The phrase 'challenge facing humankind' is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in any situation where you need to refer to the difficulties and obstacles that face humanity as a whole. For example, you might say: "Climate change is the greatest challenge facing humankind today."
Climate change is the Everest of all problems, the thorniest challenge facing humankind.
After 18 months work, the chairman of the IPCC working group looking at the impacts of climate change wrote the issue was "potentially the greatest global environmental challenge facing humankind".
Today, we need a global Apollo programme to tackle climate change, but this time the money needs to be international," to fight "the greatest material challenge facing humankind".
Today, we need a global Apollo programme to tackle climate change, but this time the money needs to be international," to fight "the greatest material challenge facing humankind". The report comes less than six months before world leaders gather in Paris to strike a make-or-break deal to rein in carbon emissions responsible for the warming of our planet.
Recognising global warming as "one of the most serious and complex challenges facing humankind," this year's WEF meeting devoted 23 sessions to climate change.
They might also ask why, in the face of all the challenges facing humankind, not least in Africa, primates spent five days obsessing about their attitude to gay sex.
Developing policies, strategies, and technologies to improve the health and the well-being of current citizens, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, is among the greatest challenges facing humankind today.
But there is another form of celebration planned, and its sponsors believe it says something about the national character: a three-day conference of some of the best minds from around the world on some of the biggest challenges facing humankind — and especially the Jews — in the coming decades.
