Since the mid-twentieth century, global trends in technology, politics, demographics and environmental impact have resulted in an unprecedented level of risk for human society. This global catastrophic risk (GCR) has the potential to inflict significant harm to human wellbeing on a global scale. In the most extreme case, the entire species could be at threat from extinction or permanent collapse.
The human species, as with other natural life, has always faced the risk of global catastrophe from natural hazards, such as supervolcanoes and asteroids. More recently, anthropogenic, or human-driven, threats have emerged and probably represent greater risk than natural hazards. These global catastrophic threats include advanced artificial intelligence (AI), extreme climate change, nuclear winter and engineered pandemics.
The potential for harm posed by these threats means that national governments have a responsibility to their citizens to proactively implement policy that would prevent, prepare for and respond to the risk. But the first step in any risk management process is to understand the risk.
Simple option: Develop and implement a regular all-hazards risk assessment process for all threats and hazards to the homeland originating domestically or internationally, ensuring to capture long-term and highly unlikely risk.
Advanced option: Develop a detailed assessment of global catastrophic and existential risk that includes a comprehensive list of potential catastrophic or existential threats, including those threats that may have very low likelihood, as well as technical assessments and lay explanations of the threats, including potential pathways and scenarios.
Case study 1: UK National Risk Assessment
The UK’s National Risk Assessment process, run out of the Cabinet Office, is an example that could be adopted by other countries. Since 2008, the biennial review has assessed domestic hazards with the purpose of informing national resilience planning and local-level emergency planning. Separately, every five years since 2010, the National Security Risk Assessment (NSRA) has reviewed security concerns overseas to inform the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. In 2019, both assessments were combined so that domestic and foreign risks were assessed using a common methodology.
Despite the UK’s relatively mature process, the UK’s Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology identified challenges and limitations to these assessments, including the focus on short-term acute risk rather than long-term and chronic risk, such as climate change or antimicrobial resistance. The House of Lords published a report in December 2021 that evaluated the UK government's preparedness for extreme risk. It found that the government's focus on risk as discrete threats ignored its interconnected and complex nature. Additionally, the NSRA’s reports were published with an unnecessary degree of secrecy, making them impenetrable to outside expert scrutiny and suggestions for improvement. Finally, the assessment was seen to be unsuitable to address chronic risk or high-consequence, low-likelihood events.
In 2021, the UK Cabinet Office Civil Contingencies Secretariat commissioned the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) to review the NSRA methodology. The review made 11 recommendations, many of which RAEng claims have been incorporated into the 2022 NSRA process. In 2023, the UK released its latest National Risk Register based on the upgraded process.
Simple option: Create a futures analysis center in a central government agency that provides support, training and frameworks to other departmental foresight units, leads whole-of-government foresight activities for major policy questions and initiatives, determines the work program in line with the wider agenda, and maintains a database of horizon-scanning products to prevent duplication of effort and to encourage knowledge sharing.
Advanced option: Create a futures analysis agency reporting to the head of government which, in addition to the activities of the central futures analysis center, conducts all-source assessment and policy analysis for GCR, and coordinates with stakeholders inside and outside government.
Case study 2: Futures analysis around the world
Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures, based in the Prime Minister’s Office, is a noteworthy example for horizon scanning for the government. It focuses on potential blind-spot, pursues open-ended long-term futures research, and experiments with new foresight methodologies.
In the UK, the Horizon Scanning Programme team in the Cabinet Office provides a central coordination function for the UK’s horizon-scanning efforts, while the Government Office for Science’s Futures team supports portfolio-level horizon scanning, conducts futures analysis on cross-cutting and long-term issues, and delivers training and development for civil servants.
This capability provides governments with a way to develop and interpret a range of possible futures. Used in conjunction with risk assessment efforts, these capabilities can help identify new threats, explore future scenarios and reduce uncertainty.
Researchers of existential and global catastrophic risk have commonly used and recommended these techniques, such as horizon-scanning, scenario-building, forecasting competitions and red-teaming.
Simple option: Develop a future analysis toolkit for policy officers and train them on the techniques, and create a small team to broker between foresight producers and policymakers.
Advanced option: Incorporate a mandatory futures analysis process during major policy decisions, supported by a senior horizon-scanning oversight group, which commissions new work, ensures relevant judgements and implications are drawn from horizon-scanning activity, and reports highest priority implications to decision-makers.
Case study 3: Lessons from government futures activities
Futures analysis can be a useful tool because it provides governments with a way to develop and interpret a range of possible futures. Risk managers and intelligence analysts’ jobs generally require them to be more conservative and shorter-term in their thinking, but futures analysis exercises can be more conducive environments for speculative or long-term future imagination. So it allows for discussing and mainstreaming the consideration of global catastrophic risk. Based on multiple reviews of foresight activities, linking strategic-level insights with policymaking is a major challenge for most governments that conduct futures analysis:
Ideally, futures analysis processes must directly engage senior policymakers, in that they are involved in the thinking, not just receiving the outputs. The question or topic being addressed must be framed by the real-world interests of policymakers and shaped to address an explicit policy need. The policy implications and recommendations should be clearly drawn out, with a mechanism to integrate futures analysis into the policymaking process. To be effective, futures analysis must be well coordinated and implemented across government.
Simple option: Develop a set of warnings and triggers within the intelligence analysis agency across a range of global catastrophic threats, and conduct continuous surveillance and monitoring.
Advanced option: Establish a National Warning Office.
Case study 4: National Warnings Office
Former senior US national security officials, Richard Clarke and RP Eddy, recommend a National Warnings Office be installed in the White House to focus on possible catastrophes that are not being addressed in other parts of government. Their idea is based on the National Intelligence Officer for Warning, who was the intelligence community’s principal advisor on warnings and had a direct line to the White House, but was disbanded in 2009. They recommend that “The office should not address ongoing, chronic problems, such as obesity. Rather, the focus should be on possible impending disasters that are not being addressed by any part of government. The National Warning Office should also work through the interagency and the White House on two institutional goals: first, to create management and decision-making environments that nurture..; and second, to develop a small cadre of people drawn from every cabinet agency to establish processes and information sharing to recognize sentinel intelligence.”
Simple option: Form an external advisory group to the government on global catastrophic risk that includes key sectors such as health and education, academia, civil society, defense, food, energy, infrastructure, banking and insurance.
Advanced option: Establish an independent body that provides analysis and recommendations on policies relating to GCR.
Case study 5: The UK’s science-policy linkages
The UK is a world leader in improving the linkages between science and policy. The UK government has a network of departmental chief scientific advisors (CSAs), led by the Government Chief Scientific Advisor (GCSA). No less than 26 other departments and agencies have CSAs. The GCSA also chairs the Council for Science and Technology, which is the Prime Minister’s independent advisory body on cross-cutting science and technology issues. Its members are leading figures in the science, technology, academic and business community. The Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology (POST) provides in-house support and analysis to the UK parliament on public-policy issues related to science and technology. POST publishes short and long form briefs for parliamentarians, conducts horizon-scanning activities and supports linkages between parliament and the academic communities. Scientific advice permeates into the policy-making space as well via groups like the Committee on Climate Change, which is an independent statutory body that advises the government on all aspects of policy relating to emissions targets.
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