Global Shield Briefing (6 March 2024)
Climate change tipping points, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, and an update from Global Shield.
This regular briefing highlights the latest policy, research and news on global catastrophic risk (GCR).
In this briefing, we explore tipping points – for the climate, for policy, and for Global Shield. Tipping points are those fragile and imperceptible veils, which, once broken, set the world on a new and irreversible path. Whether for good or ill, there is no going back. For the climate, local ecological systems critical to the global environment are edging closer to the brink. For the creation of a vault that stores the world’s seeds in the depths of the Arctic, it took pioneers and geopolitics to push the global food system to a new state, where all crops could be protected. For Global Shield, we’ve reached our own tipping point: a new team member and action on our policy priorities. The challenge with tipping points is the unknown. Which means they can only be handled with courage, ambition, imagination and urgency.
Pulling back from the brink
Tipping points in global climate and environmental systems are receiving increasing attention and study. A tipping point is a threshold of damage in the ecosystem that, if crossed, could lead to major, widespread, abrupt or irreversible global harm. In December, a landmark report on tipping points was launched at COP28 on 6 December 2023, the first detailed report of its kind presented to world leaders. More recent research validates the concern. The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), a complex system of currents in the Atlantic Ocean that modulates continental and global climate conditions, is “on route to tipping”, which could lead to cooling of the Northern Hemisphere. Another recent study assesses that by 2050, up to half of the Amazon is at risk of collapse, which could exacerbate unexpected regional and global climate change. Five tipping points become particularly concerning as global warming exceeds 1.5°C: coral reefs, Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheet collapse, North Atlantic circulation collapse, and permafrost thaw.
Policy comment: Climate change policy often fail to adequately consider the risk of tipping points. It remains under-represented in efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change when considering the extreme impacts and increasing likelihood. Governments should prioritize policies that reduce both the baseline scenarios of climate change as well as tipping point risk. Countries that cover ecological systems with tipping potential – such as Brazil, Canada, Denmark (as the guarantor of Greenland) and Russia – should take greater responsibility in governing and championing the issue globally. Indeed, these countries are likely to feel the local and regional impacts before the global tipping point is reached. One of these countries could, as the Global Tipping Points Report recommends, convene a global summit on tipping points.
The concept of tipping points should also trigger considerations of global catastrophic risk outside a purely climate lens. It is not only a climate phenomenon. Policymakers should incorporate all types of tipping points – political, economic, societal, infrastructure, technological – into risk assessment and management frameworks. For example, so-called “fast takeoff” scenarios for artificial intelligence development are a tipping point in the risk related to AI. The uncertainty around these types of tail events requires greater scientific and futures analysis, early warning and monitoring systems, and improved contingency planning to a variety of scenarios.
See also:
OECD, “Climate Tipping Points: Insights for Effective Policy Action,” December 2022.
New York Times, “Tipping Points for the Planet,” 15 February 2024.
Case study: Svalbard Global Seed Vault
As a recurring feature, we include a case study on real-world government efforts on global catastrophic risk. These case studies present opportunities for policy researchers, advocates and practitioners to learn and adapt to their own country contexts.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seed bank located on the Svalbard archipelago, a remote island between Norway and the North Pole. It was established to safeguard the world’s crop diversity and protect it against natural and man-made disasters, including biological threats to agriculture. It is a collaborative effort between the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust, and the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen). The primary purpose of the Seed Vault is to provide a backup storage facility for crop seeds from around the world. Countries store their seeds at the Vault, which they can access should they face some catastrophe. Currently, the Vault holds more than 1.1 million seed varieties from almost every country.
Lessons for GCR policy: The Seed Vault is a rare international collaboration that helps prepare the world for a global catastrophe. Although a different effort to NASA’s asteroid tracking program covered in the last briefing, similar lessons can be drawn. The first is the power of champions, from both the scientific and policy realms. For example, the primary champion for a global seed vault at Svalbard was Cary Fowler, an American agriculturalist, who helped generate support for and lead the project. On the policy side, the Norwegian government, particularly NordGen, backed and funded the proposal.
Champions must then find the right window of opportunity. The Norwegian government first proposed to construct an international depository for seeds in 1989. But it was abandoned due to financial, geopolitical and technical constraints. By 2001, circumstances had changed. The events of 9/11 forced a rethink of global security, while the adoption of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture paved the way for collaboration.
Finally, the Seed Vault was an evolution of existing efforts. Hundreds of seed banks around the world already existed, and the Nordic Gene Bank had maintained a safety backup of its seed collection in an underground tunnel in Svalbard since 1984. The idea of a global seed bank was a natural extension. And Norway was the perfect home.
Further reading:
Qvenild, Marte. "Svalbard Global Seed Vault: a ‘Noah's Ark’ for the world’s seeds." Development in practice 18, no. 1 (2008): 110-116.
Curry, Helen Anne. "The history of seed banking and the hazards of backup." Social Studies of Science 52, no. 5 (2022): 664-688.
Fowler, Cary. Seeds on ice: Svalbard and the global seed vault. Westport, CT: Prospecta Press, 2016.
An update from Global Shield
We have some exciting staffing news! Please welcome Courtney Tee, Global Shield’s new Senior Officer.
Courtney has spent her career in policy and advocacy NGOs and has a special interest in helping young organizations grow and thrive. She most recently helped incubate a series of international peace and diplomacy organizations at One Earth Future Foundation, including the Open Nuclear Network (ONN). She then joined the ONN team full-time to stand up the Office of Foresight and Prediction, which is bringing an innovative approach to measuring the risk of nuclear catastrophe through forecasting. Courtney has a B.S. from Abilene Christian University and a M.Ed. from Harvard. At Global Shield, she’ll be working with the cofounders to deliver on the strategic, operational, communications and policy goals of the organization. You can reach out to her at courtney.tee [@] globalshieldpolicy.org.
We seldom provide updates on ourselves as an organization. Now feels like as good time as any! Global Shield is less than a year old, but it has large ambitions. This year, we have the following priorities:
Maximize opportunities provided by the convening of the Summit of the Future to highlight the importance of reducing global catastrophic risk as a global governance priority, especially as we strive to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Support the production and consideration of high-quality assessments of global risk that are currently underway, including in the US, the EU and the UN.
Drive meaningful policy change in the US toward reducing global catastrophic risk, including by improving existing continuity of operations plans and programs for a wider range of catastrophic threats, improving food security for all hazards, and working to reauthorize and enhance emergency authorities necessary for the management of global catastrophes, particularly the Defense Production Act.
Explore three other countries where Global Shield could expand its advocacy operations to in the coming years.
Deliver a wide range of policy products for our respective audiences, such as databases of policy ideas, the newsletter briefings, and deep-dives into potential policy action.
Expand our partner network with relevant policy experts, advocates and public media.
Continue to normalize the need to reduce global catastrophic risk as a core function of national and international governance for our policy audience.
Reach out to us with any questions or comments about our work, policy for reducing global catastrophic risk, or our briefings.
I recently wrote a summary of what I see as the state of the research for tipping points, might also be interesting for readers of this post: https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-tipping-points