The Global Challenges Foundation is a Swedish non-profit organization that seeks to raise awareness of

global catastrophic risk A global catastrophic risk or a doomsday scenario is a hypothetical event that could damage human well-being on a global scale, endangering or even destroying modern civilization. Existential risk is a related term limited to events that co ...

and the

global governance Global governance (or world governance) refers to institutions that coordinate the behavior of transnationality, transnational actors, facilitate cooperation, resolve disputes, and alleviate collective action problems. Global governance broadly ...

necessary to handle these risks. This includes examining models for UN reform, as well as initiating new ideas for a functioning global governance. It was founded in 2012 with a donation by the Swedish- Hungarian billionaire László Szombatfalvy.

Foundation

The foundation is based in Stockholm. Its board members include Johan Rockström, and the fourth AP Fund's former CEO Mats Andersson. The foundation's assets predominantly consist of a donation from László Szombatfalvy, which represented roughly half of his fortune at the time—around 500 million Swedish kronor.

Risk awareness

Global Challenges Foundation is working to raise awareness of global catastrophic risks, currently primarily

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

, other

environmental degradation Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

, and political violence focusing on

weapons of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction (WMD) is a Biological agent, biological, chemical weapon, chemical, Radiological weapon, radiological, nuclear weapon, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great dam ...

. In order to do this at both the public and the decision-making levels, the Global Challenges Foundation is closely cooperating with a number of institutions, including the

Future of Humanity Institute The Future of Humanity Institute (FHI) was an interdisciplinary research centre at the University of Oxford investigating big-picture questions about humanity and its prospects. It was founded in 2005 as part of the Faculty of Philosophy and t ...

at Oxford University. Another risk-related project driven by the Global Challenges Foundation, along with Earth League, is Earth Statement. The climate call aims at reducing the gap between science and politics, and has formulated eight points on which the world's decision-makers need to agree to achieve a successful climate agreement at COP21. Earth Statement has been signed by

Al Gore Albert Arnold Gore Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American former politician, businessman, and environmentalist who served as the 45th vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He previously served as ...

Desmond Tutu Desmond Mpilo Tutu (7 October 193126 December 2021) was a South African Anglican bishop and theologian, known for his work as an anti-apartheid and human rights activist. He was Bishop of Johannesburg from 1985 to 1986 and then Archbishop ...

, Mo Ibrahim,

Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and controlled 5 companies remaining of once more than 400. Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneu ...

Arianna Huffington Arianna Stassinopoulos Huffington (; , ; born July 15, 1950) is a Greek American author, syndicated columnist and businesswoman. She is a co-founder of ''HuffPost'', the founder and CEO of Thrive Global, and the author of fifteen books. She ha ...

Gro Harlem Brundtland Gro Brundtland (; née Harlem, 20 April 1939) is a Norwegian politician in the Labour Party, who served three terms as the prime minister of Norway (1981, 1986–1989, and 1990–1996), as the leader of her party from 1981 to 1992, and as the d ...

, Yuan T. Lee and

Mary Robinson Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (; ; born 21 May 1944) is an Irish politician who served as the president of Ireland from December 1990 to September 1997. She was the country's first female president. Robinson had previously served as a senato ...

. Global Challenges Foundation gave support to the

Stockholm School of Economics The Stockholm School of Economics (SSE; , HHS) is a private business school located in city district Vasastaden in the central part of Stockholm, Sweden. SSE offers BSc, MSc and MBA programs, along with PhD- and Executive education progr ...

for a new track – Global Challenges. The course is included in the Bachelor program in Business and Economics. The Global Challenges Foundation conducts international risk surveys and publishes annual reports on global risks, interspersed with quarterly reports that look at various aspects of global catastrophic risk and global governance. For example, the 2016 annual report estimates that an average American is more than five times likely to die during a

human extinction Human extinction or omnicide is the hypothetical end of the human species, either by population decline due to extraneous natural causes, such as an asteroid impact or large-scale volcanism, or via anthropogenic destruction (self-extinction ...

event than in a car crash. The 2017 report highlighted a broad range of security related topics, among them climate change, and concluded that global warming has a high likelihood to end civilization.

The New Shape Prize

In November 2016, the Global Challenges Foundation launched the ''Global Challenges Prize – A New Shape'', an international competition that calls on people of academia, politics, business and civil society worldwide for proposals that outline new models of

. It offered $5 Million in prizes with the best entry receiving at least $1 million. The foundation would then back efforts to bring the winning ideas towards implementation. The award ceremony took place at the end of May 2018 in Stockholm.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://www.globalchallenges.org/ Foundations based in Sweden Existential risk organizations Organizations established in 2012 2012 establishments in Sweden