World ‘unprepared’ for magnitude of cascading climate risks
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- Published: Wednesday, 27 July 2022 08:37
A new report from Verisk Maplecroft says that governments and businesses are not preparing effectively for changing environmental risks.
Written by Will Nichols and Dr Richard Hewston, the Environmental Risk Outlook 2022 report says that:
‘Civil unrest, political instability, food insecurity, mass migration and worsening human rights are the baked-in secondary impacts of climate change, but you wouldn’t know that from the undercooked approach of governments and business. As the extreme weather events the world is already experiencing become more frequent, they will trigger a cascade of these second-order climate risks across a huge swathe of countries.’
Africa and Asia’s developing economies will ‘bear the brunt’ of the impacts, but according to new research for the report which assessed the susceptibility of countries to cascading risks, economically and geopolitically strategic nations such as Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and Russia are also in a dangerous position. China could also find itself under pressure if change continues to accelerate. If countries like these succumb to extreme bouts of climate-induced instability, the knock-on impacts could overwhelm economies and populations across the globe, says the report.
‘While businesses and governments are beginning to create extensive mitigation plans for physical climate threats, the low levels of investment in looking at the secondary risks show that most are almost entirely unprepared to deal with the wider political, economic, and developmental impacts of a warming planet’ the report states.
‘Identifying where these impacts will become most prevalent – and which countries are most at risk – is vital in managing cascading threats for organizations aiming to reinforce their long-term resilience and for governments looking at external factors threatening their own interests,’ the report concludes.
