(Refiles and revised comment of the Managing Director in paragraph 4)

It’s Elisa Martinuzzi

LONDON (Reuters) – War will be the biggest risk in 2025, a World Economic Forum (WEF) study showed on Wednesday, a reminder of the global divide as government and business leaders head to the annual summit in Davos next week.

Nearly one in four of the more than 900 experts surveyed across academia, business and policy-making ranked conflict, including war and terrorism, as the biggest threat to economic growth next year.

Bad weather, no. 1 worry in 2024, it was the second accident.

“Increasing political tensions and the collapse of trust are creating risks around the world,” said WEF Executive Director Mirek Dusek in a statement accompanying the report. “In these difficult and dynamic situations, leaders have a choice: to find ways to strengthen unity and resilience, or to face more and more challenges.”

WEF starts on Jan. 20 and Donald Trump, who will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, will speak at the conference on Jan. 23. President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskiy will attend the meeting and speak on Jan. 21, according to the WEF organizers.

Trump’s advisers agree that the conflict in Ukraine will take months or more to end, Reuters reported on Wednesday, a real check on his promise to negotiate a peace deal on his first day in the White House.

Among other world leaders expected to attend the Davos summit are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang.

Syria, the “humanitarian threat in Gaza” and the escalation of conflict in the Middle East will be the focus of the meeting, according to WEF President and CEO Borge Brende.

Negotiators were finalizing the final terms of the ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday, following marathon talks in Qatar. The risk of disinformation and disinformation was the biggest threat in the world in the next two years, according to the study, which was also in 2024.

Over the past 10 years natural hazards have increased the concern of experts, the study showed. Extreme weather has been the world’s biggest threat for a long time, followed by biodiversity loss, major changes in global systems and depletion of natural resources.

Global temperatures last year exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels for the first time, bringing the world closer to breaking the pledges governments made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

A global risk is defined by this study as a situation that could damage a large part of the world’s GDP, population or natural resources. Experts were interviewed in September and October.

The majority of respondents, 64%, expect the global system of fragmentation to continue.