Global Shield Briefing (29 May 2024)
Anticipatory governance, food supply resilience and an emergency platform
The latest policy, research and news on global catastrophic risk (GCR).
In policy, timing is everything. Sometimes, a moment calls for action. If mis-timed, even the best idea will flounder. When governing complexity, you’re often too early or too late. And a great policy must somehow grapple with the present while positioning for the future. This briefing covers technology policy, food supply, and global crisis response – a diverse set of challenges that each require their own sense of timing. Fortunately, timing is not an art. It’s a skill. Foresight, readiness, patience, intuition, adaptability. Combined together, and you’ll be in the right place, with the right plan, at the right time.
Governing with anticipation
While AI capability forges ahead unabated, like the release of GPT-4o, discussions on AI governance edge along. Senior officials from the US and China met to discuss AI safety on 15 May. Representatives gathered on 21 May for the AI Seoul Summit, concluding in the Seoul Declaration. The AI for Good Global Summit is being held in Geneva over 29-31 May, where AI safety, risk and governance is a prominent topic. And a bipartisan US Senate AI Working Group released its roadmap and policy priorities. Meanwhile, world-leading AI researchers have published a paper on managing extreme AI risk, where they ask for “fast-acting, tech-savvy institutions” for AI oversight, rigorous risk assessments, enforcement and mitigation standards.
Policy comment: The widening mismatch between growing AI capability and AI governance is on full display. As outlined by the Collingridge Dilemma, by the time the unpredictable effects of the technology are realised, it will be too pervasive to govern easily. Policy proposals being put forward by AI experts – safety institutes, monitoring and evaluation of AI systems, liability schemes – need to be considered. But they will probably suffer from the existing political, institutional and capability challenges that make governing fast-moving technologies difficult. Policymakers must adopt “anticipatory governance” frameworks. Siloed, inflexible, and reactive regulation and policy will not work because they address harms after society has felt its impacts. Anticipatory governance prizes foresight, agility, learning and networks. For example, future analysis and technology assessment can be embedded within the policymaking process. Open innovation challenges and regulatory sandboxes can provide innovative policy responses for technology risk. Resilience of democratic, societal and infrastructure systems protects against a range of challenges. The risk of AI cannot be effectively managed without rethinking how to govern all such emerging technologies.
Also see:
A new OECD paper which proposes an “anticipatory technology governance” approach that consists of five elements: guiding values, strategic intelligence, stakeholder engagement, agile regulation, and international cooperation.
A new academic paper on using technology assessment for global catastrophic risk.
Feeding the world in crisis
Around 280 million people faced high levels of acute food insecurity across 59 countries in 2023, an increase of 24 million people from 2022, according to the eighth edition of the Global Report on Food Crises. Conflict, extreme weather and economic shocks were the primary drivers.
Dr. Geoffrey Hawtin and Dr. Cary Fowler have been awarded the 2024 World Food Prize for their efforts in preserving and protecting the world’s heritage of crop biodiversity, including, most prominently, establishing the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. Dr. Fowler is currently the US Special Envoy for Global Food Security.
The food system is also vulnerable to biological hazards. A highly virulent bird flu has been detected for the first time in cows across multiple US states, and has subsequently infected some farm workers with close exposure to sick cows.
As part of its G20 Presidency, Brazil is prioritizing “The Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty”, which will be available for all states to join from July, and to be launched alongside the G20 Summit in November.
Policy comment: Food supply resilience and security is a huge challenge – and opportunity – for policymakers. Hunger and food insecurity remains a critical issue in low-income countries. People living below or near the poverty line in high-income countries are also suffering. At the same time, the world is at risk from catastrophic threats to the food system. The food supply is at direct and secondary risk from a wide range of hazards including climate change, biological pathogens, volcanoes, nuclear war, water shortages and land degradation. To deal with current and potential crises, policy action is needed across six areas: food policy and governance; research and development into alternative and resilient foods; regulations and standards; industry support and development; preparedness and planning for food supply shocks; and response and consequence management. Shifting the global food system to be more resilient, sustainable and viable would provide enormous second-order impacts on animal welfare, climate change and global poverty alleviation. Few, if any, countries see food policy holistically. Policymakers and advocates should see it as a huge lever for a combined moral, health, economic and security benefit.
Also see:
The Global Food and Nutrition Security Dashboard and the latest bi-weekly Food Security update by the World Bank.
A Round Table Policy Dialogue on “Addressing global food insecurity and famine risk: reinforcing collective impact” hosted at the UN on 29 April.
The May Magazine in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on food and climate change.
Building a platform for crisis response
The first revision of the Pact for the Future was released on 14 May. The Pact is a potentially transformational UN document outlining how the multilateral system intends to reshape and reform for future challenges. Most relevant for global catastrophic risk, it recognizes “the need for a more coherent, coordinated and multidimensional international response to complex global shocks”. The Pact also asks the Secretary-General to “Convene and operationalize emergency platforms in response to future complex global shocks” and to “Develop protocols for convening and operationalizing emergency platforms, recognizing the need for flexible approaches to respond to a range of different complex global shocks, in consultation with Member States.” The third reading started on 28 May and a virtual consultation with civil society is being held on 30 May.
Policy comment: The UN system lacks an effective mechanism to coordinate a response to a large-scale and complex global crisis. The various UN bodies and agencies are bound by their respective mandates and responsibilities. So, when an urgent crisis requires attention and response from across the UN system, it is difficult for UN organs to quickly and collectively organize. The emergency platform concept is a key effort to overcome this problem. The main difference from the Pact’s zero draft is that the revised text makes more clear that emergency platforms would be established for individual crises before being eventually disbanded. The “Emergency Platform” is not an ongoing or standing entity. The concept faces some resistances from member states and UN organizations that might believe that the emergency platform would usurp their scope or authority. However, an emergency platform, when established for a particular crisis in a flexible and as needed way, could fundamentally improve the world’s ability to manage complex global catastrophes. The long journey to that point starts with authorization of the concept in the Pact.
Also see:
The March 2023 Policy Brief on the emergency platform by the UN Secretary-General.
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