Lack of global cooperation is the biggest barrier to preventing climate change, report finds

The biggest hindrance to addressing environmental issues comes from the very people with the power to tackle them.

In the World Economic Forum's annual risk report, climate-related risks were at the top of around 1,000 experts' and decision-makers' concerns, The Guardian reports. But the report states international cooperation on major issues has reached "crisis levels," thus limiting any chance at international action on climate change, CNBC reports.

"Global risks are intensifying but the collective will to tackle them appears to be lacking. Instead, divisions are hardening," the report said, per The Guardian.

President Trump announced in 2017 that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change in accordance with his "America First" strategy. He has since cancelled former President Barack Obama's Clean Power Plan and adopted his own policy that could increase carbon dioxide emissions by 8.7 percent compared with ignoring the issue altogether.

The report noted a shift in state-centered politics throughout 2018 as a contributing factor to lessening global cooperation. The Guardian reports that the global economy slowed in the second-half of 2018, and that the WEF report showed 88 percent of respondents anticipating a continued erosion of multilateral trading rules and agreements.