A new report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) has analysed how can we prepare to face the risks of today and prepare for those of tomorrow. The Joint Research Centre (JRC) analysed 47 risks spanning natural, technological, societal and geopolitical domains. This analysis resulted in a report exploring how current and emerging risks interact with each other to generate compounding effects and cascading impacts.
The report identifies the drivers that are most likely to influence multiple risks: geopolitical instability is the most common one, followed by weak governance, climate change, urbanisation, environmental degradation, and technological development. While the risk landscape in Europe is well documented, there is significant fragmentation across risk definitions and classification, methodologies, and standards, the report finds. These differences create challenges, but also contribute to building a richer and more nuanced overview. The report highlights the need for better interoperability and coordination to capitalise on this diversity of sources. It calls for the development of a comprehensive EU risk assessment framework, capable of accounting for multiple hazards and enabling coordination across sectors and borders with a whole-of-society approach.