View of the bed of Jacarei river dam, in Piracaia, during a drought affecting Sao Paulo state, Brazil. Climate change mitigation beat out water shortage risks as the top global threat, according to a new report. (NELSON ALMEIDA/AFP/Getty Images)

A survey from the World Economic Forum recently named a failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation as the most-pertinent global threat. Environmental concerns beat out the water crisis, weapons of mass destruction and more in the report, titled.

The interconnectedness between the climate and other global problems — including violence, migration, security, disease and food and water shortages — spurred the issue to the top of the list. Political instability in parts of the world, including Syria, has been linked to climatic factors though experts point out there's a link, not a cause-and-effect relationship. (Watch New York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedmandiscuss the association between the two .)

Cecilia Reyes, of the Zurich Insurance Group that helped create the report, said in a press conference, “Climate change is exacerbating more risks than ever before in terms of water crises, food shortages, constrained economic growth, weaker societal cohesion and increased security risks,” The Guardian reported. “Meanwhile, geopolitical instability is exposing businesses to canceled projects, revoked licenses, interrupted production, damaged assets and restricted movement of funds across borders. These political conflicts are in turn making the challenge of climate change all the more insurmountable — reducing the potential for political cooperation, as well as diverting resource, innovation and time away from climate change resilience and prevention.”

Peter Gleick, Ph.D., the founder and president of global water think tank The Pacific Institute, and a scientist who has studied climate change and security issues, told weather.com that the connection between climate change and other risks is key. (Gleick was not involved with the new report.)

“If we do address both climate change mitigation and adaptation, we're also addressing a lot of the other risks, and in that sense, there are multiple advantages of tackling the climate problem,” he said.

Gleick noted the report's distinction between short and long-term risks; the paper reviewed threats over both the next 18 months and 10 years into the future.

“Climate change is a long-term risk with a growing number of short-term impacts.” he said. “We are seeing, more and more, the effects of climate change on things we care about: extreme weather events, for example. In the long run as climate change gets worse, these influences will grow: impacts on water, refugees; impacts on food, impacts of storm frequency and intensity. I think that justifies putting climate change up there at the top [of the report].”

The World Economic Forum will discuss the report further at the organization's annual meeting, Jan. 20 to 23 in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.

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