Climate change is world’s biggest threat, study says

Global investors view climate change as the biggest threat to the environment, health and business, a study has said.

As investors navigate an “increasingly complex landscape”, digital technologies are the best opportunity to advance humanity, says the Megatrends Study, commissioned by Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Company and Bloomberg Media.

Digital technology and climate change are the two megatrends that will play the “biggest roles in defining our future”, the study said.

More than 1,800 investors, millennials and Generation Z consumers from the UAE, UK, US, China, France and India, were surveyed.

About 52 per cent of respondents from France, 50 per cent from the UK, 41 per cent from the UAE and 39 per cent in India agreed that climate change was the biggest threat. In the US and China, 29 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively, viewed climate change almost on par with demographic change and inequality, the other two megatrends identified in the report.

Some 93 per cent of those polled in the UAE and 92 per cent in India wanted a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Yesterday, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Cop28 President-designate, said the world has a small window of opportunity to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Global policymakers must collectively act now to ensure the energy transition is swift, Dr Al Jaber, who also serves as the UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, said at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue conference.

The UAE is hosting Cop28 this year. The climate summit is expected to bring together 70,000 participants from 198 countries on November 30 at Expo City Dubai.