Climate Endgame Paper - PNAS

Summary

This PNAS paper examines severely underexplored catastrophic and existential risks from climate change, arguing that worst-case scenarios including societal collapse and human extinction deserve serious scientific attention. The authors call for a dedicated research agenda on 'Climate Endgame' scenarios involving 3°C or more of warming, cascading risks, and interactions with other global stressors. It parallels existential risk frameworks common in AI safety discourse.

Key Points

• •Argues that catastrophic climate scenarios (>3°C warming) are neglected in mainstream research despite potentially civilization-ending consequences
• •Introduces concept of 'Climate Endgame' to capture tail risks including societal collapse and potential human extinction from climate change
• •Identifies four key risk factors: food system shocks, extreme weather, conflict, and vector-borne diseases interacting in cascading ways
• •Calls for a formal research agenda on catastrophic climate risk analogous to existential risk research in other fields
• •Relevant to AI safety community as a model for tail-risk analysis and cross-domain catastrophic risk thinking