Global catastrophic risks

Strengthening global pandemic response

Pandemics in the modern age have even higher stakes

Compared to the worst ever pandemics, the costs of Covid-19 can appear relatively mild. History is punctuated by episodes of mass death due to disease outbreaks, but the evolution of biotechnology and capacity to create bioweapons and engineered pandemics dramatically increases the risk and scale of possible destruction.

Establishing biosecurity best practices

The Nuclear Threat Initiative’s Biological Policy and Programs (NTI | bio) strengthens international biosecurity and drives systemic change, coordinating across governments, industry, academia, international and non-profit organizations to improve biotechnology governance and national health security. They work to prevent the misuse of biotechnology, develop solutions to prevent and rapidly respond to biological events, and enable informed discussions and decision-making. NTI | bio has improved the financial sustainability of the Biological Weapons Convention, begun work to create a common mechanism for DNA synthesis, and catalyzed the development of a biological risk initiative within the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bolstering capacity to handle pandemics

This grant helped NTI | bio improve global pandemic preparedness. Working with the Panorama Global-Pandemic Action Network over 18 months, they developed plans for a new multilateral mechanism to improve capacity to manage epidemic and pandemic threats. As a result, in September 2022, the World Bank announced a new fund to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response capacities in low- and middle-income countries. In February 2023, $300m was distributed to fund the first round of projects.

Honing our ability to predict threats

A world of increasing uncertainty

Humans have fought war and disease for millennia, but many of the risks humanity faces in the coming centuries – such as engineered pandemics or superintelligent computer systems – are completely new.

The power of predictions

Over the last 35 years, Professor Philip Tetlock has pioneered the practice of forecasting – a way to make predictions about future events more accurate and useful. His research has the potential to improve our ability to predict and manage catastrophic risks, helping us make rigorous, comparable, and calibrated assessments of the likelihood of these risks and the effectiveness of efforts to reduce them. He and his team have run multiple tournaments over the years, successfully developing methods to improve accuracy.

Revealing how we think about risk

This grant funded the 2022 Existential Risk Persuasion Tournament (XPT), in which Superforecasters and subject matter experts debated and produced high-quality forecasts on questions related to existential and catastrophic risks (such as climate change, AI, biosecurity, and nuclear risk). Tetlock's first major report on XPT, published in July 2023 and covered by Vox and The Economist, has already been used to inform a cost-benefit analysis of initiatives to accelerate scientific research, prompt development of new benchmarks for measuring AI capabilities, and inform thinking around risk reduction efforts. XPT uncovered large-scale disagreement, and the team is planning to explore the large divergences of opinion on risks and how perceptions of them evolve.

A milestone meeting renews US-China diplomacy

The threat of another world war

Tensions between great powers – countries with global interests and the means (and military strength) to defend them – shape our world, and pose a grave threat to global security and the wellbeing of billions of people. Greater cooperation could be transformative, helping to solve problems and improve lives. Conflict would be catastrophic. An escalation of tensions between the US and China is a top concern for global security.

Alleviating tensions through diplomacy

The Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy promotes cooperation between the US and China by hosting Track 1.5 and Track II diplomatic dialogues. A Beijing-based think tank founded in 2010 and hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, they play a unique, valuable role as the only organization reporting on Chinese foreign policy in English from inside China. Conducting research and hosting dialogues, events, and cultural exchanges are all efforts to improve openness, understanding, and information flow between countries. These interventions are some of the most promising and neglected ways to reduce the risk of great power conflict. There is high upside, minimal downside, and evidence suggesting effectiveness.

Re-invigorating diplomatic dialogues

This grant enabled them to conduct their Track II dialogues in Beijing in October 2023, their first in-person in nearly four years. Scholars from both sides convened for a constructive dialogue, which centered on finding solutions and providing recommendations for a productive summit between Presidents Biden and Xi at APEC the following month. The group felt the benefit of meeting face-to-face after years of online discussions, and are exploring opportunities to host more in-person events in the near future.