Superforecasting Long-Term Risks and Climate Change

Political Climate

When it comes to political will, Superforecasters are a pessimistic bunch. In general, they do not forecast that politicians, and often the general public, will be willing make the hard choices needed to mitigate the drivers of climate change.

• In the short term, people in most of the world will continue to exploit cheaper (but dirtier) sources of energy, according to the Superforecasters.
• By 2100, according to the median forecast, nearly 30% of the current Amazon biome will transition to savanah.
• Drivers, ranchers, and homeowners will all demand what is least expensive in the short term and ignore the longer-term impacts. Politicians will bend to those demands.

Human Adaptability

When it comes to human adaptability, Superforecasters are more optimistic. They forecast that droughts and floods and hot weather will all increase, but on timescales that allow humans to adapt.

• Populations will move away from flood zones and inhospitable regions. This resettlement will involve an immense amount of displacement and suffering in many cases.
• Urban areas at sea level will be hardened against flooding.
• Agricultural practices will change in each given locale, but so will the science and technology of agriculture; in fact, crop yields are forecast to increase over all timeframes. Despite this likely total increase, some people will inevitably end up worse off as a result of climate change. Minimizing harm from this agricultural transition will be a key moral consideration facing scientists, technologists, and policymakers.
• Technological advances will make renewable energy cheaper and more reliable, helping the world get closer to its CO2 emissions targets.

Human Extinction

As for the possibility of human extinction by 2100 or 2300, almost all Superforecasters agree that catastrophic impacts are quite possible, but not existential ones. While they don’t see pathways to the total elimination of the species, they do see the potential of great future harm and even the chance of billions of deaths from climate change. These harms are likely to fall disproportionately on disadvantaged people in low-income countries. We have a clear moral responsibility to not impose these harms and to make concerted efforts to reduce emissions.

• The Superforecasters assign a 1% probability on aggregate that climate change will be a necessary, but not necessarily sufficient, cause of human extinction by 2100.
• Some Superforecasters argue that by 2100 we will likely be a multi-planet species.
• Among the scenarios they considered, conflict in its various forms represents a prominent risk, as well as a “tipping cascade,” or a cascade of adverse climate effects.