Study: Australia is the safest place on Earth if global catastrophe hits
Researchers have identified the most resilient country on Earth in the event of a global catastrophe. Australia tops the list.
The new study, published Aug. 23 in the journal Global Challenges, looked at which nations could best survive events that would kill more than 10% of the global population over several months or years. These include nuclear war, an enormous volcanic eruption, or a large asteroid strike.
Why Australia wins
Australia’s position gives it major advantages. It sits in the Southern Hemisphere, far from the most likely location of a nuclear conflict. It is a major food producer with diverse climate zones and significant energy infrastructure.
“These kinds of catastrophes are under-researched” because they are not very likely, study first author Florian Ulrich Jehn, a researcher at FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany, told Live Science. “That makes them easy to ignore.”
But they are still possible — and no country would be unaffected if they occurred, he said.
What the researchers studied
The team analyzed studies across fields such as food security, biological weapons, and volcanism. They identified three broad types of risk:
- Events that block out sunlight, such as nuclear war or a huge volcano explosion
- Events that destroy global infrastructure, such as a geomagnetic storm or massive cyber attack
- Biological hazards, such as natural or human-caused infectious diseases
These events would have significant and long-lasting global consequences. Many would result in global famine from crops failing and trade networks falling apart. “The food system is often the thing that gets you,” Jehn said.
Who comes next
Argentina, Brazil and New Zealand follow Australia on the list. New Zealand ranks lower because it has active volcanoes, a small industrial base, and is surrounded by water and vulnerable to tsunamis.
Brazil and Argentina have high levels of inequality and historical political instability, the authors wrote.
Iceland was a contender for a safe refuge. But its location in the far north makes it vulnerable to temperature shocks if a major incident blocked out sunshine.
What makes a country resilient
Wealthier countries with a strong industrial base that are not highly reliant on global trade are better able to weather global disasters. With a strong industrial base, countries can manufacture goods they cannot import.
Geography also plays a role. Large islands can easily isolate, but they need an economy that can at least partially support itself. Japan, highly reliant on international trade, would struggle if global trade networks were disrupted.
Certain wealthy countries are less resilient to some catastrophes. Countries with nuclear capabilities — such as the U.S., the U.K., France, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, and India — are more at risk of being involved in nuclear war. This makes the Northern Hemisphere, where NATO countries are situated, more vulnerable to nuclear attack.
The Southern Hemisphere has fewer volcanoes and more ocean to act as a climate buffer, making countries there more resilient to a huge volcanic eruption.
The U.S. is not well placed
The study found the U.S. is not particularly well-placed to weather a global catastrophe. The country is exposed to geomagnetic storms because of its location and to nuclear war.
The authors also pointed to the country’s poor COVID-19 outcomes, which appeared to be due to “a lack of political will and poor social cohesion.”
Some factors make all countries better able to endure disasters, such as democratic processes and equality, Jehn said.
“When these catastrophes happen, you have to make the right decisions, and this depends on whether your country has functional governance,” Jehn said. “Inequality makes governance worse, because it leads to things like elite rivalries, or less state capacity.”
No perfect refuge
David Denkenberger, director at Alliance to Feed the Earth in Disasters (ALLFED) and a researcher at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, said the study aids understanding of future risks by considering a wider range of catastrophes.
“No country is resilient to every catastrophe, and this is an important central finding,” he said.
“A useful next step would be to quantify the relative likelihood and severity of different catastrophes, and the importance of different resilience factors, because these factors can involve significant trade-offs,” said Denkenberger, who has previously collaborated with Jehn but is not an author on the paper.
No single place on Earth would be resilient against all catastrophic risks. Australia simply fares better than the rest.
Source: livescience.com