Global Risk Report 2026
The annual Global Risks Report offers a view of global risks at the start of each year, focusing globalleaders on addressing emerging challenges and their potential knock-on effects. It does not offerpredictions, nor does it suggest that the future is predetermined. Instead, it provides a range ofpotential futures with a view to prevention and management. Three years ago, the 18th edition ofthe Global Risks Report considered the possibility of a “polycrisis”, as risks from multiple domainsunfold at the same time. This 21st edition of the Global Risks Report explores how a new competitiveorder is taking shape and its impact across multiple concurrent risk domains. We are witnessing theturmoil caused by kinetic wars, the deployment of economic weapons for strategic advantage,and growing fragmentation across societies. And as these “here and now” risks unfold, longer-termchallenges, from technological acceleration to environmental decline, continue to create knockon effects across systems. In parallel, rules and institutions that have long underpinned stability are increasingly deadlocked or ineffective in managing this turbulence.