The existential space of climate change and systemic risks

Biosecurity and biodefence (i.e. all countermeasures preventing the spread of a biological agent in the environment and population) are on the routine agenda of states and their militaries. Somewhat on the sidelines are the Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBRs), which can destroy the human community as a biological species. Although a precise definition of what constitutes a Global Catastrophic Biological Risk is still being sought, it can be said to be the impact of potential Global Catastrophic Risks (GCRs) on the social, economic, and biological fabric of human existence. It follows that GCBRs are a subset of GCRs. It is also open to debate whether, in the case of GCBRs, the risk must necessarily be biological agents, from viruses to humans, or whether anthropogenic threats can also be accepted as risk agents, or what the impact must be for the risk to be included under the GCBR label.

By existential risk the Oxford philosopher Toby Ord means the “permanent destruction of human potential.” Actual human extinction is existential, but so would be the irreversible collapse of civilization. In the latter category, for example, catastrophic climate change through a runaway greenhouse effect could yield such a future, with human population reduced to a remnant left clinging to life; a world-wide totalitarian regime, self-perpetuating through “technologically enabled indoctrination, surveillance, and enforcement,” would also count. In this book, Ord lays out the range of existential threats, both familiar and novel, and offers a well-documented and (where documents fail) well-reasoned assessment of their various likelihoods. His bottom line: “Given everything I know, I put the existential risk this century at around one in six: Russian roulette” (p. 30). Alarming enough, and if continued, as he says, an unsustainable level of risk, “unlikely to last more than a small number of centuries.” For humans to survive over the longer term it will have to be greatly lowered. The period we are living in now, with humanity at high risk of destroying itself, Ord calls the Precipice. Others have trod this ground. John Leslie's The End of the World: The Science and Ethics of Human Extinction (1996)—reviewed in PDR 23 no. 4—was an early entrant in the genre. Leslie's treatment, more casual than Ord's, arrived at a roughly 70 percent overall chance of avoiding extinction over the next five centuries, somewhat higher than Ord but in the same ballpark. In Ord's enumeration, anthropogenic risks are the main threat to survival, vastly exceeding natural risks. The largest natural existential risk is eruption of a supervolcano like the ones that created the Yellowstone caldera in Wyoming and Lake Toba in Sumatra, which is put at a one in 10,000 chance over the next century. (Existential risk from an asteroid collision is far smaller.) In contrast, anthropogenic risks are one or even two orders of magnitude greater. An existential catastrophe this century through nuclear war or from climate change are both assessed at one in 1,000; from a human-engineered pandemic, one in 30. Without the condition of irreversibility, of course, these risks would be much greater. Most threatening of all in Ord's account, though also the most speculative, is the possible malign consequence of the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI) to a degree that exceeds human levels, a prospect the “expert community” on average evidently considers achievable, more likely than not by the end of the century. An AGI system “optimized toward inhuman values,” could arrogate an ever-increasing share of power, with humanity, in effect, ceding its control. We may then face “a deeply flawed or dystopian future locked in forever.” The judged risk for the century: one in ten. The risk assessment exercise points to where remedial efforts need to be directed, and to their urgency. The agenda is straightforward, calling for improvements in international coordination on security, devising institutions that take greater account of the interests of future generations, and strengthening the governance of potentially dangerous new technologies. Such efforts are grossly underresourced: “we can state with confidence that humanity spends more on ice cream every year than on ensuring that the technologies we develop do not destroy us” (p. 58). That might seem to wrap up the author's task. But Ord's vision, spelled out in a final chapter, is more expansive. With existential security attained and humanity's potential secured, “we will be past the Precipice, free to contemplate the range of futures that lie open before us… the grand accomplishments our descendants might achieve with eons and galaxies as their canvas” (pp. 190–191). The time horizon is unlimited: mammal species in the fossil record typically last a million years. For us, therefore, “almost all humans who will ever live have yet to be born” (p. 43). (Interestingly, this directly contradicts an argument of Leslie, who applied a version of the so-called anthropic principle—that we today should be seen as temporally average, not exceptionally early, observers among all humans past and future—to conclude that an ultra-long human future is highly improbable.) Ord's future has no place for mundane demography, which might worry about sustainable net reproduction rates, or for regional differentiation, which might bring in geopolitics. Indeed, a radical impartialism prevails: all lives matter, and not just spatially, as in Peter Singer's One World: The Ethics of Globalization (2002) or in Ord's own innovative project on “effective altruism,” but also over time: “people matter equally regardless of their temporal location” (p. 44). Ethical purism accords massive weight to future generations. The book ends with seven meaty appendices, on topics such as the purported inadmissibility of time discounting, past nuclear weapons accidents, and the value of protecting humanity (with existential risk formalized as a hazard rate, r).

Climate change cannot be managed by experts and politicians alone. Consequently, climate ethics must take up the challenge of inviting public responsibility on this issue. New sociological research on climate denial by Kari Norgaard, however, suggests that most citizens of industrialized countries are ill-prepared to cope with the ethical significance of climate change. I draw upon Martin Heidegger to offer a new reading of climate denial that suggests viable responses to this problem. I argue that the implications of climate change are largely received as an ‘existential threat’ to the extent that they endanger the integrity of everyday existence. In other words, the implications of climate change for everyday life unsettle what phenomenologists call the ‘lifeworld’. Should basic lifeworld assumptions, which cultures rely on to makes sense of the world and their purposes in it, come under serious question, anxieties surface that most people are profoundly motivated to avoid. Hence, the ethical obligations entailed by climate change are ‘denied’ in the form of protecting lifeworld integrity for the sake of containing anxieties that would otherwise overwhelm people. Finally, I submit that existential approaches to climate denial can empower a confrontation with ‘climate anxiety’ in ways that open up ethical reflection.

Global sustainability targets: Planetary boundary, global catastrophic risk, and disaster risk reduction considerations

An anthropogenic global catastrophic risk is a human-induced risk that threatens sustained and wide-scale loss of life and damage to civilisation across the globe. In order to understand how new research on governance mechanisms for emerging technologies might assuage such risks, it is important to ask how perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes towards the governance of global catastrophic risk within the research community shape the conduct of potentially risky research. The aim of this study is to deepen our understanding of emerging technology research culture as it relates to global catastrophic risks, and to shed new light on how new research governance mechanisms might be developed. We analyse in-depth interviews with leading AI and biotech researchers both from universities and the private sector. We develop new insights in terms of four salient themes. First, ‘engineering mindset’, which highlights the premium placed by many interviewees on pursuing interesting research about the physical world for its own sake. Second, ‘self-government’, which looks at how self-regulation of technological development currently occurs. Third, ‘pure incentives’, focussing on how career and other incentives shapes research. Fourth, ‘norms and persuasion’, which examines the role of moral considerations in guiding the research choices of scientists. We end by considering the implications of these findings for future research on governance of anthropogenic global catastrophic risk.

Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction I BACKGROUND Long-term astrophysical processes Evolution theory and the future of humanity Millenial tendencies in responses to apocalyptic threats Cognitive biases potentially affecting judgement of global risks Observation selection effects and global catastrophic risks Systems-based risk analysis Catastrophes and insurance Public policy towards catastrophe II RISKS FROM NATURE Super-volcanism and other geophysical processes of catastrophic import Hazards from comets and asteroids Influence of Supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, solar flares, and cosmic rays on the terrestrial environment III RISKS FROM UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Climate change and global risk Plagues and pandemics: past, present, and future Artificial Intelligence as a positive and negative factor in global risk Big troubles, imagined and real IV RISKS FROM HOSTILE ACTS Catastrophe, social collapse, and and human extinction The continuing threat of nuclear war Catastrophic nuclear terrorism: a preventable peril Biotechnology and biosecurity Nanotechnology as global catastrophic risk The totalitarian threat Author's biographies Index

Integrating the planetary boundaries and global catastrophic risk paradigms

Counting carbon costs

Purpose: This study develops a novel methodology for measuring systemic risk through a multidimensional approach, focusing on the impact of exogenous factors. By identifying systemic risk and analysing individual risk factors, we aim to provide a more comprehensive understanding of vulnerabilities in the financial sector. Design/methodology/approach: We use econometric models to assess systemic risk, applying our method to eight systemically important financial institutions in Poland between 2005 and 2023. Our analysis covers various risk factors, including climate risk, stock market fluctuations, and interbank liquidity, enabling both isolated and overall assessment of the impact of exogenous shocks on the system. Findings: Our results show that climate risk is becoming increasingly significant, particularly in light of recent crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We also observe an increase in systemic risk during specific periods (2008-2009 and 2011 2013), with the impact of individual shocks varying. Research limitations/implications: Our results highlight the need for sophisticated, multidimensional analyses of systemic risk to enhance the resilience of financial systems against diverse shocks. Practical implications: This research contributes to the existing literature by offering a universal framework for assessing systemic risk that aggregates multiple exogenous factors, particularly emphasizing the often-overlooked role of climate risk. Social implications: The research provides a framework for identifying systemic risks, including climate-related vulnerabilities, enabling policymakers to enhance the resilience of financial systems and protect societal stability against diverse economic and environmental shocks. Originality/value: Importantly, we are the first to combine transition risk indicated by stranded assets with physical risk, measured by temperature deviations from the multi-year average, in the assessment of Polish systemic climate risk.

Advocating for better data on political states, this chapter tracks the creation of The Mortality of States (MOROS) dataset, a developmental methodology used to measure the longevity of states. The authors argue that in order to better understand global risk and catastrophe, we must accumulate more knowledge on the lifespans of states, and MOROS is an aid in enhancing what we know about the role of states in GCR production and mitigation. Currently synthesised from a range of verified primary data sources, the authors endeavour to pair MOROS with expert elicitation and a literature review to expand and improve the database, adding details concerning the consequences and reasons for state collapse, so by extension, we can be able to further our knowledge on global catastrophe.

Cities are at the forefront of the battle against climate change. We are the source of approximately 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions. And as the climate changes, densely populated urban areas—particularly coastal cities—–will disproportionately feel the impacts. Those of us in local government recognize the importance of national and international leadership on climate change. But we are not waiting for others to act first. Under PlaNYC, New York City's comprehensive sustainability plan, most of our efforts have focused on reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. Initiatives including the Greener, Greater Buildings Plan, which will increase energy efficiency of existing buildings, and retrofitting ferries to use cleaner fuel, will help us meet our goal of reducing the city's emissions by 30% by 2030. These actions alone, however, will not stop climate change. We already face climate risks today, including heat waves, blackouts, flooding, and coastal storms. With climate change these risks will only increase. To ensure that New York City is resilient to existing and future climate risks, we must take further action. Through a generous contribution from the Rockefeller Foundation, I convened the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), which gathered the leading climate change scientists, academics, and insurance, risk management and legal experts. These experts helped develop a framework and tools to assist the City create a risk-based response to climate change that is grounded in state-of-the-art science information. In February 2009, the NPCC released the most detailed climate risk information for any major city in the world; this volume of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences presents the NPCC's full findings. The NPCC climate change projections put numbers to what we already know: climate change is real and could have serious consequences for New York if we do not take action. I appreciate the hard work of the members of the New York City Panel on Climate Change. Through PlaNYC, the City will build on their work as we craft strategies to improve the city's resilience to climate. Building climate resilience can take many forms, including increasing our understanding of climate risks and vulnerabilities, hardening facilities and assets to prevent impacts, educating vulnerable populations about risks, and ensuring that we can quickly resume operations after weather events occur. In the coming months, the New York City Climate Change Adaptation Task Force, another PlaNYC initiative, will release a plan detailing how Task Force members will prepare the city's critical infrastructure for warmer temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and rising sea levels. Planning for climate change today is less expensive than rebuilding an entire network after a catastrophe. We simply can't wait to plan for the effects of climate change. The NPCC and Rockefeller Foundation's contributions to the City's climate resilience efforts will help ensure that we create a greener, greater New York for future generations. In 2008, Mayor Bloomberg established the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC), with the mandate to provide New York City with the most up-to-date and comprehensive scientific, technical, and socioeconomic information about climate change and its impacts on the city and environs. Climate Change Adaptation in New York City: Building a Risk Management Response is the first report of the NPCC. The report will help New York City develop, adopt, and implement policies to adapt the city's critical infrastructure to the changing climate. This NPCC report outlines a powerful and novel framework for deploying sophisticated tools of risk management to address the city's climate adaptation challenges, and details with rigor and insight the critical challenges that climate change poses to New York City's energy, transportation, water, and communications systems. The report also presents a coordinated set of climate projections prepared by the NPCC to be used by the many public agencies and private-sector organizations that manage critical infrastructure in the region as they develop adaptation strategies, and it describes how legal and regulatory tools can support adaptation policies. The challenges facing the insurance industry and the use of insurance to reduce climate risks are also described at length. A final section sets forth the indicators and monitoring activities needed to inform Flexible Adaptation Pathways as the City and region move forward. The NPCC report is the product of the committed scientists and experts in the New York City region who served as authors, led by Co-chairs Cynthia Rosenzweig and William Solecki. The dedicated Science and Policy Team at the Columbia Earth Institute and the CUNY Institute for Sustainable Cities organized the process that has resulted in the production of this landmark report. It is becoming recognized throughout the world that cities have a crucial role to play in responding to climate change. The NPCC 2010 Report puts climate change adaptation in New York City in the broader national and international contexts and helps establish New York City as a thought and policy leader in this urgent endeavor. Climate Change Adaptation in New York City will be widely read around the world, both for its specific insights and also as a roadmap for other cities in preparing plans for climate change adaptation. The work of the NPCC is a pioneering activity for which all New Yorkers, and all others around the world who will benefit, should be most grateful. The Rockefeller Foundation also merits our gratitude for the generous support it has provided to this endeavor. Climate change will have a profound impact on New York City and its residents as it alters environmental baselines on which the urban infrastructure was built. Despite this, both the City and its stakeholders have a wide range of tools and resources with which to respond to the problem. Key insights in the following report derive from the highly integrated connections between science and public policy as they relate to climate change. The New York City Panel on Climate Change, for example, comprises a number of scientists and other technical experts capable of considering the issues at hand with a view to understanding the potential impacts of climate change and options for adaptation. The City University of New York is well placed to contribute to the multifaceted complex questions of climate change and how the city will be affected. This requires a multidisciplinary approach that can draw from the deep resources of the colleges that make up our institution. In addition, the New York City Panel on Climate Change had ongoing, continuous, and fruitful communication with the Mayor's Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability, and the New York City Climate Change Adaptation Task Force. The collaborations brought forward in this document embody the culmination of a first step in a science–policy linkage that will be required to effectively address climate change in New York City. In addition, these collaborations show how great universities in a great city can link together to make a positive difference in the lives of its citizens.

The environmental crisis is increasing risks to security and peace worldwide, notably in countries that are already fragile. Indicators of insecurity such as the number of conflicts, the number of hungry people and military expenditure are rising; so are indicators of environmental decline, in climate change, biodiversity, pollution and other areas. In combination, the security and environmental crises are creating compound, cascading, emergent, systemic and existential risks. Without profound changes of approach by institutions of authority, risks will inevitably proliferate quickly. Environment of Peace surveys the evolving risk landscape and documents a number of developments that indicate a pathway to solutions––in international law and policy, in peacekeeping operations and among non-governmental organizations. It finds that two principal avenues need to be developed: (a) combining peace-building and environmental restoration, and (b) effectively addressing the underlying environmental issues. It also analyses the potential of existing and emerging pro-environment measures for exacerbating risks to peace and security. The findings demonstrate that only just and peaceful transitions to more sustainable practices can be effective––and show that these transitions also need to be rapid.

The increasing certainty and impact of Climate Change has been increasingly and intensively communicated throughout the past decade, and is today a central subject of political discussion. Yet, little has happened in actual progress throughout the past 2 decades: emissions have risen; the rise of CO2 levels in the atmosphere as measured by the Keeling curve shows no signs of slowing down. Most international reduction targets set since 1992 have been missed, and the recent fossil fuel shortages in 2022 have shown a very limited willingness of societies to accept changes imposed by external influence and regulations. All this happened despite that climate change communication has been frequent and outspoken: Climate change impacts are already being felt around the world. Increased economic and social damage from weather-related phenomena is regularly communicated through media; End-game consequences of climate change (drowning cities, desertification, massive heat waves) are apocalyptical for some areas, with direct threats to life and well-being; Measures to mitigate climate change are known. Regulatory requirements have been raised, which require countries, companies and individuals to adapt their decisions to the altering framework required for a “carbon-free” future.   This paper reviews the communication of climate change in terms of focus (problem, causes, economic impact, solution proposals, benefits) based on web and literature research. The analysis shows a propensity of communication to be oriented towards technical terms (causes), as well as towards problems (impact and doomsday scenarios), and a lack of orientation towards solutions and benefits. The paper propose a more fruitful path through the employment of more solution oriented communication. The paper also shows that consumers as individuals can have direct influence on the extent of climate change through their consumption and behavioural patterns, and therefore need not to wait for, or be dependent on, political decisions to mitigate the effects of climate change. The paper concludes with some proposals on how to shape future communication on climate change with in the meteorological community and how to address different stakeholder groups.

AAG - Taking Responsibility: AAG Acts on Climate Change - All - The AAG has a long history of engaging in and supporting climate change policy and research. Since climate change is the existential threat and crisis of our age, the need to continue this engagement and reduce our contribution to carbon emissions is clear.

An interdisciplinary review of systemic risk factors leading up to existential risks