By deliberately ignoring risk, the world is bankrolling its own destruction

It is often said that a pessimistic person is an optimistic but well-informed person. Here, a good number of people may believe that human wit and inventiveness are capable of facing both the current and the looming disasters, like the impact of climate change, for instance.

Others, instead, may think that such human ingenuity will once more address the symptoms rather than the causes provoking them. Thus, they would be right to want to be informed and aware of the root causes of such disasters in order to push for eradicating them.

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The risks of optimism and underestimation

Its Global Assessment Report specifically blames these disasters on “a broken perception of risk based on optimism, underestimation and invincibility,” which leads to policy, finance and development decisions that exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and put people in danger.

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Reforming national budgets

A growing area of risk is around more extreme weather events as a result of climate change, recalls the group of experts from around the world who drafted the report as a reflection of the various areas of expertise required to understand and reduce complex risks.

In it, they called for reforming national budget planning to consider risk and uncertainty, while also reconfiguring legal and financial systems to incentivise risk reduction.

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And one million of the world’s estimated 8 million species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction, while many of the ecosystem services essential for human well-being are eroding.

Also, how do you understand that nearly 1 billion people worldwide live in extreme poverty and are disproportionately affected by stoppable and preventable land degradation, which threatens their shelter, food, water and income?