Literature on GCR
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Apocalypse Now? Initial Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic for the Governance of Existential and Global Catastrophic Risks
journal of international humanitarian legal studies 11 (2020) 295-310 brill.com/ihls Apocalypse Now? Initial Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic for the Governance of Existential and Global Catastrophic Risks Hin-Yan Liu, Kristian Lauta and Matthijs Maas Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Abstract This paper explores the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic through the framework of exis- tential risks – a class of extreme risks that threaten the entire future of humanity. In doing so, we tease out three lessons: (1) possible reasons underlying the limits and shortfalls of international law, international institutions and other actors which Covid-19 has revealed, and what they reveal about the resilience or fragility of institu- tional frameworks in the face of existential risks; (2) using Covid-19 to test and refine our prior ‘Boring Apocalypses’ model for understanding the interplay of hazards, vul- nerabilities and exposures in facilitating a particular disaster, or magnifying its effects; and (3) to extrapolate some possible futures for existential risk scholarship and governance. Keywords Covid-19 – pandemics – existential risks – global catastrophic risks – boring apocalypses 1 Introduction: Our First ‘Brush’ with Existential Risk? All too suddenly, yesterday’s ‘impossibilities’ have turned into today’s ‘condi- tions’. The impossible has already happened, and quickly. The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, both directly and as manifested through the far-reaching global societal responses to it, signal a jarring departure away from even the © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/18781527-01102004Downloaded from Brill.com09/27/2021 12:13:00AM via free access <UN> 296 Liu, Lauta and Maas recent past, and suggest that our futures will be profoundly different in its af- termath. -
Future of Research on Catastrophic and Existential Risk
ORE Open Research Exeter TITLE Working together to face humanity's greatest threats: Introduction to The Future of Research in Catastrophic and Existential Risk AUTHORS Currie, AM; Ó hÉigeartaigh, S JOURNAL Futures DEPOSITED IN ORE 06 February 2019 This version available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/35764 COPYRIGHT AND REUSE Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies. A NOTE ON VERSIONS The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication Working together to face humanity’s greatest threats: Introduction to The Future of Research on Catastrophic and Existential Risk. Adrian Currie & Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh Penultimate Version, forthcoming in Futures Acknowledgements We would like to thank the authors of the papers in the special issue, as well as the referees who provided such constructive and useful feedback. We are grateful to the team at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk who organized the first Cambridge Conference on Catastrophic Risk where many of the papers collected here were originally presented, and whose multi-disciplinary expertise was invaluable for making this special issue a reality. We’d like to thank Emma Bates, Simon Beard and Haydn Belfield for feedback on drafts. Ted Fuller, Futures’ Editor-in-Chief also provided invaluable guidance throughout. The Conference, and a number of the publications in this issue, were made possible through the support of a grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF); the conference was also supported by a supplementary grant from the Future of Life Institute. -
What Lies Beneath 2 FOREWORD
2018 RELEASE THE UNDERSTATEMENT OF EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK BY DAVID SPRATT & IAN DUNLOP | FOREWORD BY HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER BREAKTHROUGHONLINE.ORG.AU Published by Breakthrough, National Centre for Climate Restoration, Melbourne, Australia. First published September 2017. Revised and updated August 2018. CONTENTS FOREWORD 02 INTRODUCTION 04 RISK UNDERSTATEMENT EXCESSIVE CAUTION 08 THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE 09 THE UNDERESTIMATION OF RISK 10 EXISTENTIAL RISK TO HUMAN CIVILISATION 13 PUBLIC SECTOR DUTY OF CARE ON CLIMATE RISK 15 SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTATEMENT CLIMATE MODELS 18 TIPPING POINTS 21 CLIMATE SENSITIVITY 22 CARBON BUDGETS 24 PERMAFROST AND THE CARBON CYCLE 25 ARCTIC SEA ICE 27 POLAR ICE-MASS LOSS 28 SEA-LEVEL RISE 30 POLITICAL UNDERSTATEMENT POLITICISATION 34 GOALS ABANDONED 36 A FAILURE OF IMAGINATION 38 ADDRESSING EXISTENTIAL CLIMATE RISK 39 SUMMARY 40 What Lies Beneath 2 FOREWORD What Lies Beneath is an important report. It does not deliver new facts and figures, but instead provides a new perspective on the existential risks associated with anthropogenic global warming. It is the critical overview of well-informed intellectuals who sit outside the climate-science community which has developed over the last fifty years. All such expert communities are prone to what the French call deformation professionelle and the German betriebsblindheit. Expressed in plain English, experts tend to establish a peer world-view which becomes ever more rigid and focussed. Yet the crucial insights regarding the issue in question may lurk at the fringes, as BY HANS JOACHIM SCHELLNHUBER this report suggests. This is particularly true when Hans Joachim Schellnhuber is a professor of theoretical the issue is the very survival of our civilisation, physics specialising in complex systems and nonlinearity, where conventional means of analysis may become founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate useless. -
CBD Technical Series No. 87 Assessing Progress Towards Aichi Biodiversity Target 6 on Sustainable Marine Fisheries
Secretariat of the CBD Technical Series No. 87 Convention on Biological Diversity ASSESSING PROGRESS87 TOWARDS AICHI BIODIVERSITY TARGET 6 ON SUSTAINABLE MARINE FISHERIES CBD Technical Series No. 87 Assessing Progress towards Aichi Biodiversity Target 6 on Sustainable Marine Fisheries Serge M. Garcia and Jake Rice Fisheries Expert Group of the IUCN Commission of Ecosystem Management Published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity ISBN: 9789292256616 Copyright © 2020, Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. The views reported in this publication do not necessarily represent those of the Convention on Biological Diversity. This publication may be reproduced for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission from the copyright holders, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. The Secretariat of the Convention would appreciate receiving a copy of any publications that use this document as a source. Citation Garcia, S.M. and Rice, J. 2020. Assessing Progress towards Aichi Biodiversity Target 6 on Sustainable Marine Fisheries. Technical Series No. 87. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, 103 pages For further information, please contact: Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity World Trade Centre 413 St. Jacques Street, Suite 800 Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2Y 1N9 Phone: 1(514) 288 2220 Fax: 1 (514) 288 6588 E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.cbd.int This publication was made possible thanks to financial assistance from the Government of Canada. -
Global Catastrophic Risks Survey
GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC RISKS SURVEY (2008) Technical Report 2008/1 Published by Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University Anders Sandberg and Nick Bostrom At the Global Catastrophic Risk Conference in Oxford (17‐20 July, 2008) an informal survey was circulated among participants, asking them to make their best guess at the chance that there will be disasters of different types before 2100. This report summarizes the main results. The median extinction risk estimates were: Risk At least 1 million At least 1 billion Human extinction dead dead Number killed by 25% 10% 5% molecular nanotech weapons. Total killed by 10% 5% 5% superintelligent AI. Total killed in all 98% 30% 4% wars (including civil wars). Number killed in 30% 10% 2% the single biggest engineered pandemic. Total killed in all 30% 10% 1% nuclear wars. Number killed in 5% 1% 0.5% the single biggest nanotech accident. Number killed in 60% 5% 0.05% the single biggest natural pandemic. Total killed in all 15% 1% 0.03% acts of nuclear terrorism. Overall risk of n/a n/a 19% extinction prior to 2100 These results should be taken with a grain of salt. Non‐responses have been omitted, although some might represent a statement of zero probability rather than no opinion. 1 There are likely to be many cognitive biases that affect the result, such as unpacking bias and the availability heuristic‒‐well as old‐fashioned optimism and pessimism. In appendix A the results are plotted with individual response distributions visible. Other Risks The list of risks was not intended to be inclusive of all the biggest risks. -
Governing Complexity
GLOBAL GOVERNANCE INSTITUTE Governing Complexity Design Principles for Improving the Governance of Global Catastrophic Risks A Knowledge Overview on Global Catastrophic Risks and the Global Governance Gap Produced for the Global Challenges Foundation (GCF) Dr Tom Pegram and Julia Kreienkamp • November 2019 Abstract This knowledge overview paper explores the implications of complexity thinking for governing global catastrophic risks (GCRs), in particular a new breed of super-complex GCRs. It offers a novel interrogation of why legacy governance structures are ‘not fit for purpose’ when it comes to responding to the complex drivers of GCRs. This assessment provides the basis for an exploration of systemic design principles which could serve as a compass for policymakers and other participants seeking to innovate upon existing governance configurations in the face of mounting global complexity and risk imperatives. This exercise suggests that establishing right relationship between overlapping complicated and complex domains is a necessary condition for any design criteria underpinning governance of a viable global civilisation. The authors are grateful for the support of the Global Challenges Foundation. Contents I. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 1 II. Complexity and Global Catastrophic Risks ......................................................................... 4 1. Complexity Theory: Between Order and Chaos .......................................................... -
Assessing Climate Change's Contribution to Global Catastrophic
Assessing Climate Change’s Contribution to Global Catastrophic Risk Simon Beard,1,2 Lauren Holt,1 Shahar Avin,1 Asaf Tzachor,1 Luke Kemp,1,3 Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh,1,4 Phil Torres, and Haydn Belfield1 5 A growing number of people and organizations have claimed climate change is an imminent threat to human civilization and survival but there is currently no way to verify such claims. This paper considers what is already known about this risk and describes new ways of assessing it. First, it reviews existing assessments of climate change’s contribution to global catastrophic risk and their limitations. It then introduces new conceptual and evaluative tools, being developed by scholars of global catastrophic risk that could help to overcome these limitations. These connect global catastrophic risk to planetary boundary concepts, classify its key features, and place global catastrophes in a broader policy context. While not yet constituting a comprehensive risk assessment; applying these tools can yield new insights and suggest plausible models of how climate change could cause a global catastrophe. Climate Change; Global Catastrophic Risk; Planetary Boundaries; Food Security; Conflict “Understanding the long-term consequences of nuclear war is not a problem amenable to experimental verification – at least not more than once" Carl Sagan (1983) With these words, Carl Sagan opened one of the most influential papers ever written on the possibility of a global catastrophe. “Nuclear war and climatic catastrophe: Some policy implications” set out a clear and credible mechanism by which nuclear war might lead to human extinction or global civilization collapse by triggering a nuclear winter. -
European Technology Agency ANTEPRIMA.Pdf
revision copy revision copy Associazione Culturale Diàlexis is a Think Tank founded in 2006 at the occasion of the celebration of the 50 years of the Rome Treaty. It published, at that occasion, with the publishing house Alpina, the Book ―50 Years of Europe, Images and Reflections‖, and organised in the Palace of the Piedmont Region the exhibition ―Immagini e riflessioni per i 50 anni d‘Europa‖. It has the aim of diffusing in Piedmont the knowledge of Europe and in Europe the knowledge of the Piedmont. Baustellen Europas is a bookseries devoted to Europa as cultural construction, previously published by Alpina, and now by Associazione Culturale Diàlexis Riccardo Lala, chairman of the Associazione, has participated to the making of Europe in the most diverse capacities: youth movements, trade associations, national and European civil and military public service, trade unionism, management of financial and industrial European multinationals in the areas of fashion, chemistry, energy, high tech, transportation, defense, services and publishing. He negotiated and drafted the founding documents of ELV, the company manufacturing the Vega Launcher of Arianespace, the 1st stage of Ariane as well the AVUM body of the European reusable space vehicle. revision copy revision copy Copyright 2020 By Riccardo Lala All rights of paper and digital reproduction or adaptation, partial or total, by whichever means (including microfilms and photocopies) are reserved for all countries. The publisher may grant, under payment, the authorization to reproduce a -
Download Global Catastrophic Risks 2020
Global Catastrophic Risks 2020 Global Catastrophic Risks 2020 INTRODUCTION GLOBAL CHALLENGES FOUNDATION (GCF) ANNUAL REPORT: GCF & THOUGHT LEADERS SHARING WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ON GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC RISKS 2020 The views expressed in this report are those of the authors. Their statements are not necessarily endorsed by the affiliated organisations or the Global Challenges Foundation. ANNUAL REPORT TEAM Ulrika Westin, editor-in-chief Waldemar Ingdahl, researcher Victoria Wariaro, coordinator Weber Shandwick, creative director and graphic design. CONTRIBUTORS Kennette Benedict Senior Advisor, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Angela Kane Senior Fellow, Vienna Centre for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation; visiting Professor, Sciences Po Paris; former High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations Joana Castro Pereira Postdoctoral Researcher at Portuguese Institute of International Relations, NOVA University of Lisbon Philip Osano Research Fellow, Natural Resources and Ecosystems, Stockholm Environment Institute David Heymann Head and Senior Fellow, Centre on Global Health Security, Chatham House, Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Romana Kofler, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Lindley Johnson, NASA Planetary Defense Officer and Program Executive of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office Gerhard Drolshagen, University of Oldenburg and the European Space Agency Stephen Sparks Professor, School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol Ariel Conn Founder and -
The Global Risks Report 2021 16Th Edition
The Global Risks Report 2021 16th Edition INSIGHT REPORT In partnership with Marsh McLennan, SK Group and Zurich Insurance Group The Global Risks Report 2021 16th Edition Strategic Partners Marsh McLennan SK Group Zurich Insurance Group Academic Advisers National University of Singapore Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, University of Pennsylvania The Global Risks Report 2021, 16 th Edition, is published by the World Economic Forum. The information in this report, or on which this report is based, has been obtained from sources that the authors believe to be reliable and accurate. However, it has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to the accuracy or completeness of any information obtained from third parties. In addition, the statements in this report may provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to a historical fact or a current fact. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are not exhaustive. The companies contributing to this report operate in a continually changing environment and new risks emerge continually. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements. The companies contributing to this report undertake no obligation to publicly revise or update any statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise and they shall in no event be liable for any loss or damage arising in connection with the use of the information in this report. World Economic Forum® Cover artwork: Patrik Svensson © 2021 – All rights reserved. -
Eschatology and the Technological Future
Eschatology and the Technological Future This book offers an insightful and timely analysis of key theorists and ideas in the intersection between theology and technology. From the religiously inspired technological optimism of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Nikolai Fedorov, to the darker technological pessimism of Jacques Ellul, the contributions of Christian theorists to under- standing the technological milieu can offer us fresh perspectives on some intractable problems of modern life. As Burdett clearly shows, technological optimism and utopianism have religious roots, and a technological culture that ignores its own roots is in danger not only of environmental devastation, but also existential and spiritual despair. A fi ne book at a critical time. — David Lewin, Liverpool Hope University, UK The rapid advancement of technology has led to an explosion of speculative theories about what the future of humankind may look like. These “tech- nological futurisms” from the fi elds of nanotechnology, biotechnology and information technology are drawing growing scrutiny from the philosophi- cal and theological communities. This text seeks to contextualize the grow- ing literature on the cultural, philosophical and religious implications of technological advancement by considering technological futurisms such as transhumanism in the context of the long historical tradition of technologi- cal dreaming. Michael Burdett traces the latent religious sources of our con- temporary technological imagination by looking at visionary approaches to technology and the future in seminal technological utopias and sci- ence fi ction and draws on past theological responses to the technological future with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Jacques Ellul. Burdett’s argu- ment arrives at a contemporary Christian response to transhumanism based around the themes of possibility and promise by turning to the works of Richard Kearney, Eberhard Jüngel and Jürgen Moltmann. -
Global Catastrophic Risks 2017 INTRODUCTION
Global Catastrophic Risks 2017 INTRODUCTION GLOBAL CHALLENGES ANNUAL REPORT: GCF & THOUGHT LEADERS SHARING WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ON GLOBAL CATASTROPHIC RISKS 2017 The views expressed in this report are those of the authors. Their statements are not necessarily endorsed by the affiliated organisations or the Global Challenges Foundation. ANNUAL REPORT TEAM Carin Ism, project leader Elinor Hägg, creative director Julien Leyre, editor in chief Kristina Thyrsson, graphic designer Ben Rhee, lead researcher Erik Johansson, graphic designer Waldemar Ingdahl, researcher Jesper Wallerborg, illustrator Elizabeth Ng, copywriter Dan Hoopert, illustrator CONTRIBUTORS Nobuyasu Abe Maria Ivanova Janos Pasztor Japanese Ambassador and Commissioner, Associate Professor of Global Governance Senior Fellow and Executive Director, C2G2 Japan Atomic Energy Commission; former UN and Director, Center for Governance and Initiative on Geoengineering, Carnegie Council Under-Secretary General for Disarmament Sustainability, University of Massachusetts Affairs Boston; Global Challenges Foundation Anders Sandberg Ambassador Senior Research Fellow, Future of Humanity Anthony Aguirre Institute Co-founder, Future of Life Institute Angela Kane Senior Fellow, Vienna Centre for Disarmament Tim Spahr Mats Andersson and Non-Proliferation; visiting Professor, CEO of NEO Sciences, LLC, former Director Vice chairman, Global Challenges Foundation Sciences Po Paris; former High Representative of the Minor Planetary Center, Harvard- for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations Smithsonian