No place to hide? Regional resilience and vulnerability to global catastrophic risk

Florian Ulrich Jehn, Maximilian Rössler, Luke Kemp, Mike Cassidy, Zachary Kallenborn, Juan Bartolomé García Martínez, Lara Mani, Matt Boyd

What places on Earth are most resilient to global catastrophic risk (GCR)? We provide the first study of what locations are more resilient against the impacts of nuclear war, near-Earth objects, large-magnitude volcanic eruptions, large-scale cyberattacks, high altitude electromagnetic pulse, geomagnetic storms and pandemics. This shows there is no place on Earth which is resilient against all kinds of GCR. Australia and New Zealand show resilience across the widest range of GCR scenarios, but even for them, continued international cooperation and trade are essential. Across the different risks, common resilience factors that show up most are geographic isolation (e.g. islands), self-sufficiency (especially in food production), high governance quality (more democratic and lower inequality) and decentralization to mitigate single point catastrophic failures (e.g. impacting trade or food supply). Many of these factors stand in tension with each other and trade-offs are required to balance between different GCR scenarios and between a higher resilience against the immediate impacts or against the longer-term consequences. The literature suggests that increased GCR resilience requires more investment in preparation (e.g., food security), planning (e.g., national risk assessments), and international agreements that facilitate cooperation on preparation and GCR response.