Climate endgame

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Conceptual causal loop diagram of cascading global climate failure^[1]

Climate endgame is the name some scientists have given to the hypothesis of a global societal collapse^[2] due to effects of climate change. The real chance of happening is considered small,^[2] but the researchers who warned most resoundingly about this danger in August 2022 seek to improve risk management by putting a higher priority on worst-case scenarios, to "galvanise action, improve resilience, and inform policy".^[2] These experts belong to the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, a research centre at the University of Cambridge.^[3]

The collapse would come through a set of interrelated concurrent factors such as famine (crop loss, drought), extreme weather (hurricanes, floods), war (caused by the scarce resources) and conflict, systemic risk (relating to migration, famine, or conflict), and disease.^[2][1]

Overlap between state fragility, extreme heat, and nuclear and biological catastrophic hazards^[1]

Overlap between future population distribution and extreme heat^[1]

The team of international experts led by Cambridge University^[3] also warn about tipping points: small rises in global temperature which result in big changes in the climate.^[2] These tipping points could trigger others in a cascade (domino effect),^[2] in a non-linear way, which makes their effects hard to estimate. Unintended consequences (knock-on effects) could also unleash.^[2] These findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.^[1]

The study found the risk to be a "dangerously underexplored" global topic, despite and "integrated catastrophe assessment" to be missing.^[4]

Other scientists had previously warned about this hypothesis, but may have found less echo. For example, the fifth assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (April 2021),^[5] or John van der Velden and Rob White in their book The Extinction Curve (January 2021).^[6] The concept had been previously named climate apocalypse.

Explorations in the 1980s of the nuclear winter that would follow a nuclear war spurred public concern and disarmament efforts, the researchers say.^[7]

See also

• Climate change mitigation
• Climate crisis
• Climate emergency declaration
• Eco-anxiety
• Global catastrophic risk
• Solastalgia

References

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