Where we are particularly lacking as a global community is in understanding of how global risks are now colliding and reinforcing each other.
We have seen myriad global catastrophic risks intersect and reinforce one another at an unprecedented rate over the past 12 months. This ongoing collision of global risks has led to unwelcome new terms entering in our vocabulary, including ‘polycrisis’ and ‘multicrisis.’
As we face the vast challenge of simultaneously tackling ecological collapse, catastrophic biodiversity loss and accelerating climate breakdown we must recognise a stark truth – our existing global cooperation structures are outdated, inadequate, and simply not good enough to deal with this complex web of interlocking global risks.
Overhauling these systems is by no means an easy task - if it were, we would already have seen changes in the way we tackle global threats - but it is a vital step in protecting our future from catastrophic risks.
Risk
As the dust settles on the United Nations General Assembly and the COP27 climate talks, and the COP15 biodiversity summit in Canada, we have seen little in the way of global, collaborative action to reduce, mitigate and prepare for climate-related threats.
We need to build new forms of global governance, firmly rooted in equity and rule of law to carry us through the crisis ahead.
This starts with making sure we have the right knowledge. Only with an understanding of each of today’s global risks and how they interact can we move forward to rewire how we tackle them.
The analysis from experts shared in this year’s Global Catastrophic Risk Report from the Global Challenges Foundation provides an overview of where things currently stand.
Whether it’s climate change, environmental breakdown, nuclear conflict, pandemics or artificial intelligence, there’s a consistent lack of joined-up thinking in our siloed, multitrack approach with its different communities, bodies and treaties to manage each risk.
Consortium
This has become evident as the green agenda continues to be shelved and deprioritised in the face of the global energy crisis.
When it comes to preventing catastrophic climate change, there are already solutions being debated which, while involving a shift in thinking around global governance, are rooted in equity.
One key step is establishing a carbon tax – administered at both global and national levels – with the proceeds going to the communities who are already most affected by rising global temperatures.
Where we are particularly lacking as a global community is in understanding of how global risks are now colliding and reinforcing each other.
Where we are particularly lacking as a global community is in understanding of how global risks are now colliding and reinforcing each other.
A worldwide scientific collaboration, a global consortium of nationally funded institutes, is a proposal that should be pursued, with the goal of determining practical ways humanity might intervene.
Greenwashing
We are not, however, starting from nothing – there are several important proposals in the United Nations Secretary-General’s 2021 report, Our Common Agenda, to improve the mechanics of global governance that could be immediately fast tracked.
These include an emergency plattform, an envoy for the future and the UN’s Trusteeship Council as multi-stakeholder bodies to tackle emerging challenges and to act to preserve our global commons.
It is clear that only with new kinds of global cooperation can we deal with this complex web of interlocking and reinforcing global risks to ensure a habitable, safe and peaceful future.
None of these risks respect national borders – global collaboration to review solutions from a multi-national, multi-risk perspective is the only way forward.
This is the kind of collaboration we hoped for at the COP27 climate talks – instead, we saw flimsy net zero goals, greenwashing and a failure to drive the action required to stick to the Paris Agreement targets.
Crisis-hopping
Worryingly, at this global summit to tackle climate breakdown, the fossil fuel contingent, totalling 636 people, outnumbered any national delegation other than the UAE, 70 of whom were connected to fossil fuel extraction.
The COP15 biodiversity summit took place in Montreal, Canada, nearly two years later than originally scheduled due to the pandemic – even as we face yet another crucial moment for the future of the planet.
The decisions made at COP15 may be our last chance to conserve the natural world and our existence as we know it in the face of a massive extinction event.
Five of the nine interconnected planetary boundaries that underpin the stability of global ecosystems, allowing human civilisation to thrive, are estimated to have been exceeded.
Tackling ecological collapse and climate breakdown should be top of the world’s ‘to do’ list in 2023. But to do this effectively, we’ll need new kinds of cooperation capable of dealing with the complexities at the intersections. ‘Crisis-hopping’ is no response to a set of existential risks that threaten the future of people and planet.
This Author
Jens Orback is the executive director of the Global Challenges Foundation.
