Complex Global Governance: Governing Global Catastrophic Risks at the Edge of Order and Chaos

‘We are all in a situation that resembles driving a fast vehicle at night over unknown terrain that is rough, full of gullies, with precipices not far off. Some kind of headlight, even a feeble and flickering one, may help to avoid some of the worst disaster'.

Murray Gell-Mann (1994)

Keynote respondent: David Snowden, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cognitive Edge

Opening remarks:

• ‘Governing Global Catastrophic Risks’, Tom Pegram, Associate Professor in Global Governance, University College London
• ‘Environmental breakdown: a new, highly complex and destabilised domain of risk’, Lesley Rankin, Researcher, Institute for Public Policy Research

Chair: Julia Kreienkamp, Global Governance Institute, University College London

Astrophysicist Martin Rees suggests that we are unlikely to see 2100 if we do not start taking collective action now to meet the formidable challenges facing humanity. The response timescale for contending with global catastrophic risks presented by an increasingly fragile and unstable biosphere – intensified by a hyper-concentration of wealth and power among a few individuals, and exponentially growing technology – is rapidly diminishing. The stakes could not be higher. What is to be done?

This event will explore the implications of complexity thinking for governing global catastrophic risks, in particular climate change and environmental breakdown as a new, highly complex and destabilised domain of risk. Such risks are different from other existential risks, not due to their scale or severity, but rather the governance challenge they pose due to unusually high levels of complexity. Complexity is a realm of ‘unknown unknowns’, making prediction impossible and the search for a ‘right answer’ elusive. The possible – even probable in the long run – risk of catastrophic systemic failure demands that we continuously seek to ‘make sense’ of complex problems in their changing contexts. 

This panel discussion will bring together leading experts in complexity science, governance and global catastrophic risk to exchange views on why legacy governance toolkits and multilateral structures are ‘not fit for purpose’ when it comes to responding to global catastrophic risk. The panel will also address why it is vital that governance and global catastrophic risk scholars and expert practitioners take seriously the core insight of complex systems science; that we can only determine outcomes in highly constrained environments (such as an operating theatre). Intervening in complex systems where no simple direction of causality is apparent requires a different set of governance tools, beyond command and control structures. This is readily apparent when it comes to stabilising the Earth’s exceedingly complex biosphere. Engineering ‘expert’ solutions will not suffice. There is no mission control for cooling our rapidly warming planet.

This event builds upon the research project ‘Governing Complexity: Design Principles for Improving the Governance of Global Catastrophic Risk’, kindly supported by the Global Challenges Foundation.