The report on the survey\u2019s results said that \u201cenvironmental concerns, especially in the short term, are slipping down the ranking of leading risks for the first time in many years\u201d.<\/p>\n
After months of announcements on new US tariffs and sanctions under President Donald Trump, \u201cgeoeconomic confrontation\u201d shot from third to first on the list of concerns, leapfrogging \u201cextreme weather events\u201d. This year\u2019s survey found respondents generally more worried about the state of the world than last year.<\/p>\n
Commenting on the report, climate scientist Johan Rockstr\u00f6m, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), told Climate Home News \u201cpriorities shift but it doesn\u2019t mean that they\u2019re not interconnected\u201d. He said recent trends like a retreat from multilateralism and the rise of misinformation interact with the climate crisis, as do the solutions to these problems.<\/p>\n
He noted, for example, that a healthier online environment for public debate and less polarisation helps efforts to tackle climate change. \u201cAiming to reduce inequality also means providing energy in the cheapest way possible \u2013 and that\u2019s with renewables. Governing well in a time of risk means you need to be able to be clear-eyed about what choices are going to bring about the most benefits,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Looking further ahead, survey respondents still put environmental concerns at the top of their list of longer-term concerns. Over the next ten years, their top concerns were extreme weather followed by biodiversity loss and critical changes to Earth systems.<\/p>\n
Report author Saadia Zahidi told a press conference it is \u201cvery concerning that if we do lose the focus on [climate change and biodiversity loss] in the short term, we\u2019re not going to be ready to adapt and mitigate 10 years out. So while it does show up in the longer-term rankings higher, it actually is a here-and-now risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Scientists announced this week that the last three years have been the warmest on record<\/a> and, in 2025, the head of the United Nations accepted<\/a> that exceeding the goal of limiting global warming to to 1.5C, set in the Paris Agreement, was inevitable.<\/p>\n Despite rising impacts from climate change, a study by the Media and Climate Change Observatory found<\/a> that media coverage of climate change was far lower in 2025 than previous years, having peaked in 2021-2023.<\/p>\n The WEF\u2019s annual Davos meeting kicks off on Monday, with political opponents of climate action attending in force. The US government will send what WEF organiser B\u00f8rge Brende described as the largest US delegation ever, including President Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.<\/p>\n Brende said he was \u201cpleased to welcome back\u201d Trump after a six-year absence from Davos, adding that there will also be a \u201cvery strong delegation\u201d from Saudi Arabia. Argentina\u2019s President Javier Milei, who has flirted with leaving<\/a> the Paris Agreement, will give a special address.<\/p>\n On the other hand, politicians supportive of climate action including Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva and former US Vice-President Al Gore will speak on panels, as will Rockstr\u00f6m and green Australian businessman Andrew Forrest.<\/p>\n In November, the Financial Times reported<\/a> that, in order to persuade Trump to attend, WEF organisers gave assurances that \u201cwoke\u201d topics like climate change and international development finance would not be too prominent at the forum.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, climate issues remain on the agenda<\/a> although several panels are framed as questions that cast doubt on the clean energy transition such as \u201ccan EVs [electric vehicles] really dominate?\u201d and \u201cunstoppable march of renewables?\u201d.<\/p>\n Last year\u2019s programme featured a \u201croad to COP30\u201d event but there is no COP31-focused event this time. One panel on this year\u2019s agenda will discuss \u201cshould we bet on climate moonshots?\u201d such as nuclear fusion, an unproven clean energy technology<\/a> on which the Trump administration has funded research.<\/p>\n As well as panel events, which are broadcast to the public online, WEF usually organises informal discussions on a range of issues including climate change.<\/p>\n Many of the high-profile participants travel to Davos by private jet, however, drawing acc<\/a>u<\/a>sations<\/a> of hypocrisy from Greenpeace. On Thursday, it released figures showing that private jet flights to the annual WEF meeting tripled between 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s pure hypocrisy that the world\u2019s most powerful and super-rich elite discuss global challenges and progress in Davos, while they literally burn the planet with the emissions of their private jets,\u201d said Greenpeace transport campaigner Herwig Schuster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Environmental issues including climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss have dropped down an international ranking of short-term concerns…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55,26726],"class_list":["post-374183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-world-economic-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Media-coverage-of-climate-change.png\")
\nThe Media and Climate Change Observatory\u2019s tracker of global media coverage (black line) of climate change and global warming over timeTrump takes over<\/p>\n