Signal WEF ranks extreme weather as the top ten-year global risk and UNDRR projects 40 percent more extreme events by 2030

Summary

The extreme-weather overview reports that the World Economic Forum in 2024 assessed extreme weather as the most severe global risk likely over the next ten years. It also cites a projection that the number of extreme weather events will rise from about 400 a year in 2015 to around 560 a year in 2030, an increase of 40 percent. The survey places these figures alongside record temperatures being broken each year and a rising count of heatwaves, droughts and hurricanes. It stresses that such events cause severe human and economic losses that spread into neighbouring regions. The projections frame extreme weather as a structural, growing hazard rather than a series of isolated shocks.