Global Catastrophic Risks and Climate Impacts
Summary
Global catastrophic risks encompass events capable of inflicting severe harm on human civilisation and the Earth’s natural systems. These include large-scale conflicts, abrupt climate shifts, supervolcanic eruptions, asteroid impacts and engineered pandemics. Many risks interact with the climate system, causing rapid changes in temperature, precipitation, ozone chemistry and agricultural productivity. For example, soot injected into the stratosphere after massive fires can trigger a prolonged cooling known as nuclear winter, undermining food security and ecosystem services worldwide. A multidisciplinary approach is essential to classify risks according to affected systems, propagation mechanisms and mitigation failures; to model climatic and societal consequences; and to design resilience measures that span policy, technology, psychology and international cooperation.
Research from Nature Portfolio
Recent studies have quantified the global food production collapse that would follow stratospheric soot injection from a major nuclear exchange. Climate, crop and marine fishery models project that even moderate soot loadings could halve available calories and precipitate widespread famine, with billions at risk without coordinated adaptation. Complementary work in behavioural science has explored public perception of long-term existential hazards. Surveys across diverse populations reveal that laypeople often prioritise immediate human suffering over the far-reaching consequences of extinction, highlighting a gap between ethical concern and resource investment for safeguarding future generations.
Global Catastrophic Risks and Climate Impacts publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in global catastrophic risks and climate impacts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Global catastrophic risk: an event with the potential to inflict widespread harm on human civilisation and ecosystems.
Existential risk: a risk that could lead to human extinction or irreversible civilisation collapse.
Nuclear winter: prolonged global cooling resulting from sunlight-blocking soot in the stratosphere after massive fires or explosions.
Soot injection: the release of fine particulate matter into the stratosphere, altering radiative balance and climate.
Resilience: the capacity of societies, infrastructure and ecosystems to withstand and recover from severe shocks.
References
- Classifying global catastrophic risks. Futures (2018).
- Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nature Food (2022).
- Climate and chemistry effects of a regional scale nuclear conflict. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (2013).
- The Psychology of Existential Risk: Moral Judgments about Human Extinction. Scientific Reports (2019).
- The Fragile World Hypothesis: Complexity, Fragility, and Systemic Existential Risk. Futures (2020).
About these summaries
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