LCatastrophic threats require urgent action. World leaders must work together to hear this call.
As we approach the quarter of 21e century, the hopes of progress and prosperity of the generation of “millennials” [personnes nées entre 1980 et 1999, souvent appelées en France « génération Y »] are largely overshadowed by conflicts and threats on a global scale, whether the climate crisis, pandemics, nuclear weapons or emerging risks from artificial intelligence (AI).
These threats could test the resolve of history’s greatest statesmen and women; but today they reveal the lack of vision of too many contemporary leaders. Whether authoritarian leaders or elected heads of state whose eyes are fixed on the next election, too many people in positions of authority are more likely to be guided by their own interests and short-term calculations. term than through the lasting development of those they govern.
The contrast between the gravity of our situation and the lightness of most policy responses could not be starker. That’s why, along with more than 150 public figures – Nobel Prize winners, former world leaders, scientists, philanthropists and activists – we signed an open letter to political leaders, urging them to adopt a new approach. The range of our signatories underlines the shared nature of the peril we face. Thus, we call on decision-makers to implement responsible governance and international cooperation necessary to address our shared global challenges.
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Leaders must act in the interests of current and future generations, and cannot pretend that dangers are hypothetical or too remote to merit immediate attention. Their impacts are already perceptible around the world: a rapidly changing climate, a pandemic that has caused the deaths of millions of people and cost billions, wars in which the use of nuclear weapons has been openly discussed.
Without urgent preventive action, these catastrophic risks will only worsen, further endangering life on Earth. In 2023, the entire world was alarmed by the uncontrolled race to create increasingly powerful AI systems, without meaningful safeguards or controls. Global temperature rise has exceeded the 1.5°C threshold for the first time.
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