Gabriel Recchia and Haydn Belfield wrote a Conversation piece based on our recent report Global Catastrophic Risks Policy 1 - Understand.
"There’s little that the left and the right agree on these days. But surely one thing is beyond question: that national governments must protect citizens from the gravest threats and risks they face. Although our government, wherever we are in the world, may not be able to save everyone from a pandemic or protect people and infrastructure from a devastating cyberattack, surely they have thought through these risks in advance and have well-funded, adequately practiced plans?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is an emphatic no.
Not all policy areas are subject to this challenge. National defence establishments, for example, often have the frameworks and processes that facilitate policy decisions for extreme risks. But more often than not, and on more issues than not, governments fail to imagine how worst-case scenarios can come about – much less plan for them. Governments have never been able to divert significant attention from the here and happening to the future and uncertain.
A recent report published by Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk argues that this needs to change. If even only one catastrophic risk manifests – whether through nature, accident or intention – it would harm human security, prosperity and potential on a scale never before seen in human history. There are concrete steps governments can take to address this, but they are currently being neglected.
The risks that we face today are many and varied. They include:
- Tipping points in the environmental system due to climate change or mass biodiversity loss.
- Malicious, or accidentally harmful, use of artificial intelligence.
- Malicious use of, or unintended consequences from, advanced biotechnologies.
- A natural or engineered global pandemic.
- Intentional, miscalculated, or accidental use of nuclear weapons.
Each of these global catastrophic risks could cause unprecedented harm. A pandemic, for example, could speed around our hyper-connected world, threatening hundreds of millions – potentially billions – of people. In this globalised world of just-in-time delivery and global supply chains, we are more vulnerable to disruption than ever before. And the secondary effects of instability, mass migration and unrest may be comparably destructive. If any of these events occurred, we would pass on a diminished, fearful and wounded world to our descendants.
So how did we come to be so woefully unprepared, and what, if anything, can our governments do to make us safer?"
