences for states, markets, and institutions.

Economic pressures are rising in tandem. Economic downturn, inflation, and asset bubble bursts have all jumped sharply in the short-term rankings. Economic downturn, in particular, registered one of the largest increases in perceived severity compared with last year’s findings.

According to the report, mounting debt sustainability concerns and the risk of asset bubbles (set against a backdrop of intensifying geoeconomic rivalry) could usher in a new phase of volatility. These dynamics threaten to spill over into social and political instability, compounding existing pressures on households and businesses.

Technology Races Ahead, Risks in Tow

Technological risks continue to climb, often faster than the systems designed to manage them. Misinformation and disinformation rank among the most severe risks over the next two years, while cyber insecurity remains a persistent concern. Over the longer term, adverse outcomes of AI technologies show the steepest rise of any risk, moving from near the bottom of the two-year ranking to the top tier over a 10-year horizon.

The report acknowledges the transformative potential of new technologies across sectors such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure, but warns that governance gaps could amplify harms, from labor market disruption to information integrity and security risks. Emerging frontier technologies, including quantum computing, are expected to bring both opportunity and new arenas for strategic competition.

Societies Under Strain

Social cohesion is fraying as economic pressure, political polarization, and technological change collide. Inequality was identified as the most interconnected global risk for the second year in a row, closely followed by economic downturn. Respondents pointed to growing disillusionment with traditional governance structures and the rise of “streets versus elites” narratives as warning signs for democratic resilience.

Misinformation and disinformation remain deeply intertwined with these trends, reinforcing polarization and undermining trust in institutions. The report suggests that persistent cost-of-living pressures and wealth concentration risk entrenching long-term social divides that are difficult to reverse.

Environmental Risks Sidelined Now, Dominant Later

One of the report’s more striking findings is the relative downgrading of environmental risks in the near term. Extreme weather, pollution, biodiversity loss, and critical changes to Earth systems all fell in the two-year rankings and recorded lower severity scores compared with last year.

That shift does not hold over the longer horizon. Looking ahead a decade, environmental risks once again dominate the global risk landscape. Extreme weather events are ranked as the most severe long-term risk, and half of the top 10 long-term risks are environmental in nature, underscoring the persistent threat posed by climate change and ecological degradation.

A Fragmented Global Order Takes Shape

Asked to look ahead 10 years, 68% of respondents expect a fragmented, multipolar global order in which regional and great powers increasingly set and enforce their own rules. Only a small minority foresee a revival of a unipolar, rules-based international system.

The report closes on a cautious note. While the trajectory points toward greater competition and fragmentation, it emphasizes that outcomes are not predetermined. Strategic cooperation remains possible, even in an era defined by rivalry. The scale and interconnectedness of today’s risks, the report argues, make the choices taken now critical in shaping what the next decade ultimately looks like.

Much of what the Report describes is already visible in real time i.e., fractured politics, economic rivalry hardening into doctrine, technology racing ahead of governance, and environmental risks slipping down the priority list until they force their way back to the top. The Global Risks Report 2026 does not necessarily introduce a radically new set of threats so much as confirm that the world has crossed into a more volatile phase, where shocks overlap, buffers are thinner, and recovery is no longer assumed.

In that context, the question the Report leaves hanging is not whether disruption lies ahead, but how prepared institutions, businesses, and governments truly are for a decade where instability is the baseline.

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