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Report | 4 March 2025

How to save the world: Influencing policy on the biggest risks to humanity

Image of Nicolò Miotto

Nicolò Miotto |Project Assistant at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

Image of Arthur Duforest

Arthur Duforest |Disarmament and Human Security Consultant at the Inter-Parliamentary Union and Junior Fellow at the World Academy of Art and Science

Image of Ezgi Yazicioglu

Ezgi Yazicioglu |Project Coordinator at Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Canada (KAS)

Image of Rebecca Donaldson

Rebecca Donaldson |Technology Strategy Consultant for Cambridge Consultants and Fellow at the World Economic Forum's Bioeconomy Initiative

Image of Emil Nafis Iftekhar

Emil Nafis Iftekhar |Researcher at Robert Koch Institute and WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence

EDTs Arms Control Biosecurity Climate change Cyber Defence Democracy Diplomacy Disinformation Emerging technologies Europe Governance Hybrid warfare NEVER Nuclear Weapons Risk Reduction WMDs Emerging Disruptive Technologies and Risk Reduction NEVER
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A new report published today from the European Leadership Network’s New European Voices on Existential Risk (NEVER) project calls for a systemic international approach to be taken to address man-made existential risk. The risks from nuclear weapons, climate change, biological threats, and AI are interconnected, and cross-cutting lessons should be drawn.

The report acknowledges the challenging international environment, it calls for international cooperation where possible by building innovative international coalitions that will push governments to act. Addressing existential risks in a world of multiple geopolitical antagonisms will require radical collaboration across differences and divisions.

Providing an overview of these risks and how they intersect, “How to save the world: Influencing policy on the biggest risks to humanity” outlines what solutions have already been proposed and the specific targets agreed and identified. It finds that there are important existing treaties and bodies working to prevent existential and catastrophic risks at the level of each specific risk – but not a cross-cutting body on global existential threats.

It finds that AI and EDTs are areas where global binding treaties are lacking and that systemic approaches are needed. The report identifies the major blockers to addressing existential risks – including geopolitical competition, short-termism, and disinformation – and how to fix them.

Calling for sustainable approaches to problem-solving for existential risk, it identifies 6 “c’s” where leadership is needed:

1. Concepts: Ideas, and innovation: new thinking needed

2. Campaigning: Communicating, and showing leadership: taking ideas into action.

3. Collaborating: Coalition-building, and compartmentalising: finding ways to work together across divides.

4. Crafting institutions: Treaties, and laws: embedding solutions in multilateral and national governance.

5. Changing calculations: Shaping economic, legal, and political incentives.

6. Channelling technologies: Using tech change for good.

 

Read the report

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

Image: Shahin Islam / Alamy Stock Photo

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