1、AXA Future Risks Report Contents 5 Foreword by Thomas Buberl 6 Foreword by Ian Bremmer 8 Executive summary 10 Section 1 COVID-19 reshapes the emerging risk landscape 20 Section 2 Countries ignore climate change at their peril 26 Section 3 Cybersecurity and geopolitical tension remain formidable foes

2、 32 Section 4 Experts now comfortable with tech risk, but new threats emerge 34 Section 5 Mental health and misinformation: candidates for tomorrows top threat 38 About the research 04Foreword by Thomas Buberl, CEO of AXA Foreword 05Foreword As the world faces the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis and i

3、ts consequences, AXAs Future Risks Report, now in its seventh year, has never been more relevant. Measuring and analyzing the perception of emerging risks to anticipate major trends is essential for an insurance company with a long-term focus and is beneficial for society at large. The first lesson

4、we take from this edition is that health is now the top priority. While it is unfortunate that it took such a tragic context for it to reach number one in our ranking, we find the increased awareness of health risks encouraging when compared with previous years. AXA has long been convinced that heal

5、th is one of the most important challenges of our time and is committed to protecting people and societies from the associated risks. The second lesson of this report is the decreased perceived risk of climate change. While it remains the highest priority for our European respondents, we note that c

6、limate change has dropped to second place overall. Given the context, this may not seem unusual, but the drop in absolute terms is concerning, especially among our American and Asian respondents, as we believe that shorter-term issues around the pandemic should not completely overshadow longer-term

7、threats. I am convinced that we must remain fully committed to doing our part to tackle climate change, and AXA certainly is. Last, this edition reinforced our observation from previous years: risks are increasingly connected and interdependent. The current pandemic exemplifies how they are global,

8、complex, and, therefore, difficult to address. Insurers cannot tackle them alone. This is why AXA was the first insurer to suggest the creation of a pandemic insurance scheme to share the burden between governments and private actors. Our research also shows that 73% of the general public and 83% of

9、 risk experts believe that populations around the world are more vulnerable today than they were five years ago. In an increasingly uncertain world with more complex and connected risks, I believe that insurance can offer protection, expertise, and clarity, thus contributing to individual peace of m

10、ind and collective improvement. This is why at AXA, in line with our purpose, we act for human progress by protecting what matters. .health is now the top priority “ Thomas Buberl by Ian Bremmer, Eurasia Group and GZERO Media President Foreword 06Foreword Im so pleased that Eurasia Group is again co

11、llaborating with AXA on the Future Risks Report, especially as the world grapples with the response to and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. This reportand the collaboration behind itfeels particularly urgent. We need deep, subject-specific expertise to navigate the risks explored in this report.

12、 But thats not enough. We also need to anticipate how governments and other actors will respond to new risks, and we need to understand how the risk landscape is shaped by changes underway in the global economy and its geopolitical foundations. The partnership between Eurasia Group and AXA allows us

13、 to develop that understanding. Public health is, of course, now the top priority for nearly anyone who manages risk. COVID-19 and the economic and social damage it brings have shocked and challenged governments, people, and companies in every corner of the globe. It has required urgent adaptation f

14、rom all of us, from how we live our daily lives to how we interact with others and how we work (and, for many, if and when we work). Ultimately, however, the pandemic will make its deepest mark on the world as the great accelerator of technology, geopolitical, economic, and social trends already in

15、place, but only incrementally emerging, when COVID-19 first hit. Before COVID-19, these trends were visible but looked set to unfold over five to ten years. With COVID-19, these transformationsdigital adoption, remote learning, US-China technology competition, supply chain reordering, and many other

16、sare taking place in a single year. This great acceleration influences all the emerging and present risks identified and explored in this years Future Risks Report. It makes all of them more urgent. As Thomas says, it also makes it more urgent that we work together to overcome the daunting set of ch

17、allenges now facing the world. COVID-19 has required urgent adaptation from all of us, from how we live our daily lives to how we interact with others and how we work. “ Ian Bremmer 07Foreword Technological revolution, climate change, pandemics, and increasing geopolitical instability make it harder

18、 for policymakers, businesses, and individuals to anticipate coming changes, overcome challenges, and grasp opportunities. Therefore, for the seventh consecutive year, AXA sought to highlight experts perceptions of future risks by conducting a structured survey of more than 2,700 risk experts from 5

19、4 countries. In addition, this year, AXA worked with the research specialist Ipsos to gauge the perception of the general public by surveying close to 20,000 people. AXA has also continued its partnership with Eurasia Group for its unique take on geopolitical themes. This edition of AXAs Future Risk

20、s Report was written in unprecedented circumstances. As this report was being written, more than 33 million people worldwide had been infected, and more than one million had died as a result of COVID-19.1 Countries that had initially brought the virus under control were starting to experience a resu

21、rgence in cases. The onset of COVID-19 transformed pandemics and infectious diseasespreviously an important yet perhaps distant and unlikely riskinto an immediate and deadly threat to the entire global population. As a result, surveyed experts today rank pandemics and infectious diseases as the emer

22、ging risk that is the greatest threat to society in the next five to ten years, up from eighth place last year. In parallel, the general public ranks health concerns as the risk to which they feel most vulnerable, alongside computer-related risks. As pandemics and infectious diseases rose up the age

23、nda, climate change slid for the first time since 2015, from the first to the second-most-important emerging risk to society. But more significantly, the breakdown of the survey results by country reveals strong disparities in the perception of climate-related risks. While European experts continue

24、to identify climate risks as the most pressing threat to society, the number of North American- based experts that consider climate change to be a top emerging risk fell to 46%, from 71% last year. In parallel, experts located in Asia are less concerned about the impact of climate change than the gl

25、obal average. The countries that downplay the risk of climate change are among those that contribute most to its acceleration and are most likely to feel its effects. There is, therefore, a real danger that in focusing only on COVID-19, the threat that is right in front of us, other long-term challe

26、nges are overlooked by the general public and decision-makers. Similarly, the survey data also shows that risks related to natural resources are decreasing in importance, even though the biodiversity crisis is accelerating. In many ways, the crisis has been acting as an accelerant of existing or nas

27、cent trends. All of the emerging risks that experts consider most important today have been reshaped or exacerbated by COVID-19. Cybersecurity risk, which experts rank as third-most- important, has intensified as COVID-19-related phishing Executive summary 08 Preparing for the future requires an in-

28、depth assessment of emerging risks Executive summary 1 Worldometer, Coronavirus death toll, 28 September 2020 09Executive summary emails have surged and as employees have been using personal devices for work. Geopolitical instability, which experts rank as fourth-most-important, has heightened as so

29、me governments exert control over medical supplies and protect strategically important businesses. Even social discontent and local conflicts, experts fifth-most- important risk, could surge as COVID-19 exposes and widens economic and social inequality. Thats all before taking into account the devas

30、tating impact of COVID-19 and resulting lockdowns on the economy; experts consider macroeconomic risk to be the seventh-most-important risk to society. In addition to the direct impact of lockdowns on economic activity, theres a danger that the economic fallout will worsen if the pandemic causes pro

31、longed feelings of uncertainty and vulnerability among the general population, which, in turn, leads to less consumption. Our survey already finds evidence of this. Almost three-quarters of the general public say people feel more vulnerable compared with five years ago. These examples illustrate the

32、 growing connectivity of risks, which we presented as one of the main findings of last years report. This interlinking requires a global, interdisciplinary, and multi-stakeholder approach to prevention and protection. In addition to uncovering the emerging risks considered most important today, this

33、 report also identifies the risks that have slipped under the radar. Last year, we highlighted pandemics and infectious diseases as an overlooked risk. This year, we believe mental health and misinformation are important risks that deserve focus and have not yet fully captured the attention of exper

34、ts. This report endeavors to identify which risks matter to experts and the general public. The findings will hopefully stimulate a debate about how they can be mitigated. In doing so, we hope to further our purpose: act for human progress by protecting what matters. We hope you enjoy reading it. Pa

35、ndemics and infectious diseases are the most important risks to society in the next five to ten years, according to our surveyed experts. Last year, they ranked eighth. The number of experts that rank pandemics as a major emerging risk more than doubled, from 23% to 56%. The general public agrees: i

36、n our research, they rank health risks as their top cause of vulnerability, alongside computer-related risks. This is no surprise. When the survey for this report was carried out in July 2020, more than half a million people worldwide had succumbed to COVID-19,2 and many countries were in lockdown.

37、So, unlike some of the other risks discussed in this report, this is a risk that is playing out today in an extreme way. That is why 58% of experts describe this risk as “already there,” and more people say that the risk of pandemics and infectious diseases is already present than they do about any

38、other emerging risk. However, pandemics and infectious diseases are not just the top emerging risk because of the very current and tangible threat to the general populations health. Spiralling public debt, escalating geopolitical tension, growing mental health concerns, and surging inequality are ot

39、her emerging risks that have been triggered or accelerated by COVID-19. In addition, there is a risk that the public authorities focus on addressing COVID-19 might lead to the neglect of other major but less imminent threats. Given the current focus on tackling COVID-19, it is natural that experts p

40、rimary concern when it comes to pandemics and infectious diseases relates to new strains of diseases and that other threats are deprioritized. This is illustrated in our survey data: the proportion of experts who are concerned about antimicrobial resistance and superbugs, for example, has tumbled fr

41、om 29% last year to 9% this year. There may have been a decrease in the perceived severity of antimicrobial resistance, but it still has the potential to create a future health crisis. Global spread of bugs resistance to common antibiotics could dramatically raise the risk level of common healthcare

42、 treatments such as chemotherapy, organ transplants, caesarean sections, and hip replacements. This would not only prolong illness but also significantly increase the cost of healthcare. The impact of these risks may be less sudden than a pandemic, but the long-term effects have the potential to be

43、equally devastating. COVID-19 reshapes the emerging risk landscape 010Section 1: COVID-19 reshapes the emerging risk landscape Pandemics are now the top emerging risk 2 Worldometer, Coronavirus death toll, 24 August 2020 011Section 1: COVID-19 reshapes the emerging risk landscape Fig 2 Q. How vulner

44、able do you feel to the following risks, on a scale of zero to ten? Zero meaning that you do not feel vulnerable at all, and ten that you feel highly vulnerable. Fig 1 Q. Out of these 25 risks, please select the top five emerging risks that may have a significant impact on society at large in the ne

45、xt five to ten years. Pandemics and infectious diseases Climate change Cybersecurity risks Geopolitical instability Social discontent and local conflicts New threats to security Macroeconomic risks Natural resources and biodiversity risks Financial risks Pollution Pandemics and infectious diseases n

46、ow top emerging risk 20202019 56% 23% 54% 67% 51% 56% 38% 42% 33% 28% 30% 17% 24% 16% 22% 27% 21% 15% 20% 23% 10%0%20%30%40%50%60% Health risks Computer-related risks Climate change risks Road risks Financial risks Food risks Natural risks The risk of unemployment The risk of being mugged or robbed

47、The risk of an attack/terrorism The risk of a domestic accident Industrial risks 6.1 6.1 The public feel most vulnerable to health and computer-related risks 1023456 5.9 5.7 5.6 5.4 5.5 5.1 5.1 4.9 4.8 4.3 12Section 1: COVID-19 reshapes the emerging risk landscape Encouragingly, surveyed experts bel

48、ieve that public authorities are more prepared to tackle pandemics and infectious diseases than any other emerging risk. The proportion that believes public authorities are well prepared has increased to 33% from 22% last year. Although there are clear examples of mistakes, most governments around t

49、he world acted decisively to address the impacts of COVID-19. In France, for instance, the “temporary unemployment” scheme, under which the state pays subsidies to businesses to fund the salaries of those prevented from working, was set up to avoid mass bankruptcies and layoffs. At the end of April 2020, close to nine million workers were benefiting from this emergency scheme. Many other countries have introduced similar measures. “Governments reacted really quickly to COVID-19,” says George Stansfield, AXA Deputy Group CEO and G