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  • 2 years ago
Saadia Zahidi, Managing Director of World Economic Forum spoke to CGTN Europe on WEF’s global risks report.

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00:00 Sadiya Sajidi is Managing Director at the World Economic Forum.
00:04 Extreme weather is still the number two concern in the two-year outlook.
00:09 But, and climate risks are still the number one risks ten years out.
00:13 But I think what's happened is there's so many other crises that are rising to the forefront.
00:17 So, misinformation is one.
00:19 Interestingly, the wider adverse effects of artificial intelligence are only at number 29 this year,
00:25 compared to 34 risks, but in the ten-year outlook it rises to, I think, number six in that time frame.
00:32 And that's because misinformation is only one aspect of what could happen around artificial intelligence.
00:39 And people are quite concerned that we're going to be so distracted with the here and now
00:43 that we're not putting enough effort into artificial intelligence governance.
00:47 Most of these programs today, tomorrow and the day after are full with the tragedy of wars in Ukraine, the Middle East and elsewhere.
00:56 I mean, are you surprised that concern over these conflicts and others rank lower down?
01:04 So, I think there's two things. One is geoeconomic confrontation.
01:08 And I think in particular with the slightly more positive signals between the United States and China,
01:13 that's fallen down in the rankings, the concerns around geoeconomic confrontation.
01:19 But when it comes to interstate conflict, that has definitely gone up.
01:22 And that's at number five in the two-year time frame.
01:25 So, there is concern around that kind of conflict.
01:27 And then, of course, it's broader repercussions with all of the borderless headlines that we see
01:32 and in addition what that means for global trade.
01:35 You see, the tragedy about this conversation is we've had years of hand-wringing, alarming reports on climate and wars
01:45 and calls to action on climate change and now AI.
01:51 Nothing changes, does it? I mean, you can drop this report out.
01:54 We'll be sitting here the same time next year discussing the same thing.
01:57 So, I think it's a mix, right? What we're doing here is not making a prediction of the future.
02:02 I think what we're saying here is we absolutely must stay focused on these risks
02:07 and we're getting 1,500 global experts to tell us what do they think is going to be most severe
02:12 and what the likelihood of that is.
02:14 So, that's what we're starting to understand with this picture.
02:16 But I think as we say in several places in the report, this is not a prediction.
02:21 The future is up to us.
02:22 We decide how we handle some of these things and especially when it comes to climate,
02:28 I think the speed of that change, it's very interesting.
02:31 Some of the business-related responses are saying this is a risk but it's a little bit further out.
02:39 Governments, civil society, much more concerned that this is here and now
02:44 and we need to be doing more around climate.
02:46 WF's critics, of course, will point out that an unelected private plane flying elite
02:53 trying to lecture the world not only stinks of rank hypocrisy but is part of the problem here,
02:59 particularly when it comes to the global democratic deficit.
03:03 They've got a point, haven't they?
03:05 I think what we're trying to do is create that stage, that platform,
03:08 where all of these different players can come together.
03:11 And the theme of our meeting next year, or next week rather, is around rebuilding trust
03:16 because there has to be a lot more conversation between different parties
03:21 around how we're going to tackle some of these things.
03:24 There are some long-term intergovernmental political processes where a lot of that happens.
03:28 For example, the meeting that just took place in the UAE around COP,
03:32 that's where governments come together.
03:34 What we then do is mobilize the private sector along with governments
03:37 to be working in coalitions of the willing.
03:39 So whether that's our First Movers Coalition, where businesses are procuring through their supply chains,
03:46 greener technologies, new innovations, or whether that's our initiatives like the reskilling revolution,
03:53 where lots of different governments and businesses come together to provide people
03:57 with better education and better skills and learning.
04:00 So it's about building those coalitions, and we provide the research like this report,
04:04 and then of course providing some of the mechanisms through which these people can collaborate with each other.
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