World Economic Forum: migration crisis, climate top of 2016 risks

Ahead of its annual meeting in Davos next week, the World Economic Forum has listed the top global risks for 2016, ranking the migrant crisis as the largest single risk in terms of likelihood, while climate change is seen as having the greatest potential impact. Around 60 million have so far been displaced by conflicts in South Sudan and Syria, thereby pushing the refugee flows to record levels that are 50% higher than during the Second World War. The Davos meeting from January 20-23, will bring together people from geopolitical hot spots, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, as well as the the largest ever US delegation. North Korea's invitation has been revoked following the recent nuclear test. 

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Large-scale involuntary migration is the most likely and serious problem facing the world in the next year and a half, according to a flagship annual report from the World Economic Forum (WEF.) "The key findings, I'd say this, year, are that it is a riskier environment and sources of instability are broadening to include geopolitical frictions, societal risks like the refugee crisis, weather, cyber — they are all out there," John Drzik, the president of global risks and specialties at Marsh, which collaborated on the report, told CNBC. Other top risks included interstate conflict, extreme weather, failure to mitigate or adapt to climate change, weapons of mass destruction and a severe energy price shock, the foundation reported on Thursday. Its annual report was based on a survey of more than 13,000 executives in 140 countries, across business, academia, civil society and the public sector.



A Syrian refugee cries while disembarking from a flooded raft at a beach on the Greek island of Lesbos. Yannis Behrakis | Reuters

Flows of refugees across the world reached unprecedented numbers last year, having rapidly increased in both 2014 and 2015 due to prolonged crises in Syria and Iraq in the Middle East and Nigeria, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. More than 4.6 million refugees from Syria alone were registered by the United Nations in 2015, the majority of them in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.

Corporate leaders as well as politicians needed to work to help lessen the impact of the situation, Drzik told CNBC.

"It is a concern for the business community too, because if you think about migration potentially having an impact on political fragmentation in Europe and that spilling over into challenges for the economic sphere; if there is less migration of capital across boundaries, people across boundaries; that's not good for business and so I think business should be working together with governments to try and create a more fluid environment and address the migration challenge head on," he said.

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