The sobering Global Risks Report 2012 was just released in advance of the World Economic Forum taking place later this month in Davos, Switzerland – an annual gathering of some of the top leaders in business, economics and politics.

The report is based on a survey of 469 experts from industry, government, academia, and civil society that examines 50 global risks across five categories – economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological. These categories will impact much of the global agenda for the next decade

Income inequality is listed as the biggest global risk. Thanks to the efforts of the Occupy Movement, the report cites how the poorest half of the global population owns barely 1% of the global wealth, while the world’s top 1% owns close to half of the world’s assets.

Rising greenhouse gas emissions, global governance failure, unsustainable population growth, and critical systems failure round out the risks.

The experts identified unsustainable population growth to be what they call the “Center of Gravity” in the societal risk category, meaning it is interconnected with risks from all five categories and is a key component of the water and food shortage crises, mismanaged urbanization, and unmanaged migration, amongst other problems.