The Global Risks Report 2025: fractured global landscape

GRPS, which reveal a bleak outlook across all three time horizons – current, short-term and long-term. A majority of respondents (52%) anticipate an unsettled global outlook over the short term (next two years), a similar proportion to last year (Figure A). Another 31% expect turbulence and 5% a stormy outlook.

Adding together these three categories of responses shows a combined four percentage point increase from last year, indicating a heightened pessimistic outlook for the world to 2027. Compared to this two-year outlook, the landscape deteriorates over the 10-year timeframe, with 62% of respondents expecting stormy or turbulent times. This long-term outlook has remained similar to the survey results last year, in terms of its level of negativity, reflecting respondent skepticism that current societal mechanisms and governing institutions are capable of navigating and mending the fragility generated by the risks we face today.

Comparing this year’s findings for the world in 2025 with the two-year risk outlook provided by the GRPS two years ago shows how far perceptions have darkened when it comes to conflict. State-based armed conflict, now ranked as the #1 current risk by 23% of respondents, was overlooked as a leading two-year risk two years ago.