Hazards with escalation potential: Governing the drivers of global and existential catastrophes

This report identifies the hazards that, once paired with corresponding vulnerabilities and exposures, would escalate and cause global and existential catastrophes. Its goal is to distil governance insights on risk cascades from a review of the literature, an expert survey and expert consultations.

Escalating hazards share core characteristics such as the ability to affect multiple systems and to bypass established response and coping capacity. Focusing on these characteristics of the worst hazards can refine governance strategies, making them more adaptive to the various manifestations of risk.