Societal and environmental risks are expected to be the most concerning global challenges over the next five years, but in the longer 10-year horizon, environmental risks comprise the three most critical long-term threats to the world, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report released Tuesday.

Respondents to the 17th edition of the Global Risks Perception Survey and the report said “climate action failure,” “extreme weather events” and “biodiversity loss” rank as the top three most severe risks over the next 10 years, with “debt crises” and “geoeconomic confrontation” rounding out the top five.

The WEF also said in a statement with the report that it expects the global economic recovery to be volatile and uneven over the next three years.

“Health and economic disruptions are compounding social cleavages .. creating tensions at a time when collaboration within societies and among the international community will be fundamental to ensure a more even and rapid global recovery,” Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the WEF, said in the statement.

The past two years have seen a rise in  “social cohesion erosion,” “livelihood crises” and “mental health deterioration,” which have worsened since the pandemic began, the report states.

Only 16% of respondents feel positive and optimistic about the outlook for the world, and just 11% believe the global recovery will accelerate, with most respondents saying the next three years could be hit by either consistent volatility and multiple surprises or fractured trajectories that will separate relative winners and losers.

Technology is also seen as posing potential challenges against the backdrop of the work-from-home migration. Survey respondents listed risks such as “digital inequality” and “cybersecurity failure” as critical short- and medium-term threats to the world. That these risks fell back in the rankings for the long term and none appear among the most potentially severe, signals “a possible blind spot in risk perceptions,” according to the report.

“As companies recover from the pandemic, they are rightly sharpening their focus on organizational resilience and environmental, social and governance credentials. With cyber threats now growing faster than our ability to eradicate them permanently, it is clear that neither resilience nor governance are possible without credible and sophisticated cyber risk management plans,” Carolina Klint, risk management leader, Continental Europe, for Marsh LLC, said in the statement with the report.