Credit: Professor Ed Hawkins (University of Reading) — https://showyourstripes.info (CC BY 4.0)
In mid-January 2026, global leaders, investors, and policymakers gathered in Davos under the banner of dialogue and cooperation. Yet as the discussions unfold, a familiar pattern re-emerges.
According to the WEF Global Risks Report 2026, released just before the WEF meeting on 14 January 2026, short-term geopolitical and geoeconomic pressures dominate the agenda. State-based conflict, trade fragmentation, energy security, and strategic competition top the list of perceived immediate risks. Climate change and nature loss are, once again, primarily categorised as long-term risks - acknowledged, but deferred.
This hierarchy of priorities matters. When urgent issues arise, what is framed as “long term” tends to fall off the agenda. Yet, the physical reality of climate change continues to move in the opposite direction – becoming more pressing not less.
Source: World Economic Forum, Global Risks Perception Survey 2025–2026
The climate stripes: a visual record of choices and consequences
Just days before Davos, the global climate stripes were updated. Another year passed – another dark red stripe added. Although 2025 was marginally cooler than some recent record-breaking years, it offers no sign of recovery. The broader pattern is unmistakable: the past 11 years have all been the warmest ever recorded.
The climate stripes condense complex datasets into a single, powerful visual language. Each stripe represents the global average temperature for one year relative to a historical baseline. Blue once dominated the timeline. Today, deep red defines the present.
This is not a projection. It is a historical record.
Dark red is not a warning of what might happen. It is evidence of what has already been set in motion through decades of delayed action. The stripes show that climate change is no longer a future scenario – it is a current reality.
When “long-term” risks arrive early
Looking back at two decades of Global Risks Reports alongside the climate stripes reveals an alarming pattern: risks labelled as long term rarely stay that way. Climate change and biodiversity loss do not replace economic or geopolitical shocks; they amplify them.
They accelerate resource scarcity. They reprice assets. They degrade ecosystems and threaten food and water security. They transform volatility into systemic stress.
Yet when immediate crises dominate attention, environmental risks tend to slide out of the core conversation – not because their impact weakens, but because political and economic systems struggle to address multiple time horizons at once.
At the centre of this dynamic lies inequality. It deepens polarisation, fuels political instability and erodes public support for climate and environmental action. Inequality does not sit alongside other global risks; it connects and magnifies them.
Source: World Economic Forum, Global Risks Perception Survey 2025–2026
What the WEF Global Risks Report shows - and what it misses
The Global Risks Report 2026 ranks global risks across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons based on surveys of policymakers, business leaders, and experts.
Key signals from this year’s report:
Short-term focus (0–2 years):
Geoeconomic confrontation, state-based conflict, trade disruption, and energy security dominate the perceived immediate risks.Long-term risks (10+ years):
Climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem collapse remain consistently ranked among the most severe threats but are positioned further out in time.A recurring pattern:
Over the past 20 years, risks initially labelled as “long term” have repeatedly materialised earlier than expected, often interacting with economic and geopolitical shocks instead of replacing them.
What the rankings tend to overlook is interaction. Climate change and biodiversity loss are not isolated risk categories. They act as risk multipliers, intensifying instability across food systems, supply chains, asset values, and social cohesion.
For investors, this framing gap matters. Treating environmental and social risks as distant can delay action – even as their impacts are already reshaping markets today.
Source: World Economic Forum, Global Risks Perception Survey 2025–2026
What this means for capital
For investors, the implications are clear. Treat climate, nature and equality as “long term,” and risk is systematically mispriced in the present. The climate stripes reveal what many financial models still disregard: every fraction of a degree matters, and every year without action embeds deeper, irreversible risk into the system.
At VP Capital, we believe capital must act in the present, not wait for future reassessment. That conviction is reflected in our portfolio: 93.4% of our direct participations and listed investments are aligned with science-based targets, and we invest in net-zero solutions that drive systemic, regenerative change across climate, biodiversity, and social equality.
We are not standing next to the timeline, observing it. We are shaping it – investment by investment. The climate stripe does not end in 2025. It continues forward, defined by the decisions we make today.
The dark red stripe is not a symbol of inevitability. It is a signal – and a responsibility – to act now, not later.
