A series of crises has put the global economy in danger.
It faces “perhaps its biggest test since the Second World War,” International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said in a statement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
"We face a potential confluence of calamities," Georgieva said, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as having exacerbated the fall-out from the COVID-19 pandemic and contributing to inflation, notably the rising prices of food and fuel.
Additional economic stress factors include rising interest rates, stock market volatility, and enduring supply chain disruptions, not to mention climate change.
At the forum, the head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) urged countries to make climate-saving investment choices in response to the fossil fuel shortages that have resulted from Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
“Some people may well use Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an excuse for . . . a new wave of fossil fuel investments,” IEA Chief Fatih Birol said during a discussion in Davos. “It will forever close the door to reaching our climate targets.”
Compounding the range of pressures on the global economy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported a decrease of 0.1% in the combined GDP of the G7 countries during the first quarter of the year, compared with the previous three-month period.
"We cannot solve the problems if we focus on only one of the problems," said Robert Habeck, Germany’s Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. "If none of these problems are solved, I fear, we will see a global recession — with huge implications, not only for the climate, for climate protection, but for global stability."
