[ { "id": "S01", "slug": "geoeconomic-confrontation", "title": "Geoeconomic confrontation", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "A", "short_title": "Geoeconomic confrontation", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "information-integrity-social-cohesion" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Escalation to Standard Severe (trade −20 per cent) within two years is plausible but not the base case after the 2025 truces." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 4, "rationale": "On the EBA and BoE calibrations." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "For trade-dependent middle powers." }, "confidence": { "level": "high", "reason": "Well-documented instruments and precedents." }, "priority": 16, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "3 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "adversarial (great power)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "Tariffs, export controls, investment screening and sanctions escalate between the two largest economies until the trading system splits into aligned blocs. Third countries are forced to choose suppliers, standards and payment rails. World trade volumes fall by a fifth and the price of neutrality rises every quarter. This is the WEF Global Risks Report 2026's top risk on every horizon to 2028.", "narrative": { "dateline": "October 2028", "text": "The third tariff round lands on a Tuesday and by Friday the shipping lines have repriced every contract into the Pacific. Export licences for lithography equipment, rare earth magnets, cloud compute and gene sequencers now need sign-off on both sides, and sign-off is political. Secondary sanctions reach banks in Jakarta, Lagos and São Paulo that cleared transactions for the wrong counterparties; two of them lose dollar correspondent accounts in a week. Treasury officials in middle powers run the same spreadsheet: which bloc buys more of what we sell, which one owns the standards our factories run on, and which one holds our reserves. Ministers announce 'balanced alignment' and are punished by both sides for it. Customs systems that were built for tariff codes now carry origin audits, end-user certificates and dual-use attestations; clearance times double. Inflation runs a point and a half above target in the aligned economies and three points above in the countries that import from both blocs. The IMF's October outlook cuts world trade growth for the third year running and uses the word 'fragmentation' 41 times." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "us-liberation-day-tariff-package-2025", "date": "2 April 2025", "event": "US 'Liberation Day' tariff package", "what_happened": "Broad reciprocal tariffs; US effective tariff rate rose to its highest level since the 1930s; retaliation and partial truces followed", "calibrates": "onset, scope, policy volatility" }, { "shock_id": "china-rare-earth-controls-2025", "date": "4 April and 9 October 2025", "event": "China rare earth export controls", "what_happened": "Licensing of heavy rare earths, then an extraterritorial regime; suspended for a year after the 30 October 2025 leaders' meeting", "calibrates": "export controls as escalation instrument" }, { "shock_id": "us-china-tariffs-2018", "date": "2018–2019", "event": "US–China tariffs", "what_happened": "Tariffs on roughly US$360 billion of Chinese goods and retaliation; trade diversion to Vietnam and Mexico", "calibrates": "duration, diversion effects" }, { "shock_id": "china-australia-trade-coercion-2020", "date": "2020–2021", "event": "China–Australia trade coercion", "what_happened": "Barriers on barley, wine, coal, lobster and timber", "calibrates": "coercion against a middle power" }, { "shock_id": "eba-2025-adverse-scenario", "date": "January 2025", "event": "EBA 2025 adverse scenario", "what_happened": "'Worsening of geopolitical tensions' and protectionism: EU GDP −6.3 per cent cumulative over three years, unemployment +6.1 points", "calibrates": "Standard Severe macro path" }, { "shock_id": "bank-of-england-stress-test-2025", "date": "March 2025", "event": "Bank of England 2025 stress scenario", "what_happened": "World trade volumes −20 per cent, world GDP −2 per cent", "calibrates": "trade volume shock" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "3 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "adversarial (great power)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Share of bilateral trade under tariffs or controls", "default": "60 per cent", "range": "20–100", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Number of aligned blocs", "default": "2", "range": "2–3", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Services and finance included", "default": "no", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "yes at Extreme" }, { "name": "Secondary sanctions on third countries", "default": "partial", "range": "none–full", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Standards and payment-rail bifurcation", "default": "partial", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Tariffs and controls raise input costs and cut export volumes.", "Third-country firms lose access to one bloc's components or markets.", "Secondary sanctions disrupt correspondent banking and payments.", "Investment screening blocks capital flows and acquisitions.", "Standards diverge, raising compliance cost and stranding equipment.", "Diplomatic alignment is priced into trade and finance terms." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "loss of access to controlled inputs and tools" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "defence supply chains re-routed; alliance friction" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "ports and customs capacity; standards divergence" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "trade negotiation, customs, sanctions compliance, industrial policy" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "alignment pressure; diplomatic bandwidth" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Low", "channel": "talent mobility restrictions" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "volumes, diversion, re-shoring cost" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "inflation, reserves composition, payments access" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "commodity price volatility and export bans" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Trade dependence and alignment", "actions": [ "Map bloc exposure by product and payment rail", "Pre-negotiate exemptions", "Build customs capacity" ], "watch": [ "Effective tariff rate", "Licence denial rates" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Controlled inputs and foreign standards", "actions": [ "Dual-qualify suppliers", "Segment product lines by bloc" ], "watch": [ "Entity-list additions", "End-user rules" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Earnings of trade-dependent sectors and sovereign spreads of non-aligned states", "actions": [ "Stress portfolios on a 20 per cent trade-volume fall" ], "watch": [ "Tariff announcements", "FX of middle powers" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Prices and jobs in export sectors", "actions": [ "Household budget resilience" ], "watch": [ "Food and fuel prices" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Initiator and target; diversified" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Export-dependent, caught between blocs" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Initiator and target; export engine" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Supply-chain hub for both blocs" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Beneficiary of diversion, exposed to controls" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Energy demand and alignment pressure" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Commodity prices, aid and finance alignment" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Commodities; USMCA uncertainty" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Already partly decoupled" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Trade-weighted effective tariff rates", "source": "WTO, Yale Budget Lab", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Export-control notices and entity-list additions", "source": "BIS, MOFCOM", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Global Supply Chain Pressure Index", "source": "New York Fed", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Share of world trade between rival blocs", "source": "IMF fragmentation indicators", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Correspondent banking relationship counts", "source": "BIS", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "WTO disputes filed", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Investment screening rejections", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S02", "note": null }, { "id": "S05", "note": null }, { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S13", "note": "market-concentration variant" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S07", "note": "populist turn" }, { "id": "S06", "note": null } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "supply-chain concentration", "industrial policy competition", "polarisation" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether services and finance belong in Standard Severe or only Extreme.", "How to score nations that benefit from diversion.", "Whether 'alignment pressure' is a capability load or a trend." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Middle powers are pressed to **choose a bloc**. Ministers who announce 'balanced alignment' are punished by both sides.", "economic": "World trade volumes fall by **a fifth**. Inflation runs above target and secondary sanctions cut banks off from dollar correspondent accounts.", "social": "Prices rise and **export-sector jobs** go. Households in countries that import from both blocs carry the highest inflation.", "technological": "Export licences for lithography, rare earth magnets, cloud compute and gene sequencers become political. **Standards diverge** and equipment is stranded.", "legal": "Customs systems built for tariff codes now carry **origin audits**, end-user certificates and dual-use attestations. Clearance times double.", "environmental": "Commodity prices swing and **export bans** spread to energy and resource inputs." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Initiator and target at once. A **diversified economy** absorbs the tariffs, but input costs rise and retaliation lands on exporters.", "europe": "Export-dependent and **caught between blocs**: firms lose components from one side and markets on the other.", "china": "Initiator and target. The **export engine** is hit by tariffs and controls, and answers with licensing of its own.", "indo-pacific": "The **supply-chain hub** for both blocs. Factories segment product lines and requalify suppliers bloc by bloc.", "south-asia": "Gains from **trade diversion**, while exposed to controls on the inputs its new factories need.", "gulf-middle-east": "Energy demand softens and **alignment pressure** rises on suppliers, standards and payment rails.", "africa": "Commodity prices swing. Aid and finance come with **alignment conditions** and banks risk their correspondent accounts.", "latin-america": "Commodity exporters sell to both blocs under **USMCA uncertainty**. Banks that clear for the wrong counterparty are sanctioned.", "russia-eurasia": "Already **partly decoupled**; the wider split adds less new exposure here than elsewhere." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 5, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 4, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "high" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S01 Geoeconomic confrontation, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/geoeconomic-confrontation" }, { "id": "S02", "slug": "single-supplier-cut-off", "title": "Single-supplier cut-off", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "A", "short_title": "Single-supplier cut-off", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "ai-cyber-digital" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "Two Standard Severe episodes in 2025 alone." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Sectoral rather than economy-wide, but global in reach." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "For manufacturing economies without stockpiles." }, "confidence": { "level": "high", "reason": "" }, "priority": 20, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "sudden", "duration": "1 year", "warning": "days", "scope": "global", "origin": "adversarial (great power)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "The dominant supplier of a critical input halts or licenses exports for a year. The input may be rare earth magnets, legacy semiconductors, active pharmaceutical ingredients, fertiliser, lithography tools or cloud compute. Substitution takes 18 to 36 months. Production lines, hospitals and farms discover their exposure through stoppages rather than audits. v0.2 widened this scenario from minerals and chips to any input with a supplier share above 40 per cent, following Norway's drug-shortage scenario and the Nexperia stoppage.", "narrative": { "dateline": "February 2028", "text": "The licence regime is announced as 'orderly'. Within a month, applications are backing up and approval depends on end-use declarations that no automotive supplier can honestly complete. A tier-two parts maker in Bavaria stops shipping door-control modules; the assembly plant runs out of them on day nine. In Hyderabad, a generics manufacturer learns that its intermediate supplier has lost its export permit, and a hospital pharmacy in Lusaka learns it three months later when the tender fails. Fertiliser buyers in East Africa discover that the alternative source has already been contracted by larger buyers at twice the price. Governments convene task forces, publish lists of critical inputs and discover they do not know the second and third tiers of their own supply chains. Stockpiles that looked ample on a spreadsheet turn out to be the wrong grade. Eighteen months in, two new refineries and one packaging plant have been announced; none is running. The supplier offers to resume exports to governments that sign side-letters on unrelated matters, and several do." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "nexperia-export-halt-2025", "date": "October 2025", "event": "Nexperia export halt", "what_happened": "After the Dutch government took control of Nexperia on 30 September, China blocked exports from Nexperia's Chinese plants; European and Japanese carmakers warned of line stoppages within weeks", "calibrates": "speed of stoppage; legacy chips" }, { "shock_id": "china-rare-earth-controls-2025", "date": "April and October 2025", "event": "China rare earth controls", "what_happened": "Licensing of heavy rare earths and magnets; one-year suspension agreed 30 October 2025", "calibrates": "licensing as coercion" }, { "shock_id": "china-rare-earth-embargo-on-japan-2010", "date": "September 2010", "event": "China rare earth embargo on Japan", "what_happened": "Informal halt of exports for about two months during the Senkaku dispute", "calibrates": "precedent and recovery" }, { "shock_id": "global-semiconductor-shortage-2021", "date": "2021–2022", "event": "Global semiconductor shortage", "what_happened": "Vehicle production cut by millions of units; lead times beyond 50 weeks", "calibrates": "substitution lead times" }, { "shock_id": "norway-aks-drug-shortage-scenario-2019", "date": "2019", "event": "Norway AKS 'drug shortage' scenario", "what_happened": "National scenario of pharmaceutical supply failure", "calibrates": "medicines as critical input" }, { "shock_id": "fertiliser-and-black-sea-2022", "date": "2022", "event": "Fertiliser and Black Sea", "what_happened": "Potash and nitrogen export disruption; prices doubled", "calibrates": "fertiliser pathway" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "sudden", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "days", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "adversarial (great power)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Input class", "default": "rare earth magnets", "range": "options: legacy chips / APIs / fertiliser / lithography tools / cloud compute", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Supplier share of global supply", "default": "70 per cent", "range": "40–95", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Substitution lead time", "default": "24 months", "range": "6–48", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "National stockpile coverage", "default": "3 months", "range": "0–12", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Licensing versus outright ban", "default": "licensing", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "ban at Extreme" } ] }, "transmission": [ "Export halt or licence backlog.", "Tier-two and tier-three stoppages surface within weeks.", "Price spike on alternative sources; larger buyers pre-empt supply.", "Production cuts, hospital shortages, planting delays.", "Side-letter diplomacy and selective resumption." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "chips, tools, materials for electronics and defence" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "munitions and platform components" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Low", "channel": "grid and transport components" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "supply-chain visibility, stockpile policy, licensing diplomacy" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "medicines and health outcomes" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Low", "channel": "public trust in government competence" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "stoppages, substitution cost" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Low", "channel": "sectoral output and inflation" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "transition materials; fertiliser and food" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": null, "actions": [ "Map tier-two dependence for the 20 most critical inputs", "Set stockpile grades, not just volumes", "Pre-qualify alternative suppliers" ], "watch": [ "Licence approval times" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": null, "actions": [ "Inventory bills of materials to the component level", "Dual-source where the supplier share exceeds 50 per cent" ], "watch": [ "Export-control notices" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": null, "actions": [ "Identify single-supplier exposure in portfolio companies" ], "watch": [ "Lead-time indices" ], "relevance": 3 }, "public": { "exposure": "Medicine availability", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Pharmacy shortage lists" ], "relevance": 2 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Automotive, machinery, generic medicines" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Low as supplier, Medium as importer of tools" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Electronics assembly" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "API intermediates, fertiliser" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Fertiliser, medicines, no stockpiles" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Export licence approval times and denial rates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Supplier concentration by HS code", "source": "UN Comtrade", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Lead-time indices", "source": "ISM, IHS", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Pharmacy shortage registers", "source": "EMA, FDA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Fertiliser price indices", "source": "World Bank", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Announced capacity for alternative supply versus commissioning dates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S09", "note": "if energy equipment" }, { "id": "S11", "note": "if fertiliser" }, { "id": "S12", "note": "if grid components" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S01", "note": null }, { "id": "S05", "note": null }, { "id": "S06", "note": null } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "supply-chain concentration", "just-in-time inventories", "energy-transition material demand" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether cloud compute and frontier models belong here or in S13.", "How to treat 'friendly' supplier concentration (lithography tools) versus adversarial." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "The supplier offers to resume exports to governments that sign **side-letters** on unrelated matters, and several do.", "economic": "**Lines stop within weeks**. Alternative sources are already contracted by larger buyers at twice the price; substitution takes 18 to 36 months.", "social": "Hospitals and farms discover their exposure through **failed tenders** and missed planting, not through audits.", "technological": "Legacy chips, magnets and tools stop flowing. Eighteen months in, new refineries and plants are announced and **none is running**.", "legal": "A licence regime announced as 'orderly' backs up. Approval turns on **end-use declarations** no supplier can honestly complete.", "environmental": "Transition materials and **fertiliser** are among the inputs cut, carrying the shock into energy and food." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Manufacturers wait on licensed inputs. Governments find they cannot see the **second and third tiers** of their own supply chains.", "europe": "Automotive, machinery and generic medicines. A parts maker stops shipping and the **assembly plant runs out on day nine**.", "china": "The supplier in most variants; an importer where the input is **lithography tools**.", "indo-pacific": "**Electronics assembly** stalls as components and materials are licensed shipment by shipment.", "south-asia": "Generics makers lose their **intermediates** when a supplier's export permit goes; fertiliser buyers are outbid.", "gulf-middle-east": "Little industry depends on the affected inputs; **exposure is low**.", "africa": "Fertiliser and medicines with **no stockpiles**. A hospital pharmacy learns of the cut-off when its tender fails.", "latin-america": "Industry and agriculture compete for **alternative supply** against larger buyers.", "russia-eurasia": "Importers of the affected inputs queue behind larger buyers for **alternative supply**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 3, "L2y": 5, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "high" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S02 Single-supplier cut-off, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/single-supplier-cut-off" }, { "id": "S03", "slug": "global-financial-crisis", "title": "Global financial crisis", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "A", "short_title": "Global financial crisis", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Severe crises have arrived roughly once a decade; valuations and private-credit growth raise the near-term odds." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 5, "rationale": "On the 2008 loss of output." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "" }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Timing is unknowable; severity is well calibrated." }, "priority": 20, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "sudden", "duration": "1 year (recession 3 years)", "warning": "months (ignored)", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (endogenous)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "An asset bubble bursts, credit freezes and the world enters a severe recession. The specification is the supervisory 'severely adverse' scenario that every major regulator tests banks against, applied here to nations: unemployment up 5.5 points to 10 per cent, house prices down 30 per cent, commercial property down 39 per cent, equities down half. v0.2 added this scenario because v0.1 had no generic financial crisis, and no respected scenario set omits one.", "narrative": { "dateline": "March 2028", "text": "The repricing starts in the most crowded trade of the decade and does not stop there. Within three weeks, three mid-sized lenders have failed, a stablecoin has broken its peg and the private-credit funds that financed the data-centre boom have gated redemptions. Central banks face the choice the 2025 Bank of England scenario anticipated: inflation is still above target, so the first response is not to cut. Equities fall 48 per cent in London and 57 per cent in New York peak to trough. Commercial property marks down 39 per cent and the pension funds holding it discover the valuations were two years stale. Unemployment climbs for 18 months. Emerging-market currencies lose a third against the dollar; four sovereigns request programmes in a quarter. Governments that spent their fiscal space in the pandemic and the energy shock have 2 per cent of GDP to deploy and need 8. The policy debate is about who is rescued, and the political consequences arrive before the recovery does." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "global-financial-crisis-2008", "date": "2008–2009", "event": "Global financial crisis", "what_happened": "World output fell in 2009 for the first time since the war; unemployment in the US peaked at 10 per cent", "calibrates": "Standard Severe path" }, { "shock_id": "federal-reserve-2026-severely-adverse-scenario", "date": "February 2026", "event": "Federal Reserve 2026 severely adverse scenario", "what_happened": "Unemployment +5.5 points to 10 per cent; house prices −30 per cent; commercial real estate −39 per cent; spreads widen sharply; 32 banks", "calibrates": "variable paths" }, { "shock_id": "bank-of-england-stress-test-2025", "date": "March 2025", "event": "Bank of England 2025 Bank Capital Stress Test", "what_happened": "UK GDP −5 per cent; unemployment 8.5 per cent; house prices −28 per cent; CRE −50 per cent from 2022 peak; equities −48 per cent (UK) and −57 per cent (US); Bank Rate 8 per cent; CPI 10 per cent; calibrated to first-percentile historical distributions", "calibrates": "inflationary variant" }, { "shock_id": "march-2020-dash-for-cash", "date": "March 2020", "event": "March 2020 dash for cash", "what_happened": "Treasury market dysfunction; central bank backstops within days", "calibrates": "liquidity channel" }, { "shock_id": "svb-and-credit-suisse-2023", "date": "March 2023", "event": "SVB and Credit Suisse", "what_happened": "Interest-rate and liquidity failures that the credit-loss-focused stress tests had not modelled", "calibrates": "scenario narrowness lesson" }, { "shock_id": "asian-financial-crisis-1997", "date": "1997–1998", "event": "Asian financial crisis", "what_happened": "Currency and banking crises across East Asia; IMF programmes", "calibrates": "emerging-market channel" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year (recession 3 years)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "sudden", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months (ignored)", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (endogenous)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Unemployment rise", "default": "5.5 points", "range": "3–8", "unit": "points", "note": null }, { "name": "House price fall", "default": "30 per cent", "range": "15–45", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Equity fall", "default": "50 per cent", "range": "30–65", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Policy regime", "default": "inflationary", "range": "alternative: deflationary (rates to zero)", "unit": null, "note": "rates rise before they fall" }, { "name": "Sovereign–bank doom loop", "default": "off", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "on at Extreme" }, { "name": "Private-credit and non-bank contagion", "default": "on", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Asset repricing and margin calls.", "Funding stress in banks and non-banks.", "Credit contraction to firms and households.", "Unemployment and defaults.", "Fiscal deterioration and sovereign stress in weaker economies.", "Political backlash and protectionism." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "budget compression; procurement deferred" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "investment pipeline stalls; PPPs fail" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Medium", "channel": "venture and research funding collapse" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "fiscal management, resolution regimes, social protection delivery" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "youth unemployment, scarring, migration of talent" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "trust in institutions; polarisation" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "banking system, public debt, pensions, housing" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "demand collapse; trade finance" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "demand-side price falls" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Fiscal space and resolution regimes", "actions": [ "Pre-position resolution tools and social protection triggers", "Stress the sovereign balance sheet on the supervisory path" ], "watch": [ "Spreads", "Non-bank leverage" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Venture funding and data-centre financing", "actions": [ "Extend runway", "Reduce single-lender dependence" ], "watch": [ "Private-credit redemptions" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": "The scenario is their native territory", "actions": [ "Run the Fed and BoE paths across sovereign and corporate books" ], "watch": [ "VIX", "HY spreads", "CRE marks" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Jobs, mortgages, pensions", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Unemployment claims", "Mortgage rates" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Origin and amplifier" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Banks, CRE, fiscal space" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Property overhang; capital controls insulate" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Export demand, open capital accounts" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Oil demand, sovereign wealth buffers" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Market access lost, aid falls" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Currency and commodity channel" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "VIX and MOVE", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "US and EU high-yield spreads", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "CRE price indices and REIT discounts to NAV", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Private-credit redemption gates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "EM sovereign spreads", "source": "EMBI", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Bank CDS", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Central bank facility usage", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Global PMI", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S04", "note": "many nations" }, { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S01", "note": "protectionist response" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S13", "note": "AI equity concentration" }, { "id": "S05", "note": null }, { "id": "S14", "note": null } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "public and private debt levels", "non-bank finance growth", "equity concentration" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether the inflationary or deflationary regime should be Standard Severe.", "How to treat nations with capital controls.", "Whether a sovereign debt crisis in an advanced economy is S03 or S04." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "The policy debate is about **who is rescued**. The political consequences arrive before the recovery does.", "economic": "Equities fall by half, commercial property by 39 per cent and house prices by 30 per cent. Unemployment reaches **10 per cent**.", "social": "Unemployment climbs for 18 months. **Youth scarring**, mortgage stress and stale pension valuations reach households.", "technological": "Venture and research funding collapse. The private-credit funds that financed the **data-centre boom** gate redemptions.", "legal": "**Resolution regimes** are tested as mid-sized lenders fail and a stablecoin breaks its peg.", "environmental": "Demand collapses and **energy prices fall**; the investment pipeline stalls." }, "regions": { "north-america": "**Origin and amplifier**. The repricing starts in the most crowded trade of the decade and equities fall 57 per cent.", "europe": "Banks, commercial property and thin **fiscal space**. Central banks facing inflation do not cut first.", "china": "The **property overhang** deepens, while capital controls insulate the financial system.", "indo-pacific": "Export demand falls and **open capital accounts** transmit the funding stress.", "south-asia": "Currencies lose ground against the dollar as **capital leaves** emerging markets.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Oil demand** falls; sovereign wealth buffers absorb the first round.", "africa": "**Market access is lost** and aid falls. Sovereigns request programmes.", "latin-america": "The **currency and commodity** channel: depreciation and falling export prices arrive together.", "russia-eurasia": "Commodity export revenue falls with **global demand**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 1, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 5, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S03 Global financial crisis, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/global-financial-crisis" }, { "id": "S04", "slug": "sovereign-funding-crisis", "title": "Sovereign funding crisis", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "A", "short_title": "Sovereign funding crisis", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Two to five sovereign defaults or restructurings a year across 197 nations implies 1 to 2.5 per cent per nation per year." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Unless a G20 sovereign." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "Sri Lanka lost fuel, medicines and its government." }, "confidence": { "level": "high", "reason": "" }, "priority": 15, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "1 year", "warning": "months", "scope": "national", "origin": "accidental or adversarial (sanctions)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "A nation loses the ability to fund itself: market access closes, the currency collapses, reserves are exhausted or frozen, or external aid is withdrawn. The IMF's Debt Sustainability Frameworks already specify standardised stress tests for this; the scenario adapts them to capability. Three variants: market loss (Sri Lanka 2022), sanctions and reserve freeze (Russia 2022) and aid withdrawal (the 2025 US foreign-aid freeze for aid-dependent states). An advanced-economy variant exists (the UK gilt crisis of September 2022).", "narrative": { "dateline": "August 2027", "text": "The auction fails on a Thursday. By Monday the currency has lost 30 per cent, fuel importers cannot open letters of credit and the central bank has 11 days of import cover left. The finance ministry's contingency plan assumes a swap line that the partner central bank declines to extend. Queues form at petrol stations, then at pharmacies, then at the ports where ships wait for payment before unloading grain. Public-sector salaries are paid late, then in part. The government requests an IMF programme and discovers that the restructuring requires creditors who do not sit in the same room. A second variant plays elsewhere: a mid-sized economy wakes to find its reserves frozen by a coalition of central banks and its banks cut from messaging systems; the import economy stalls within a fortnight. A third: a low-income state learns that the donor financing a third of its health budget has suspended disbursements, and the drug supply chain breaks before the budget year ends." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "sri-lanka-default-2022", "date": "April 2022", "event": "Sri Lanka default", "what_happened": "First default; fuel, medicine and food shortages; government fell in July", "calibrates": "market-loss variant" }, { "shock_id": "russia-reserve-freeze-2022", "date": "February–March 2022", "event": "Russia reserve freeze", "what_happened": "About US$300 billion of central bank reserves immobilised; payments exclusion", "calibrates": "sanctions variant" }, { "shock_id": "uk-gilt-crisis-2022", "date": "September–October 2022", "event": "UK gilt crisis", "what_happened": "Pension LDI margin spiral; Bank of England emergency purchases", "calibrates": "advanced-economy variant" }, { "shock_id": "ghana-and-zambia-restructurings-2020", "date": "2020–2024", "event": "Ghana and Zambia restructurings", "what_happened": "Protracted creditor coordination under the Common Framework", "calibrates": "recovery horizon" }, { "shock_id": "us-foreign-aid-freeze-2025", "date": "January 2025 onward", "event": "US foreign-aid freeze", "what_happened": "Suspension and dismantling of large parts of US development assistance", "calibrates": "aid-withdrawal variant" }, { "shock_id": "imf-world-bank-lic-debt-sustainability-framework-2018", "date": "2018 guidance", "event": "IMF–World Bank LIC Debt Sustainability Framework", "what_happened": "Standardised stress tests: growth, primary balance, exports, exchange rate, contingent liabilities, natural disaster", "calibrates": "parameter conventions" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "national", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental or adversarial (sanctions)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Trigger", "default": "market loss", "range": "options: sanctions / aid withdrawal / combined", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Reserve cover at onset", "default": "2 months of imports", "range": "0–6", "unit": "months of imports", "note": null }, { "name": "Depreciation", "default": "50 per cent", "range": "20–80", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Foreign-currency share of external debt", "default": "70 per cent", "range": "30–95", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Multilateral programme available", "default": "yes within six months", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "no at Extreme" }, { "name": "Aid share of public spending (aid variant)", "default": "25 per cent", "range": "5–50", "unit": "per cent", "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Funding stops.", "Currency and reserves collapse.", "Import financing fails: fuel, food, medicines.", "Public services and salaries are cut.", "Social unrest and political change.", "Restructuring drags; investment stalls for years." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "budget and import financing of equipment and fuel" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "fuel imports; maintenance deferred" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "imported equipment" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "fiscal management, debt management, programme negotiation, service continuity" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "health and education budgets; emigration" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "legitimacy; alliance dependence" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "reserves, banking, payments sovereignty" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "import financing" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "fuel import capacity" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Reserve adequacy, debt structure, payment-rail dependence", "actions": [ "Pre-arrange swap lines and contingent financing", "Diversify payment rails", "Protect health and food import lines in the contingency plan" ], "watch": [ "Import cover", "Spreads", "Rollover calendar" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Payment and cloud service continuity under sanctions", "actions": [ "Sovereign-cloud and offline fallbacks" ], "watch": [ "Correspondent banking withdrawals" ], "relevance": 2 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Sovereign exposure", "actions": [ "Run IMF DSF stress tests on holdings" ], "watch": [ "EMBI spreads", "Reserve data", "Donor budgets" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Prices, fuel, medicines", "actions": [], "watch": [ "FX parallel-market gap" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Medium for highly indebted members" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Pacific islands, Laos, Pakistan-adjacent" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": null }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Debt distress and aid dependence" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Sanctions variant" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Import cover months", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "EMBI spreads", "source": null, "threshold": "above 1,000 basis points", "cadence": null }, { "name": "IMF DSA risk ratings", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Eurobond maturity walls", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Parallel-market FX premium", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Donor disbursement data", "source": "OECD CRS", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Correspondent banking withdrawals", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Sanctions designations", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S08", "note": "outward" }, { "id": "S11", "note": "food import failure" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S03", "note": null }, { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S10", "note": null }, { "id": "S14", "note": null }, { "id": "S01", "note": "secondary sanctions" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "debt accumulation", "aid retrenchment", "dollar dependence" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether the advanced-economy variant should be a separate scenario.", "How to score nations inside currency unions.", "Whether aid withdrawal is a shock or a trend after 2025." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Late salaries and queues bring **unrest and political change**. Sri Lanka's government fell within months of its default.", "economic": "The auction fails, the currency loses 30 per cent and the central bank has **11 days of import cover**.", "social": "Queues form at petrol stations, then pharmacies. **Public-sector salaries** are paid late, then in part.", "technological": "In the sanctions variant banks are cut from **messaging systems**; payment and cloud services need offline fallbacks.", "legal": "Restructuring requires creditors who **do not sit in the same room**. Reserves can be frozen by a coalition of central banks.", "environmental": "**Fuel importers** cannot open letters of credit and ships wait for payment before unloading grain." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Rated **Low**: the scenario is not expected to strike here at Standard Severe.", "europe": "Low overall and **Medium for highly indebted members**. The 2022 gilt crisis is the advanced-economy variant.", "china": "Rated **Low**: the scenario is not expected to strike here at Standard Severe.", "indo-pacific": "Risk concentrates in **Pacific islands**, Laos and economies adjacent to Pakistan.", "south-asia": "**High exposure**. Sri Lanka's 2022 default is the market-loss anchor: fuel, medicine and food shortages.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan** carry the exposure.", "africa": "**Debt distress and aid dependence**. A donor suspends disbursements and the drug supply chain breaks within the budget year.", "latin-america": "**Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela** carry the exposure.", "russia-eurasia": "The **sanctions variant**: reserves immobilised and banks excluded from payments." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 10, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "high" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S04 Sovereign funding crisis, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/sovereign-funding-crisis" }, { "id": "S05", "slug": "chokepoint-closure", "title": "Maritime chokepoint closure", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "B", "short_title": "Chokepoint closure", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "climate-energy-resources", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "A Standard Severe closure occurred in 2026 and the underlying conflict is unresolved; Taiwan Strait risk is independent of it." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 4, "rationale": "On Lloyd's weighted estimate." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "For single-route importers." }, "confidence": { "level": "high", "reason": "The 2026 episode supplied observed values for every slider." }, "priority": 20, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "sudden", "duration": "90 days (acute)", "warning": "days", "scope": "global", "origin": "adversarial (regional)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "months" }, "summary": "A major strait is closed to commercial traffic for 90 days by conflict, blockade, mining or insurer withdrawal, followed by months of partial recovery. Hormuz is the default: a fifth of seaborne oil and a similar share of LNG. Variants cover the Taiwan Strait, Malacca, Bab el-Mandeb and Suez, the Turkish Straits, Panama and the Baltic approaches. The 2026 Hormuz closure is the primary anchor and supplies observed values for transits, prices, insurance and recovery.", "narrative": { "dateline": "May 2029", "text": "The first tanker is hit on a Sunday night and by Wednesday the war-risk underwriters have withdrawn cover for the Gulf. Owners order ships to hold outside the strait. Transits fall from about a hundred a day to a handful of escorted convoys. Brent is up 30 per cent in ten days; LNG spot cargoes reprice overnight and the buyers in Japan, Korea and South Asia who import most of their gas through the strait start rationing industrial users within three weeks. Europe discovers that a third of its jet fuel came through the same water. Strategic reserves are released on day 12 and buy about six weeks. Pipelines to the Red Sea run at capacity and move a fraction of the lost volume. Food importers in East Africa are hit second: freight rates triple on the routes that remain open. A ceasefire is agreed in week six; insurers do not return for another two months, and traffic is still a third of normal four months after the first attack. Governments that had assumed a closure would last days find that their fuel allocation plans were written for the wrong duration." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "hormuz-closure-2026", "date": "28 February to July 2026", "event": "Strait of Hormuz closure", "what_happened": "Following US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February, commercial shipping effectively halted from early March; 13 vessel incidents confirmed by 10 March; Brent above US$92 on 6 March with the largest weekly rise in two decades; war-risk premiums doubled; LNG spot rates up 40 per cent in a session; first transits under a ceasefire on 8 April; a US–Iran memorandum on 17 June; 34 transits a day on 2 July against about 100 before the conflict; Brent back near US$71 by July", "calibrates": "duration, recovery horizon, price and insurance paths" }, { "shock_id": "red-sea-and-bab-el-mandeb-2023", "date": "November 2023–2025", "event": "Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb", "what_happened": "Houthi attacks; Suez transits roughly halved; Cape routing added 10 to 14 days", "calibrates": "partial-closure variant" }, { "shock_id": "ever-given-grounding-2021", "date": "23–29 March 2021", "event": "Ever Given grounding", "what_happened": "Suez blocked six days; about US$9 billion a day of trade held", "calibrates": "short accidental closure" }, { "shock_id": "panama-canal-drought-2023", "date": "2023–2024", "event": "Panama Canal drought", "what_happened": "Daily transits cut from about 36 to the low 20s", "calibrates": "climate variant" }, { "shock_id": "lloyds-geopolitical-conflict-scenario-2024", "date": "October 2024", "event": "Lloyd's geopolitical conflict scenario", "what_happened": "Closure of major trade routes: five-year global loss US$14.5 trillion weighted (US$7.8 to 50 trillion); Europe up to US$3.4 trillion", "calibrates": "systemic impact" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "90 days (acute)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "sudden", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "days", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "adversarial (regional)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Strait", "default": "Hormuz", "range": "options: Taiwan Strait / Malacca / Bab el-Mandeb and Suez / Turkish Straits / Panama / Baltic", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Share of seaborne oil affected", "default": "20 per cent", "range": "5–40", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Full closure duration", "default": "90 days", "range": "14–180", "unit": "days", "note": null }, { "name": "Rerouting availability", "default": "partial", "range": "none–full", "unit": null, "note": "pipelines" }, { "name": "Insurance withdrawal", "default": "war-risk premiums ×2", "range": "×1.5 to ×10", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Naval escort regime", "default": "partial", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Insurer withdrawal halts traffic before any blockade.", "Energy price spike and physical shortage for direct importers.", "Freight and insurance costs rise on all routes.", "Food and fertiliser importers hit through freight and diversion.", "Fiscal cost of subsidies and reserve releases.", "Naval deployment and alliance obligations.", "Slow recovery as insurers and crews return." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "High", "channel": "naval reach, escort capacity, mine clearance" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "ports, pipelines, storage, refining flexibility" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "shipping-tracking and maritime domain awareness" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "fuel allocation, reserve release, crisis coordination" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Low", "channel": "transport and heating disruption" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "alliance diplomacy; public tolerance of rationing" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "inflation, current account, fiscal cost" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "freight, inventories, export access" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "crude and LNG supply; strategic stocks" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Import route concentration and reserve days", "actions": [ "Write allocation plans for 90-day closures", "Pre-agree reserve release with the IEA", "Secure escort arrangements" ], "watch": [ "UKMTO incident reports", "Transit counts" ], "relevance": 5 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Data-centre power and diesel backup", "actions": [ "Fuel contracts and demand-response" ], "watch": [ "Diesel availability" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Shipping, insurance, energy and importers", "actions": [ "Stress on a 90-day closure with insurer withdrawal" ], "watch": [ "War-risk premiums", "Tanker rates" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Fuel prices and availability", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Pump prices", "Rationing announcements" ], "relevance": 2 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Net exporter; price exposure only" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Jet fuel, LNG, Suez trade" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Crude imports through Hormuz and Malacca" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Japan, Korea, Taiwan import most energy by sea" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "India's crude; Pakistan's LNG" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Exports stop; fiscal collapse for some" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "East African food and fuel freight" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Beneficiary on price" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Daily transits by strait", "source": "Lloyd's List Intelligence, UKMTO, Windward", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "War-risk premium as share of hull value", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Brent–Dubai and LNG spot spreads", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "IEA strategic stock days", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Baltic Dry and tanker rate indices", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Naval deployments announced", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Mine incidents", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S11", "note": null }, { "id": "S04", "note": "importers" }, { "id": "S03", "note": "if prolonged" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S06", "note": null }, { "id": "S07", "note": "regional" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "energy import concentration", "just-in-time fuel logistics", "insurer concentration" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a Taiwan Strait closure is a variant of S05 or a scenario of its own given its conflict context.", "How to treat exporters whose revenue stops versus importers whose supply stops.", "Whether 90 days remains Standard Severe after a five-week closure produced four months of disruption." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "A ceasefire is agreed in week six. **Naval escorts** and alliance obligations are called on throughout.", "economic": "Brent is up **30 per cent in ten days**. LNG cargoes reprice overnight and freight rates triple on the routes still open.", "social": "Industrial gas users are **rationed within three weeks**; fuel prices and food freight reach households next.", "technological": "Shipping tracking and **maritime domain awareness** carry the load; data centres look to diesel backup.", "legal": "**War-risk underwriters withdraw cover** before any blockade, and do not return for two months after the ceasefire.", "environmental": "A fifth of seaborne oil and a similar share of LNG stop. Strategic reserves buy **about six weeks**." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Net exporter; **price exposure only**.", "europe": "Jet fuel, LNG and Suez trade. A third of its **jet fuel** came through the same water.", "china": "Crude imports run through **Hormuz and Malacca**.", "indo-pacific": "Japan, Korea and Taiwan import most of their energy by sea and **ration industrial users** within three weeks.", "south-asia": "**India's crude and Pakistan's LNG** come through the strait.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Exports stop**. For some, the fiscal position collapses.", "africa": "East African **food and fuel freight**: rates triple on the routes that remain open.", "latin-america": "Rated **Low**: far from the strait and less dependent on its cargoes.", "russia-eurasia": "Low exposure; a **beneficiary on price**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 2, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 4, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "high" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S05 Maritime chokepoint closure, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/chokepoint-closure" }, { "id": "S06", "slug": "hybrid-campaign", "title": "Hybrid campaign by a hostile state", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "B", "short_title": "Hybrid campaign", "thematics": [ "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "ai-cyber-digital", "information-integrity-social-cohesion" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": "clustered", "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "For a given nation in the exposed cluster (Europe, Baltic and Nordic states, Moldova, Taiwan); the global per-nation base rate is lower, and the Edition should show the cluster explicitly." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Diffuse." }, "impact_national": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Erosion rather than collapse, but persistent." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Attribution limits the evidence base." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (months)", "duration": "1 year", "warning": "months", "scope": "national (regional cluster)", "origin": "adversarial (great power or neighbour)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "A hostile state runs a sustained, deniable campaign below the threshold of war: sabotage of subsea cables and energy assets, drone incursions, GNSS jamming, arson and parcel incendiaries, assassination plots, cyber intrusions, instrumentalised migration and information operations, over 12 months. v0.2 added this as the publishable form of state aggression; conventional invasion stays out of the public Library. Eurasia Group's Top Risk 5 for 2026 ('Russia's second front') and the UK National Risk Register's state-threats theme describe the same pattern.", "narrative": { "dateline": "November 2027", "text": "Nothing in the campaign is an act of war on its own. A data cable to the islands is cut by a dragging anchor; the ship's owner is a company registered six weeks earlier. Drones close the capital's airport for four hours twice in a month. A warehouse fire destroys a defence subcontractor's inventory; the arsonists were recruited on a messaging app for the price of a used car. GPS fails across the eastern region for days at a time, and the farmers' autosteer, the ambulances' dispatch and the airport's approach procedures fail with it. Migrants are bused to the border by a neighbouring government and the images are amplified by accounts that did not exist a month earlier. Each incident is investigated, attributed with 'high confidence' weeks later and answered with a sanctions designation. The public argument is whether the government is doing enough or exaggerating; both sides are supplied with evidence. Allies consult under Article 4 and agree to a statement. The campaign's purpose is not any single effect; it is the demonstration that the state cannot protect ordinary life, and that the alliance will not act on what it cannot prove." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "baltic-subsea-cable-damage-2024", "date": "17–18 November and 25 December 2024", "event": "Baltic subsea cable damage", "what_happened": "C-Lion1 and BCS East–West cables, then Estlink 2; the Eagle S detained by Finland", "calibrates": "cable sabotage" }, { "shock_id": "drone-incursions-into-poland-2025", "date": "9–10 September 2025", "event": "Drone incursions into Poland", "what_happened": "Around 20 drones entered Polish airspace; some shot down; NATO Article 4 consultations", "calibrates": "air incursions" }, { "shock_id": "danish-and-norwegian-airport-closures-2025", "date": "September 2025", "event": "Danish and Norwegian airport closures", "what_happened": "Drone sightings closed Copenhagen and other airports", "calibrates": "civil aviation disruption" }, { "shock_id": "dhl-parcel-incendiaries-2024", "date": "July 2024", "event": "DHL parcel incendiaries", "what_happened": "Incendiary devices in air cargo in Leipzig and Birmingham", "calibrates": "sabotage of logistics" }, { "shock_id": "nord-stream-sabotage-2022", "date": "September 2022", "event": "Nord Stream sabotage", "what_happened": "Pipelines destroyed in the Baltic", "calibrates": "energy infrastructure" }, { "shock_id": "belarus-poland-border-2021", "date": "2021", "event": "Belarus–Poland border", "what_happened": "Migrants flown in and pushed to the EU border", "calibrates": "instrumentalised migration" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (months)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "national (regional cluster)", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "adversarial (great power or neighbour)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Vectors active", "default": "5", "range": "2–8", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Attribution clarity", "default": "ambiguous", "range": "options: clear", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Kinetic threshold crossed", "default": "no", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "yes at Extreme" }, { "name": "Alliance response", "default": "consultation", "range": "options: collective measures / none", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Campaign duration", "default": "12 months", "range": "6–36", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Domestic proxy recruitment", "default": "on", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Incidents degrade infrastructure and services piecemeal.", "Attribution lag prevents proportionate response.", "Information operations convert each incident into political division.", "Security services are stretched across vectors.", "Alliance cohesion is tested by the gap between evidence and action.", "Deterrence erodes as incidents go unanswered." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "High", "channel": "air defence against drones, counter-intelligence, maritime surveillance" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "cables, pipelines, grid, airports, GNSS dependence" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Medium", "channel": "GNSS alternatives, cyber defence" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "attribution, legal tools, crisis communication, inter-agency coordination" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Low", "channel": "public anxiety; emergency services strain" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "information integrity, social trust, alliance diplomacy" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Low", "channel": "insurance and risk premia" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "logistics disruption" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "energy asset sabotage" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Protection of undersea and energy assets, attribution speed, legal thresholds", "actions": [ "A single hybrid-response doctrine", "Pre-authorised responses", "GNSS backup", "Whole-of-society communication" ], "watch": [ "Incident counts by vector", "Attribution lag" ], "relevance": 5 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Cables, data centres, telecoms, GNSS-dependent services", "actions": [ "Route diversity", "PNT resilience", "Insider-threat programmes" ], "watch": [ "Cable faults", "Jamming maps" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Infrastructure and insurance", "actions": [ "Price sabotage into infrastructure assets in exposed regions" ], "watch": [ "War-risk and sabotage exclusions" ], "relevance": 2 }, "public": { "exposure": "Service disruptions and disinformation", "actions": [ "72-hour household preparedness (the EU standard)" ], "watch": [ "Official incident advisories" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "The active theatre" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Low as target" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Taiwan's cables; Philippine waters" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Proxy and drone warfare" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Ukraine's strikes; Moldova, Georgia, Armenia as targets" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Subsea cable fault counts", "source": "ICPC", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "GNSS interference maps", "source": "gpsjam.org, EASA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Drone incursion reports", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Sabotage and arson prosecutions linked to foreign services", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Article 4 consultations", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Coordinated inauthentic behaviour takedowns", "source": "platform transparency reports", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Border crossing anomalies", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S12", "note": null }, { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S08", "note": "instrumentalised" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S01", "note": null }, { "id": "S05", "note": "regional war" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "polarisation", "infrastructure ageing", "GNSS dependence", "platform-mediated information" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether the likelihood should be published per cluster rather than per nation.", "Whether cyber intrusions belong here or in S12 when they are part of a campaign.", "How to rate a nation that is the campaign's author rather than its target." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Allies consult under Article 4 and agree **a statement**. The public argues over whether government is doing too little or exaggerating.", "economic": "Costs are diffuse: **insurance and risk premia**, disrupted logistics, a subcontractor's inventory destroyed by arson.", "social": "Each incident is converted into **political division**. The point is to show the state cannot protect ordinary life.", "technological": "**GPS fails** for days at a time. Cables are cut, drones close airports and cyber intrusions run alongside.", "legal": "**Attribution** comes weeks later, 'with high confidence', and is answered with a sanctions designation.", "environmental": "Sabotage reaches **subsea cables and energy assets**; pipelines and the grid are targets." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Rated **Low** as a target.", "europe": "**The active theatre**: Baltic cables, drone incursions, airport closures and parcel incendiaries.", "china": "Rated **Low** as a target.", "indo-pacific": "**Taiwan's cables** and Philippine waters.", "south-asia": "Campaigns below the threshold of war are plausible between **neighbours**.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Proxy and drone warfare**.", "africa": "Rated **Low**.", "latin-america": "Rated **Low**.", "russia-eurasia": "Ukraine's strikes; **Moldova, Georgia and Armenia** as targets." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 3, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S06 Hybrid campaign by a hostile state, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/hybrid-campaign" }, { "id": "S07", "slug": "political-legitimacy-crisis", "title": "Political legitimacy crisis", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "B", "short_title": "Legitimacy crisis", "thematics": [ "information-integrity-social-cohesion", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Five to eight governments a year fell to protest or coup in 2024–2025 across 197 nations, and contested elections short of collapse are more frequent still." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Unless the nation is a great power." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "Capability becomes unusable." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Definitions of 'crisis' vary." }, "priority": 20, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "1 year", "warning": "months", "scope": "national", "origin": "accidental (endogenous) with adversarial interference", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "A contested election, court ruling, succession or austerity decision tips into a crisis of legitimacy: sustained disinformation and foreign interference, mass protest, fracture in the security forces, and institutional trust falling below the level at which the state can act. The scenario reworks v0.1's 'foreign interference and information collapse' to include the internal-order dimension that 2024–2025 made unavoidable: annulled elections, governments toppled by youth-led protest, and (per CFR's 2026 survey) political violence in the United States rated a top-tier contingency.", "narrative": { "dateline": "September 2027", "text": "The count is slow in two provinces and that is enough. By midnight, a video of ballots in a van has twelve million views; by morning it has been debunked and the debunking has a tenth of the reach. The losing side declares the result stolen before it is declared. Protests begin as a vigil and become an occupation. The police commissioner in the capital resigns rather than clear the square; two regional commanders announce they will 'protect the constitution', without saying which side that puts them on. The constitutional court annuls the first round on the strength of an intelligence report about foreign-funded influencers; half the country reads this as rescue and half as coup. Foreign accounts amplify both halves. Investors move first: the currency falls 15 per cent and the bond auction is cancelled. The civil service keeps the lights on for a while, then starts asking who is authorised to sign. Six months later there is a new government, a boycotted parliament and an electoral commission that no one trusts to run the next vote. The country's capability has not changed on paper. Its ability to use it has." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "romanias-annulled-presidential-election-2024", "date": "6 December 2024", "event": "Romania's annulled presidential election", "what_happened": "Constitutional Court annulled the first round over foreign interference findings", "calibrates": "interference and judicial response" }, { "shock_id": "bangladesh-2024", "date": "July–August 2024", "event": "Bangladesh", "what_happened": "Student protests toppled the government; prime minister fled on 5 August", "calibrates": "protest-driven collapse" }, { "shock_id": "nepal-2025", "date": "September 2025", "event": "Nepal", "what_happened": "Youth-led protests; prime minister resigned within days", "calibrates": "speed of collapse" }, { "shock_id": "madagascar-2025", "date": "14 October 2025", "event": "Madagascar", "what_happened": "Military took power after weeks of protest; president fled", "calibrates": "security-force fracture" }, { "shock_id": "united-states-capitol-2021", "date": "6 January 2021", "event": "United States Capitol", "what_happened": "Contested certification; violent intrusion", "calibrates": "advanced-democracy variant" }, { "shock_id": "brasilia-2023", "date": "8 January 2023", "event": "Brasília", "what_happened": "Attack on government buildings after a disputed result", "calibrates": "advanced-democracy variant" }, { "shock_id": "cfr-preventive-priorities-survey-2026-2025", "date": "December 2025", "event": "CFR Preventive Priorities Survey 2026", "what_happened": "Political violence and civil unrest in the US among five Tier I contingencies; 28 of 30 scenarios rated at least 50 per cent likely", "calibrates": "expert likelihood" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "national", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (endogenous) with adversarial interference", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Trigger", "default": "contested election", "range": "options: court ruling / succession / austerity / corruption revelation", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Trust threshold breached", "default": "trust in government below 25 per cent", "range": "20–35", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Security-force cohesion", "default": "fractured", "range": "options: loyal / defecting", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Foreign interference intensity", "default": "high", "range": "low–high", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Duration to new settlement", "default": "9 months", "range": "3–24", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Violence level", "default": "sporadic", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "sustained at Extreme" } ] }, "transmission": [ "Disputed outcome and information cascade.", "Mass mobilisation and counter-mobilisation.", "Security-force hesitation or fracture.", "Judicial and electoral institutions lose authority.", "Capital flight and funding stress.", "Administrative paralysis; policy capability unused.", "Settlement with reduced legitimacy; recurrence risk." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "High", "channel": "internal security, civil–military relations" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Low", "channel": "protest disruption of transport and energy" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Medium", "channel": "platform governance; electoral cyber security" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "electoral administration, rule of law, continuity of government" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "emigration of professionals; education disruption" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "information integrity, social cohesion, international standing" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "capital flight, funding costs" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Low", "channel": "strikes and disruption" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "subsidy politics" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Electoral administration, crisis communications, security-force doctrine", "actions": [ "Pre-commit to result-verification protocols", "Rapid-response information units", "Lawful protest management plans" ], "watch": [ "Trust surveys", "Protest counts", "Platform takedowns" ], "relevance": 5 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Platforms, electoral systems, telecoms", "actions": [ "Election integrity programmes", "Transparency of political advertising", "Resilience of electoral infrastructure" ], "watch": [ "Coordinated inauthentic behaviour" ], "relevance": 2 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Sovereign and currency", "actions": [ "Governance risk in sovereign models" ], "watch": [ "V-Dem and Freedom House trajectories", "CDS around elections" ], "relevance": 3 }, "public": { "exposure": "Information diet and safety", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Official results channels", "Curfews" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "CFR Tier I" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Romania, Georgia, Serbia precedents" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Different pathway" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Coups and protest-driven collapses" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Georgia, Armenia, Belarus" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "ACLED protest and riot counts", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Edelman and OECD trust surveys", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "V-Dem electoral democracy index changes", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Electoral commission independence ratings", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Coordinated inauthentic behaviour takedowns", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Internet shutdown counts", "source": "Access Now", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Security-force statements", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Sovereign CDS around electoral dates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S04", "note": null }, { "id": "S08", "note": "outward" }, { "id": "S01", "note": "populist trade turn" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S03", "note": null }, { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S11", "note": "price shocks" }, { "id": "S06", "note": null }, { "id": "S14", "note": null } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "polarisation", "inequality", "erosion of civic freedoms", "platform-mediated information" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Where the line between S07 and S06 sits when interference is the trigger.", "Whether advanced democracies and fragile states should share one scenario.", "How to rate the US case without appearing partisan." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "The count is slow in two provinces. Half the country reads the court's ruling as **rescue** and half as **coup**.", "economic": "Investors move first: the currency falls **15 per cent** and the bond auction is cancelled.", "social": "A vigil becomes an **occupation**. Trust falls below the level at which the state can act.", "technological": "A video has twelve million views by midnight; the **debunking has a tenth of the reach**. Foreign accounts amplify both sides.", "legal": "The constitutional court **annuls the first round**. No one trusts the electoral commission to run the next vote.", "environmental": "Protest disrupts transport and energy; **subsidy politics** sharpen." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Political violence is rated a **Tier I contingency** in CFR's 2026 survey.", "europe": "**Romania, Georgia and Serbia** are the precedents.", "china": "Rated **Low**: a different pathway.", "indo-pacific": "Contested elections and successions are the **likelier triggers**.", "south-asia": "Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka: **youth-led protest** has toppled governments within days.", "gulf-middle-east": "Succession and **austerity decisions** are the likelier triggers.", "africa": "**Coups and protest-driven collapses**. In Madagascar the military took power after weeks of protest.", "latin-america": "**Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador** are the precedents.", "russia-eurasia": "**Georgia, Armenia and Belarus** are the precedents." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 4, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S07 Political legitimacy crisis, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/political-legitimacy-crisis" }, { "id": "S08", "slug": "mass-displacement-shock", "title": "Mass displacement shock", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "B", "short_title": "Mass displacement", "thematics": [ "demographics-human-capital", "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "information-integrity-social-cohesion" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": "clustered around conflicts", "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "A handful of nations a year receive arrivals above 1 per cent of population; the per-nation base rate is 1 to 2 per cent a year, higher for neighbours of active conflicts." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "" }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Services and cohesion strained but recoverable." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "" }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "1 year (arrivals)", "warning": "days to months", "scope": "regional", "origin": "natural or adversarial (war, state collapse)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "A nation receives arrivals equal to 1 to 3 per cent of its population within 12 months, from a neighbouring war, a disaster or a state collapse. Housing, health, schooling, labour markets and social cohesion are loaded at once, and the fiscal cost lands before any international burden-sharing. Switzerland ranks 'people seeking protection' fourth of 44 hazards; the WEF lists involuntary migration among its global risks. v0.2 added this scenario because v0.1 had no demographic shock.", "narrative": { "dateline": "April 2028", "text": "The border crossing that handled 2,000 people a day is handling 60,000 by the end of the first week. The reception plan assumed 50,000 arrivals over a year; that number passes in eleven days. Sports halls, then schools, then a disused airport become shelters. Municipalities that lost their last paediatrician years ago register 4,000 children in a month. The labour ministry fast-tracks work permits and discovers the credential-recognition system takes nine months. Rents in border cities rise 20 per cent by summer; a political party built on that number polls third by autumn. Hospitals absorb a population of patients with interrupted treatment and no records. International pledges are announced at a conference and arrive, in part, the following year. Two years on, a quarter of the arrivals have gone home, a quarter have moved on, and half are a permanent part of a country that did not plan for them and whose economy, it turns out, needed them." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "ukraine-2022", "date": "2022", "event": "Ukraine", "what_happened": "About 8 million refugees across Europe; Poland registered roughly 1.5 million within weeks, about 4 per cent of its population", "calibrates": "Standard Severe arrival rate" }, { "shock_id": "europe-2015", "date": "2015–2016", "event": "Europe", "what_happened": "Around 1.3 million asylum applications in the EU in 2015; political consequences lasted a decade", "calibrates": "political channel" }, { "shock_id": "sudan-2023", "date": "2023–2025", "event": "Sudan", "what_happened": "Over 12 million displaced; Chad and Egypt received millions", "calibrates": "low-income receiving states" }, { "shock_id": "venezuela-2015", "date": "2015–2024", "event": "Venezuela", "what_happened": "About 7.7 million left; Colombia received around 2.8 million", "calibrates": "protracted regional displacement" }, { "shock_id": "swiss-national-risk-analysis-2025", "date": "2025", "event": "Switzerland national risk analysis", "what_happened": "'People seeking protection' ranked fourth of 44 hazards by expected loss", "calibrates": "national-register precedent" }, { "shock_id": "turkiye-2011", "date": "2011–2016", "event": "Türkiye", "what_happened": "Around 3.6 million Syrians registered", "calibrates": "largest single host" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year (arrivals)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "days to months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "regional", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "natural or adversarial (war, state collapse)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Arrivals as share of population", "default": "2 per cent", "range": "0.5–5", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Arrival window", "default": "6 months", "range": "1–12", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Origin", "default": "neighbouring war", "range": "options: disaster / state collapse / climate", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Legal regime", "default": "temporary protection", "range": "options: asylum backlog / closed border", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "International burden-sharing", "default": "partial", "range": "none–full", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Return rate within two years", "default": "25 per cent", "range": "0–60", "unit": "per cent", "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Border and reception overload.", "Shelter, health and schooling demand spikes.", "Fiscal cost precedes external support.", "Housing and labour-market pressure in receiving regions.", "Political mobilisation and cohesion strain.", "Long-run integration or exclusion outcomes." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "border management, registration, security screening" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "housing, transport, utilities in receiving regions" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "registration and identity systems" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "reception, legal processing, inter-governmental coordination" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "health, education, credential recognition, labour integration" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "social cohesion, political stability, international solidarity" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "fiscal cost; later labour-supply gains" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Low", "channel": "labour-market matching" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "utility demand" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Reception capacity and legal regime", "actions": [ "Surge plans scaled to 2 per cent of population", "Pre-agreed EU or regional burden-sharing", "Fast credential recognition" ], "watch": [ "UNHCR displacement data from neighbours", "Border crossing counts" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Registration, identity, payments and connectivity for arrivals", "actions": [ "Interoperable registration systems" ], "watch": [ "SIM registrations" ], "relevance": 2 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Housing, municipal finance, labour supply", "actions": [ "Regional exposure in real estate and local-government debt" ], "watch": [ "Rent indices in border regions" ], "relevance": 2 }, "public": { "exposure": "Housing, schools, services", "actions": [ "Community reception networks" ], "watch": [ "Municipal capacity announcements" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Western Hemisphere displacement" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Ukraine, Middle East, Africa routes" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": null }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Myanmar, Pacific climate displacement" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Afghanistan, Myanmar, Bangladesh" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Gaza" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Sudan, Sahel, DRC, Horn" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Venezuela, Haiti" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "UNHCR and IOM displacement figures in neighbouring states", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Border crossing counts", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Asylum application backlogs", "source": "Eurostat", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Reception capacity utilisation", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Rent indices in receiving regions", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "ACLED conflict intensity in origin states", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Drought and famine early warning", "source": "FEWS NET", "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S04", "note": "fiscal" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S10", "note": null }, { "id": "S11", "note": null }, { "id": "S14", "note": null }, { "id": "S07", "note": "in origin state" }, { "id": "S06", "note": "instrumentalised" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "conflict count at post-war highs", "climate stress", "demographic pressure in origin states" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether outward displacement (the origin state losing 10 per cent of its people) needs its own scenario.", "How to credit long-run labour gains in a shock scenario.", "Whether climate displacement is S08 or a trend." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Rents in border cities rise 20 per cent by summer; a party **built on that number** polls third by autumn.", "economic": "The **fiscal cost lands first**. Pledges arrive, in part, the following year; later the economy turns out to have needed the arrivals.", "social": "Sports halls, schools and a disused airport become shelters. Municipalities register **4,000 children in a month**.", "technological": "Registration and **identity systems** carry the load, with payments and connectivity for arrivals.", "legal": "Work permits are fast-tracked; **credential recognition takes nine months**.", "environmental": "Utility demand rises in receiving regions. Disaster and climate are among the **origins**." }, "regions": { "north-america": "**Western Hemisphere** displacement.", "europe": "Ukraine, Middle East and Africa routes. Poland registered about **1.5 million within weeks** in 2022.", "china": "Rated **Low**.", "indo-pacific": "**Myanmar** and Pacific climate displacement.", "south-asia": "**Afghanistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh**.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Syria, Sudan, Yemen and Gaza**.", "africa": "Sudan, the Sahel, DRC and the Horn. **Chad and Egypt** have received millions.", "latin-america": "Venezuela and Haiti. **Colombia** has received around 2.8 million.", "russia-eurasia": "Neighbours of conflicts receive arrivals ahead of any **burden-sharing**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S08 Mass displacement shock, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/mass-displacement-shock" }, { "id": "S09", "slug": "energy-supply-shock", "title": "Energy supply shock", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "C", "short_title": "Energy supply shock", "thematics": [ "climate-energy-resources", "economic-security-supply-chains" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "2022 and 2026 both produced shocks within the Standard Severe range on at least one fuel." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 4, "rationale": "On the 2022 output and fiscal costs." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "" }, "confidence": { "level": "high", "reason": "" }, "priority": 16, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "sudden", "duration": "1 year (price regime 18 months)", "warning": "days to months", "scope": "global", "origin": "adversarial (regional conflict) or accidental", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "Oil prices double and gas prices quadruple for 18 months after a Gulf conflict or a supply cut, with physical shortages for the most exposed importers. The Bank of England's 2025 stress scenario supplies the calibration (oil up more than 100 per cent, gas more than 300 per cent, inflation to 10 per cent, policy rates to 8 per cent). Distinct from S05: a chokepoint closure is one cause; pipeline cut-offs, sanctions and producer decisions are others, and the shock persists after the strait reopens.", "narrative": { "dateline": "January 2029", "text": "The strait reopened in the autumn and prices did not come down. Two producers had lost export capacity to strikes on their terminals; the insurers were pricing the next closure; and the gas market, which had tolerated one winter of rationing, would not tolerate a second without a premium. European industrial gas prices sit at four times their 2024 level and the fertiliser, glass and chemicals plants that survived 2022 close in a second wave. Central banks raise rates into a supply shock for the second time in a decade and governments spend 3 per cent of GDP on energy support they cannot afford. Coal plants scheduled for closure run flat out; emissions targets are suspended 'temporarily'. In South Asia, LNG cargoes are diverted to higher bidders and power cuts return to eight hours a day. In Africa, diesel for generators and water pumps costs more than the clinics' budgets. The countries with storage, interconnection and domestic renewables ride it out; the ones that had treated energy security as a price question find it was a capability question." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "russian-gas-cut-off-2022", "date": "2022", "event": "Russian gas cut-off", "what_happened": "European gas (TTF) peaked near €340/MWh in August 2022, roughly ten times pre-crisis; demand destruction and fiscal support worth hundreds of billions", "calibrates": "gas multiple, fiscal cost" }, { "shock_id": "hormuz-closure-2026", "date": "March 2026", "event": "Hormuz closure", "what_happened": "Crude up 28 to 35 per cent in ten days; Brent above US$92", "calibrates": "onset speed" }, { "shock_id": "oil-embargo-1973", "date": "1973–1974", "event": "Oil embargo", "what_happened": "Prices quadrupled; rationing in importers", "calibrates": "Standard Extreme precedent" }, { "shock_id": "bank-of-england-stress-test-2025", "date": "March 2025", "event": "Bank of England 2025 stress scenario", "what_happened": "Oil +100 per cent, gas +300 per cent; UK CPI 10 per cent; Bank Rate 8 per cent", "calibrates": "Standard Severe parameters" }, { "shock_id": "iran-iraq-tanker-war-1984", "date": "1984–1988", "event": "Iran–Iraq tanker war", "what_happened": "Sustained attacks on Gulf shipping without full closure", "calibrates": "prolonged risk premium" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year (price regime 18 months)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "sudden", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "days to months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "adversarial (regional conflict) or accidental", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Oil price multiple", "default": "×2", "range": "×1.5 to ×3", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Gas price multiple", "default": "×4", "range": "×2 to ×6", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Duration of price regime", "default": "18 months", "range": "6–36", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Physical supply loss", "default": "10 per cent of imports", "range": "0–25", "unit": "per cent of imports", "note": null }, { "name": "Strategic stock coverage", "default": "90 days", "range": "30–180", "unit": "days", "note": null }, { "name": "Policy rate response", "default": "hikes", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "BoE regime" } ] }, "transmission": [ "Price spike and physical shortage.", "Inflation and rate rises.", "Industrial closures in energy-intensive sectors.", "Fiscal support and subsidy cost.", "Power rationing in import-dependent emerging economies.", "Climate policy reversal; coal and diesel substitution.", "Current-account and currency stress." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "fuel for operations; budget compression" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "storage, interconnection, generation mix, grid stability" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "energy-intensive compute and fabs" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "allocation, subsidies, monetary–fiscal coordination" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "energy poverty; health effects" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "public tolerance; producer leverage" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "inflation, rates, fiscal cost, current account" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "energy-intensive industry closures" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "supply security, mix, storage" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Storage days, interconnection, demand-response, fiscal headroom", "actions": [ "Stress the budget on 18 months at ×2/×4", "Pre-design targeted rather than universal support", "Protect critical users" ], "watch": [ "Storage fill", "Forward curves" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Data-centre power contracts", "actions": [ "Long-term PPAs", "On-site generation", "Demand flexibility" ], "watch": [ "Industrial tariff announcements" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Energy-intensive equities, utilities, inflation-linked assets", "actions": [ "Run the BoE path" ], "watch": [ "TTF and JKM forward curves", "OPEC spare capacity" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Bills and heating", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Price-cap announcements" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Net exporter; price pass-through" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Gas import dependence" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Coal buffer; crude imports" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "LNG and crude imports; power cuts" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Windfall; except conflict parties" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Diesel dependence, no fiscal space" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Mixed producers and importers" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Windfall" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Brent, TTF, JKM spot and forward curves", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "OPEC spare capacity", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Gas storage fill", "source": "AGSI", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Strategic petroleum reserve days", "source": "IEA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Energy-intensive output indices", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Energy subsidy announcements as share of GDP", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Coal plant life-extension decisions", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S03", "note": null }, { "id": "S04", "note": null }, { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S11", "note": "fertiliser" }, { "id": "S12", "note": "grid stress" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S05", "note": null }, { "id": "S01", "note": null }, { "id": "S06", "note": null } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "under-investment in storage and interconnection", "import concentration", "electrification raising grid dependence" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether gas and oil shocks should be separate presets.", "How to treat exporters (windfall) in a capability frame.", "Whether the electricity-price channel deserves its own slider as electrification proceeds." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "**Producers gain leverage**. Public tolerance of a second winter of rationing is thin.", "economic": "Oil doubles and gas quadruples for **18 months**. Central banks raise rates into a supply shock; energy support costs 3 per cent of GDP.", "social": "**Energy poverty**. Power cuts return to eight hours a day and diesel costs more than the clinics' budgets.", "technological": "Energy-intensive compute and fabs are exposed; data centres seek long-term contracts and **on-site generation**.", "legal": "Emissions targets are suspended **'temporarily'**; price caps and allocation rules decide who is supplied.", "environmental": "**Coal plants** scheduled for closure run flat out. Storage, interconnection and domestic renewables decide who rides it out." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Net exporter; **price pass-through** only.", "europe": "Gas import dependence. Fertiliser, glass and chemicals plants **close in a second wave**.", "china": "A **coal buffer**, with exposure through crude imports.", "indo-pacific": "**Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines** import their energy.", "south-asia": "LNG cargoes are **diverted to higher bidders** and power cuts return.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Windfall**, except for the parties to the conflict.", "africa": "**Diesel dependence** for generators and water pumps, with no fiscal space.", "latin-america": "A mix of **producers and importers**.", "russia-eurasia": "Low exposure: **windfall**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 6, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 4, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "high" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S09 Energy supply shock, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/energy-supply-shock" }, { "id": "S10", "slug": "catastrophic-disaster-core", "title": "Catastrophic disaster in the core", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "C", "short_title": "Disaster in the core", "thematics": [ "climate-energy-resources", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "A 1-in-100 event in the core is about 1 per cent a year per hazard, higher across multiple hazards and under climate change." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Unless the core is a global hub." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "" }, "confidence": { "level": "high", "reason": "Hazard science is mature." }, "priority": 15, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "sudden", "duration": "30 days (acute)", "warning": "none to days", "scope": "national", "origin": "natural", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "A once-in-a-century flood, storm, fire, heatwave or earthquake strikes the nation's main population and economic centre. v0.2 widened the scenario from climate to seismic hazards, since the Swiss analysis ranks earthquake third of 44 hazards and the 2023 Türkiye–Syria and 2025 Myanmar earthquakes were the deadliest disasters of the period. Following the Swiss method, every nation is assessed at one common 'major' intensity so that hazards can be compared; the hazard type is a parameter.", "narrative": { "dateline": "February 2028", "text": "The rain that was forecast as 'heavy' delivers a year's total in eight hours over the metropolitan area. Underpasses, metro lines and the basement data centres of three banks flood before the first alert reaches phones; the alert system itself depends on a tower that loses power at 19:40. The main port is closed for a month, the airport for nine days. Insurers report 400,000 claims in a week and a quarter of the damaged homes have no cover. The hospital that serves the district is evacuated by boat. Six weeks later, the national accounts show the quarter's output down 4 per cent and the fiscal cost at 2 per cent of GDP before reconstruction begins. An earthquake variant plays out in a different capital: 50,000 dead, two million homeless, the building-code enforcement failures of 30 years visible from the air. In both, the question that decides the recovery is not the size of the hazard but whether the state can register, house, treat and pay a few million people at once, and whether anyone trusts the numbers it publishes." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "valencia-floods-2024", "date": "29 October 2024", "event": "Valencia floods", "what_happened": "Over 220 deaths; alert failures; months of recovery", "calibrates": "warning and alert failure" }, { "shock_id": "los-angeles-wildfires-2025", "date": "January 2025", "event": "Los Angeles wildfires", "what_happened": "Insured losses around US$40 billion; among the costliest wildfires on record", "calibrates": "urban fire, insurance gap" }, { "shock_id": "hurricane-helene-2024", "date": "September 2024", "event": "Hurricane Helene", "what_happened": "Over 200 deaths across the US south-east; inland flooding far from the coast", "calibrates": "cascading inland impact" }, { "shock_id": "pakistan-floods-2022", "date": "2022", "event": "Pakistan floods", "what_happened": "A third of the country under water; 33 million affected; damage around US$30 billion", "calibrates": "national-scale flood, low income" }, { "shock_id": "turkiye-syria-earthquake-2023", "date": "6 February 2023", "event": "Türkiye–Syria earthquake", "what_happened": "Over 50,000 deaths; damage estimates above US$30 billion for Türkiye", "calibrates": "seismic variant" }, { "shock_id": "myanmar-earthquake-2025", "date": "28 March 2025", "event": "Myanmar earthquake", "what_happened": "Magnitude 7.7; thousands dead; response constrained by conflict", "calibrates": "compound with S07" }, { "shock_id": "swiss-national-risk-analysis-2025", "date": "2025", "event": "Swiss national risk analysis", "what_happened": "Earthquake third, inland flooding fifth, windstorm sixth, drought seventh, heatwave ninth of 44 hazards", "calibrates": "hazard ranking precedent" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "30 days (acute)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "sudden", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "none to days", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "national", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "natural", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Hazard", "default": "flood", "range": "options: earthquake / wildfire / storm / heatwave", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Return period", "default": "1-in-100", "range": "1-in-50 to 1-in-500", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Share of population exposed", "default": "15 per cent", "range": "5–40", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Share of GDP in affected zone", "default": "25 per cent", "range": "10–50", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Insurance penetration", "default": "30 per cent", "range": "5–70", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Cascading infrastructure failure", "default": "yes", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Physical destruction and casualties.", "Infrastructure outage: power, water, transport, communications.", "Health system overload.", "Business interruption and supply-chain breaks.", "Insurance and fiscal cost.", "Displacement and housing.", "Political accountability and trust." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "military aid to civil authorities; search and rescue" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "grid, water, transport, telecoms resilience and repair" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "early warning, geospatial data" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "emergency management, alerts, reconstruction, registration and payments" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "health surge, schooling disruption, mental health" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "trust in authorities; solidarity" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "fiscal cost, insurance sector, output loss" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "ports, factories, logistics" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "generation and fuel distribution" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Alert systems, building codes, emergency funds, insurance backstops", "actions": [ "Test alerts at scale", "Fund pre-arranged financing (cat bonds, contingent credit)", "Enforce codes" ], "watch": [ "Hazard forecasts", "Insurance withdrawal from regions" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Data-centre siting, telecoms resilience, alert delivery", "actions": [ "Geographic redundancy", "Cell-broadcast alerts" ], "watch": [ "Flood and fire risk maps" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Insurers, municipal debt, real estate", "actions": [ "Physical-risk screening by asset" ], "watch": [ "Cat model updates", "Reinsurance pricing" ], "relevance": 3 }, "public": { "exposure": "Household preparedness and insurance", "actions": [ "72-hour kits", "Flood and fire plans" ], "watch": [ "Official alerts" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Hurricanes, fire, earthquake" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Floods, heat" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Floods, typhoons, earthquakes" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Typhoons, earthquakes, Pacific cyclones" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Floods, heat, earthquakes" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Heat, flash floods, Türkiye and Iran seismic" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Floods, drought, low coverage" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Hurricanes, earthquakes, El Niño" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Central Asian seismic; wildfire" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Seasonal forecasts and ENSO state", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Cat model loss estimates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Insurance availability by region", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Alert system test results", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Building-code enforcement audits", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Reservoir and river levels", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Urban heat records", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Seismic monitoring", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S12", "note": null }, { "id": "S08", "note": null }, { "id": "S04", "note": "fiscal" }, { "id": "S11", "note": "regional food" } ], "triggered_by": [], "amplified_by": [ { "id": "S09", "note": "fuel for response" }, { "id": "S07", "note": "contested response" } ], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "climate change raising hazard frequency", "urbanisation in exposed zones", "insurance retreat" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether to assess at a common return period or a common intensity (the Swiss choice).", "How to treat small island states where the core is the whole country.", "Whether heatwaves, whose deaths are diffuse, belong with sudden-onset hazards." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Recovery turns on **accountability**: whether anyone trusts the numbers the state publishes.", "economic": "The quarter's output is down **4 per cent** and the fiscal cost is 2 per cent of GDP before reconstruction. The port closes for a month.", "social": "The district hospital is evacuated by boat. In the earthquake variant, **two million are homeless**.", "technological": "The alert system depends on **a tower that loses power**. Basement data centres flood before the first alert arrives.", "legal": "Thirty years of **building-code enforcement** failures are visible from the air. A quarter of damaged homes have no cover.", "environmental": "A year's rain falls in **eight hours**. Flood, storm, fire, heatwave or earthquake, assessed at one common intensity." }, "regions": { "north-america": "**Hurricanes, fire and earthquake**. The 2025 Los Angeles wildfires cost insurers around US$40 billion.", "europe": "**Floods and heat**. Valencia in 2024: over 220 deaths and alert failures.", "china": "**Floods, typhoons and earthquakes**.", "indo-pacific": "**Typhoons, earthquakes** and Pacific cyclones.", "south-asia": "Floods, heat and earthquakes. In 2022 **a third of Pakistan** was under water.", "gulf-middle-east": "Heat and flash floods; **Türkiye and Iran** are seismic.", "africa": "Floods and drought, with **low insurance coverage**.", "latin-america": "**Hurricanes, earthquakes** and El Niño.", "russia-eurasia": "Central Asian **seismic risk**; wildfire." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "high" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S10 Catastrophic disaster in the core, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/catastrophic-disaster-core" }, { "id": "S11", "slug": "food-water-system-shock", "title": "Food and water system shock", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "C", "short_title": "Food and water shock", "thematics": [ "climate-energy-resources", "economic-security-supply-chains", "information-integrity-social-cohesion" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "A two-breadbasket failure with bans is rarer than single-country shocks; 2022–2023 came close on rice and wheat." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Under climate change." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "On Lloyd's estimate." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "For import-dependent low-income states." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Climate attribution and policy responses are uncertain." }, "priority": 15, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (one season)", "duration": "1 year (two seasons)", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "natural with adversarial export bans or water weaponisation", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "Simultaneous crop failures in two major exporting regions, compounded by export bans, double staple prices for two seasons; or an upstream state restricts a shared river. v0.2 split this from the climate scenario because the Lloyd's food and water shock (US$5 trillion over five years) and Eurasia Group's 2026 'water weapon' show it as a distinct systemic risk, and because India's suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty in April 2025 made water a live instrument.", "narrative": { "dateline": "August 2028", "text": "The two breadbaskets fail in the same season: drought in one, floods at harvest in the other. Wheat and rice prices are up 80 per cent by the time the second crop report is published and the first exporter to ban shipments does so 'to protect domestic consumers'; four more follow within a month. Importing governments that hold 90 days of grain discover that the ships they had contracted have been resold. Bread prices rise 50 per cent in the cities that toppled governments over bread in 2011; subsidies that already cost 2 per cent of GDP double. Upstream, a government opens and closes the gates on a shared river to the schedule of its own farmers and tells its neighbour to take the matter to a treaty body it has suspended. Fertiliser is the second wave: the energy shock has closed ammonia plants and the next planting season starts short. Humanitarian appeals are funded at a third. The nations that come through are the ones with reserves of the right grains in the right places, functioning safety nets and farmers who could switch crops in a season." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "black-sea-grain-disruption-2022", "date": "2022", "event": "Black Sea grain disruption", "what_happened": "Wheat and sunflower exports from Ukraine blocked; prices spiked; the grain corridor restored partial flows", "calibrates": "export shock" }, { "shock_id": "india-rice-export-ban-2023", "date": "July 2023", "event": "India rice export ban", "what_happened": "Non-basmati white rice exports banned; global rice prices at 15-year highs", "calibrates": "export bans by major exporters" }, { "shock_id": "russian-wheat-export-ban-2010", "date": "2010", "event": "Russian wheat export ban", "what_happened": "Drought-driven ban; prices rose ahead of the 2011 unrest", "calibrates": "food–politics channel" }, { "shock_id": "indus-waters-treaty-suspension-2025", "date": "23 April 2025", "event": "Indus Waters Treaty suspension", "what_happened": "India placed the treaty in abeyance after the Pahalgam attack", "calibrates": "water weaponisation" }, { "shock_id": "panama-canal-drought-2023", "date": "2023–2024", "event": "Panama Canal drought", "what_happened": "Transits restricted by low reservoir levels", "calibrates": "water–trade channel" }, { "shock_id": "cape-town-day-zero-2018", "date": "2018", "event": "Cape Town 'Day Zero'", "what_happened": "City-scale water rationing narrowly averted", "calibrates": "urban water failure" }, { "shock_id": "lloyds-food-and-water-shock-scenario-2023", "date": "October 2023", "event": "Lloyd's food and water shock scenario", "what_happened": "Five-year global loss US$5 trillion; Greater China and Asia Pacific most exposed; the Caribbean losing 19 per cent of GDP", "calibrates": "systemic impact" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year (two seasons)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (one season)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "natural with adversarial export bans or water weaponisation", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Breadbaskets failing", "default": "2", "range": "1–3", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Export bans by major exporters", "default": "yes", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Staple price multiple", "default": "×1.8", "range": "×1.3 to ×3", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Water weaponisation", "default": "one basin", "range": "options: none / multiple", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Duration", "default": "two seasons", "range": "1–4", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Fertiliser disruption", "default": "partial", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "coupled to S09" } ] }, "transmission": [ "Harvest failure and price spike.", "Export bans amplify scarcity for importers.", "Reserve inadequacy and resale of contracted cargoes.", "Subsidy cost and fiscal stress.", "Urban unrest and political consequences.", "Fertiliser shortfall carries the shock into the next season.", "Transboundary water disputes escalate." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "water-dispute escalation; unrest" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "storage, irrigation, water treatment, ports" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "agritech and forecasting" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "reserves, safety nets, price policy, treaty diplomacy" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "nutrition, child health, schooling" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "urban unrest, regional relations" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "subsidies, current account, inflation" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "import logistics, agricultural output" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "water, land, fertiliser" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Reserve policy by grain, safety-net triggers, water treaties", "actions": [ "Hold physical reserves where the people are", "Index transfers to prices", "Diversify import origins", "Pre-negotiate basin rules" ], "watch": [ "FAO Food Price Index", "Stocks-to-use ratios", "Reservoir levels" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Forecasting, irrigation, cold chain", "actions": [ "Yield and water analytics for governments" ], "watch": [ "Crop condition indices" ], "relevance": 2 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Agribusiness, sovereigns of food importers, fertiliser", "actions": [ "Scenario on ×1.8 staples" ], "watch": [ "Export-ban announcements" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Prices and availability", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Subsidy and ration announcements" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Exporter" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Medium for water stress in the south" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Imports of soy, feed; water stress in the north" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Rice importers; Pacific islands" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Indus and Ganges–Brahmaputra basins; rice and wheat" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Import dependence above 80 per cent for staples; Nile, Tigris–Euphrates" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Sahel, Horn, Nile; fertiliser" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Caribbean import dependence; Central American dry corridor" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Central Asian water; exporter windfalls" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "FAO Food Price Index", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Stocks-to-use ratios", "source": "USDA, AMIS", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Export restriction tracker", "source": "IFPRI", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "FEWS NET and IPC phase classifications", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Reservoir levels and SPEI drought index", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Fertiliser prices", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Transboundary basin incident reports", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Food subsidy budgets", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S08", "note": null }, { "id": "S04", "note": null } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S10", "note": null }, { "id": "S05", "note": null }, { "id": "S01", "note": null }, { "id": "S02", "note": "fertiliser" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "climate change", "water stress", "export concentration in a few breadbaskets", "population growth in import-dependent regions" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether water weaponisation should be its own scenario.", "How to represent exporters that gain.", "Whether to rate at the two-breadbasket or one-breadbasket level as Standard Severe." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Exporters ban shipments 'to protect domestic consumers'. Upstream, a government **opens and closes the gates** on a shared river.", "economic": "Wheat and rice are up **80 per cent**. Subsidies costing 2 per cent of GDP double and contracted ships are resold.", "social": "Bread prices rise 50 per cent in the cities that **toppled governments over bread** in 2011.", "technological": "**Agritech and forecasting** carry a low load; farmers who can switch crops in a season come through.", "legal": "The neighbour is told to take the matter to **a treaty body that has been suspended**.", "environmental": "Drought in one breadbasket and floods at harvest in the other. **Fertiliser** is the second wave." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Rated **Low**: an exporter.", "europe": "Low exposure; **water stress in the south**.", "china": "Imports of soy and feed; **water stress in the north**.", "indo-pacific": "**Rice importers** and Pacific islands.", "south-asia": "The **Indus and Ganges–Brahmaputra** basins; rice and wheat.", "gulf-middle-east": "Import dependence **above 80 per cent** for staples; the Nile and Tigris–Euphrates.", "africa": "The **Sahel, Horn and Nile**; fertiliser.", "latin-america": "Caribbean import dependence; the Central American **dry corridor**.", "russia-eurasia": "Central Asian water; **exporter windfalls**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 9, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S11 Food and water system shock, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/food-water-system-shock" }, { "id": "S12", "slug": "critical-infrastructure-collapse", "title": "Critical infrastructure collapse", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "D", "short_title": "Infrastructure collapse", "thematics": [ "ai-cyber-digital", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Nationwide outages above 24 hours remain rare in large economies, but several occurred in 2023–2025 across the 197; a 72-hour outage plus rationing is a tail for most." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Unless a global hub." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "" }, "confidence": { "level": "low", "reason": "Cyber-physical likelihoods are poorly evidenced." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "sudden", "duration": "90 days (72-hour outage then rationing)", "warning": "none", "scope": "national", "origin": "adversarial, accidental or natural", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "months" }, "summary": "The national power grid and communications fail for 72 hours and operate under rationing for 90 days. The cause may be cyber attack, physical sabotage, cascading technical failure or space weather; the scenario is origin-agnostic because the capability loaded is the same. v0.2 reframed v0.1's 'systemic cyber attack' around power, following Switzerland (electricity shortage second of 44 hazards), the UK National Risk Register (national electricity transmission failure rated catastrophic) and the Iberian blackout of April 2025.", "narrative": { "dateline": "July 2027", "text": "At 12:33 the frequency drops and the grid operator's protective relays do what they were designed to do: they shed everything. Sixty million people lose power in five seconds. Mobile networks run on batteries for four hours, then go dark. Card payments stop; the cash machines are already empty. Water pressure fails on the third day in the hill suburbs. Hospitals run on diesel and discover the fuel contracts assumed a 24-hour outage. The restart takes 19 hours in the capital and four days in the regions where black-start capacity was retired to save money. Then the second phase: a generation shortfall that cannot be closed before winter, so the government publishes a rationing calendar and industry runs three days a week. Whether the trigger was an intrusion into the operator's control network, a solar storm, a cyber-physical attack on substations, or a protection misconfiguration is debated for months; the capabilities that failed are the same list in every version: reserve generation, black start, telecoms backup power, cash and payments continuity, fuel logistics and the ability to tell people what to do when no screen works." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "iberian-blackout-2025", "date": "28 April 2025", "event": "Iberian blackout", "what_happened": "Spain and Portugal lost power across the peninsula; tens of millions affected; most supply restored within a day", "calibrates": "restart times, cash and telecoms dependence" }, { "shock_id": "crowdstrike-outage-2024", "date": "19 July 2024", "event": "CrowdStrike outage", "what_happened": "A faulty update disabled about 8.5 million Windows devices; airlines, hospitals and payments disrupted worldwide", "calibrates": "accidental systemic failure" }, { "shock_id": "ukraine-grid-attacks-2015", "date": "December 2015, December 2016, 2022–2024", "event": "Ukraine grid attacks", "what_happened": "Cyber attacks on distribution, then sustained missile and drone strikes on generation", "calibrates": "adversarial variant" }, { "shock_id": "notpetya-2017", "date": "June 2017", "event": "NotPetya", "what_happened": "Destructive malware; losses around US$10 billion", "calibrates": "destructive cyber" }, { "shock_id": "texas-winter-storm-2021", "date": "February 2021", "event": "Texas winter storm", "what_happened": "Around 4.5 million customers without power; more than 200 deaths", "calibrates": "cascading infrastructure under weather" }, { "shock_id": "lloyds-cyber-scenario-2023", "date": "October 2023", "event": "Lloyd's cyber scenario", "what_happened": "Major cyber attack on payment systems: five-year global loss US$3.5 trillion", "calibrates": "systemic impact" }, { "shock_id": "allianz-risk-barometer-2026", "date": "January 2026", "event": "Allianz Risk Barometer 2026", "what_happened": "Cyber incidents top business risk for the fifth year (42 per cent of 3,338 respondents)", "calibrates": "business exposure" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "90 days (72-hour outage then rationing)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "sudden", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "none", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "national", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "adversarial, accidental or natural", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Sectors affected", "default": "power and telecoms", "range": "options: plus payments / water / transport", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "National outage duration", "default": "72 hours", "range": "12 hours to 14 days", "unit": "hours", "note": null }, { "name": "Rationing period", "default": "90 days", "range": "0–365", "unit": "days", "note": null }, { "name": "Origin", "default": "cyber", "range": "options: physical / accidental / space weather", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Destructive versus disruptive", "default": "disruptive", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "destructive at Extreme" }, { "name": "Share of population affected", "default": "80 per cent", "range": "30–100", "unit": "per cent", "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Grid collapse.", "Telecoms and payments fail within hours.", "Water, fuel and health services degrade within days.", "Restart constrained by black-start capacity and damaged equipment.", "Rationing regime; industrial output cut.", "Public order and trust depend on communication without networks.", "Cross-border effects through interconnectors and supply chains." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "military support, security of key sites, cyber defence" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "grid, black start, telecoms, water, fuel distribution" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "cybersecurity, control systems, GNSS and timing dependence" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "emergency management, communication, rationing administration" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "health continuity; vulnerable populations" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "public order, trust, information integrity during outage" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "payments continuity, cash availability, output loss" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "production stoppages, cold chains, logistics" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "generation adequacy, fuel stocks" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Black-start capacity, telecoms backup power standards, cash contingency, rationing law", "actions": [ "Mandate 72-hour backup power for telecoms and water", "Test black start", "Maintain an offline payments fallback", "Publish household 72-hour guidance" ], "watch": [ "Grid frequency incidents", "Reserve margins" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Data centres, cloud regions, control-system security", "actions": [ "Diesel for 72 hours plus", "Segmented OT networks", "Exercise restart" ], "watch": [ "CISA and ENISA advisories", "ICS vulnerabilities" ], "relevance": 5 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Utilities, insurers, business interruption", "actions": [ "Scenario on 72 hours plus 90-day rationing" ], "watch": [ "Reserve margin forecasts", "Cyber insurance exclusions" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Cash, water, medicines, communication", "actions": [ "72-hour kit", "Battery radio", "Cash at home" ], "watch": [ "Operator and government alerts" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Ageing grid, extreme weather, cyber" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Interconnected but exposed to sabotage and renewables integration" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Strong state capacity; cyber-physical targets" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Taiwan's grid concentration" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Pakistan 2023 nationwide blackout; India 2012" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Desalination dependence" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "South African load-shedding; fragile grids; no backup depth" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Venezuela 2019; Ecuador 2024 rationing" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Ukraine under attack" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Reserve margin forecasts", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Grid frequency and protection incidents", "source": "ENTSO-E, NERC", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "ICS and OT vulnerability advisories", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Telecoms backup power compliance", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Cash in circulation and ATM density", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Black-start test results", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Kp index forecasts", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null, "note": "space-weather variant" }, { "name": "Utility ransomware incidents", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S07", "note": "if prolonged" }, { "id": "S04", "note": "output loss" }, { "id": "S10", "note": "as cascade" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S06", "note": null }, { "id": "S09", "note": null }, { "id": "S10", "note": null }, { "id": "S14", "note": "staff" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [ "space weather (parked)" ], "amplifying_trends": [ "electrification", "digitalisation of payments", "retirement of dispatchable and black-start capacity", "cyber threat growth" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether space weather should rejoin the Library as a separate scenario or remain an origin option here.", "Whether 72 hours or seven days is Standard Severe.", "How to treat nations with chronic rationing (South Africa) where the shock is the baseline." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "The cause is **debated for months**. Public order depends on telling people what to do when no screen works.", "economic": "Card payments stop and **the cash machines are already empty**. Under rationing, industry runs three days a week.", "social": "Water pressure fails on the third day. Hospitals on diesel find their fuel contracts assumed **a 24-hour outage**.", "technological": "Protective relays **shed everything**. Mobile networks last four hours on batteries; black-start capacity had been retired to save money.", "legal": "The government publishes a **rationing calendar**; rationing law and backup-power standards are tested.", "environmental": "Sixty million people lose power in **five seconds**. The generation shortfall cannot be closed before winter." }, "regions": { "north-america": "An **ageing grid**, extreme weather and cyber.", "europe": "Interconnected, but exposed to sabotage and renewables integration. The **Iberian blackout** of 2025 is the anchor.", "china": "Strong state capacity; **cyber-physical targets**.", "indo-pacific": "**Taiwan's grid** concentration.", "south-asia": "Pakistan's **nationwide blackout** in 2023; India in 2012.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Desalination** depends on power.", "africa": "South African load-shedding; fragile grids with **no backup depth**.", "latin-america": "Venezuela in 2019; **Ecuador's rationing** in 2024.", "russia-eurasia": "**Ukraine's grid** under attack." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S12 Critical infrastructure collapse, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/critical-infrastructure-collapse" }, { "id": "S13", "slug": "rapid-ai-diffusion-shock", "title": "Rapid AI diffusion shock", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "D", "short_title": "AI diffusion shock", "thematics": [ "ai-cyber-digital", "demographics-human-capital", "economic-security-supply-chains" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Displacement at the 30 per cent exposure level within two years is unlikely; the market-concentration variant is likelier and sits at Extreme." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 4, "rationale": "On capability grounds rather than GDP loss, which the scenario may raise." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "" }, "confidence": { "level": "low", "reason": "The technology's trajectory is contested." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (years)", "duration": "3 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (technological)", "external_support": "none", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "Frontier AI displaces a large share of knowledge work within three years while models, compute and standards sit with a few foreign providers. Tax bases, graduate labour markets, education systems and the state's own administrative capability are loaded at once. A market-concentration variant covers a sudden repricing of AI-linked assets and the dependency of national digital infrastructure on providers whose decisions are made elsewhere. The Allianz Risk Barometer 2026 ranks AI second (up from tenth); the WEF ranks adverse AI outcomes fifth on the ten-year horizon.", "narrative": { "dateline": "June 2029", "text": "The graduate hiring round that normally takes 40,000 entrants takes 9,000. The accountancy, law and software firms that were the country's largest employers of 22-year-olds now buy the same work from an API billed in a foreign currency. Tax receipts from employment fall faster than the finance ministry's models allowed, because the models were trained on recessions, and this is not one: output is up. The public-service digital team discovers it cannot run its own systems without a provider that changed its terms of service in a quarter. Universities lose a third of applicants to the degrees that paid for the rest. The welfare system is asked to carry a population it was not designed for: qualified, young, unemployed and online. Unions, professional bodies and three political parties converge on a demand for a tax on compute; the compute is abroad. The nations that come through are those with a domestic model capability, a way to tax value where it is consumed, an education system that can retrain at scale and a state that uses the technology better than its citizens' employers do." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "deepseek-r1-release-2025", "date": "27 January 2025", "event": "DeepSeek R1 release", "what_happened": "Nvidia lost about US$590 billion of market value in a day on a cheaper frontier-class model", "calibrates": "market-concentration variant" }, { "shock_id": "generative-ai-adoption-2023", "date": "2023–2026", "event": "Generative AI adoption", "what_happened": "Fastest consumer technology adoption on record; measurable effects on entry-level hiring in exposed occupations by 2025", "calibrates": "diffusion speed" }, { "shock_id": "allianz-risk-barometer-2026", "date": "January 2026", "event": "Allianz Risk Barometer 2026", "what_happened": "AI the fastest-rising business risk, second globally", "calibrates": "business perception" }, { "shock_id": "wef-global-risks-report-2026", "date": "January 2026", "event": "WEF Global Risks Report 2026", "what_happened": "Adverse outcomes of AI fifth on the ten-year horizon, the largest climb between horizons", "calibrates": "long-horizon severity" }, { "shock_id": "eurasia-group-top-risks-2026", "date": "January 2026", "event": "Eurasia Group Top Risks 2026", "what_happened": "'AI eats its users': extractive business models as a stability risk", "calibrates": "political channel" }, { "shock_id": "previous-general-purpose-technologies-1990", "date": "1990s–2000s", "event": "Previous general-purpose technologies", "what_happened": "ICT diffusion took two decades to show in productivity; displacement concentrated by region", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on speed" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "3 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (years)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (technological)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "none", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Share of occupations with over half of tasks exposed", "default": "30 per cent", "range": "15–50", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Diffusion to displacement", "default": "3 years", "range": "2–7", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Domestic frontier-model capability", "default": "none", "range": "options: some / frontier", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Compute import dependence", "default": "high", "range": "low–high", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Market-concentration shock", "default": "off", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": "on at Extreme" }, { "name": "Provider terms-of-service shock", "default": "on", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Task automation in exposed occupations.", "Entry-level hiring collapse before mid-career displacement.", "Tax-base erosion and welfare demand.", "Education demand shifts; institutions destabilised.", "Dependency on foreign providers for public and private systems.", "Political demands for taxation and restriction; capital and talent respond.", "Asset repricing if the economics of the providers change." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "dependence on foreign models for defence and intelligence functions" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "data centres, power demand, connectivity" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "domestic model, compute and data capability" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "tax design, regulation, state use of AI, procurement dependence" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "graduate labour market, retraining, education finance" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "distributional conflict, information environment, standards influence" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "tax base, asset concentration, productivity" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "services trade, firm concentration" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "compute power demand" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Tax base, education and welfare design, procurement dependence", "actions": [ "Model exposure by occupation and tax line", "Build sovereign fallbacks for critical public systems", "Fund retraining at scale", "Negotiate standards" ], "watch": [ "Entry-level vacancy data", "AI share of public procurement" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "The shock is also the opportunity", "actions": [ "Diversify model providers", "Invest in domestic capability where it is strategic" ], "watch": [ "Provider pricing and terms changes" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Equity concentration, labour-intensive services, education", "actions": [ "Scenario on a 30 per cent occupational exposure and a DeepSeek-style repricing" ], "watch": [ "Hyperscaler capex", "Model price curves" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Careers and education choices", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Occupational exposure data" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Origin; concentration and displacement" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Dependence without domestic frontier providers" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Domestic capability; its own displacement" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Services exporters; Japan and Korea's ageing labour markets as mitigant" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "IT services and outsourcing exposure" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Importers with capital" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Lower exposure; leapfrog potential; dependence" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Entry-level vacancy and graduate employment series by occupation", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Share of tasks automated in exposed sectors", "source": "ILO, OECD", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "AI capex and model price per token", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Public procurement of foreign AI services", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Education application trends", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Equity concentration in AI-linked stocks", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Sovereign compute capacity", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S03", "note": "market-concentration variant" }, { "id": "S07", "note": "distributional conflict" }, { "id": "S02", "note": "compute cut-off" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S01", "note": "export controls on chips and models" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "digital sovereignty gaps", "demographic shifts", "education cost structures" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a scenario whose GDP effect may be positive fits a stress library.", "Whether the market-concentration variant should be a separate scenario.", "How to avoid confusing the trend (diffusion) with the shock (speed and dependence)." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Unions, professional bodies and three parties converge on **a tax on compute**. The compute is abroad.", "economic": "Output is up, yet **employment tax receipts fall** faster than the finance ministry's models allowed.", "social": "The graduate round that takes 40,000 **takes 9,000**. The welfare system meets the qualified, young, unemployed and online.", "technological": "Firms buy the work from **an API billed in a foreign currency**. Models, compute and standards sit with a few foreign providers.", "legal": "A provider **changes its terms of service** in a quarter and the public digital team cannot run its own systems.", "environmental": "**Compute power demand** and data-centre siting carry a medium load." }, "regions": { "north-america": "**Origin**: concentration and displacement together.", "europe": "**Dependence** without domestic frontier providers.", "china": "**Domestic capability**, and its own displacement.", "indo-pacific": "Services exporters; **ageing labour markets** in Japan and Korea act as a mitigant.", "south-asia": "**IT services and outsourcing** exposure.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Importers with capital**.", "africa": "Lower exposure and leapfrog potential, with **dependence**.", "latin-america": "Exposed through knowledge-work displacement and **dependence on foreign models**.", "russia-eurasia": "Exposed through knowledge-work displacement and **dependence on foreign models**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 7, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 4, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S13 Rapid AI diffusion shock, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/rapid-ai-diffusion-shock" }, { "id": "S14", "slug": "pandemic-novel-pathogen", "title": "Pandemic with a novel pathogen", "version": "0.2.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "downside", "family": "E", "short_title": "Pandemic", "thematics": [ "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "demographics-human-capital", "economic-security-supply-chains" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Estimates of the annual probability of a COVID-scale pandemic run near 2 per cent, giving 1 to 5 per cent over two years." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "" }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 5, "rationale": "On COVID's output loss and Lloyd's extreme case." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "" }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "" }, "priority": 15, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "1 year (acute)", "warning": "days to weeks", "scope": "global", "origin": "natural (accidental variant)", "external_support": "none in the first six months", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "A novel respiratory pathogen with severity between COVID-19 and the 1918 influenza spreads globally; borders close for six months; health systems exceed surge capacity; vaccines take a year. Pandemic ranks first in both the Swiss and Norwegian national risk analyses and is the UK's most likely catastrophic risk. Lloyd's puts the five-year global loss at US$13.6 trillion weighted and up to 6.4 per cent of global GDP in the extreme case. Earlier UK National Risk Register editions assumed an attack rate up to 50 per cent and a case fatality rate up to 2.5 per cent for pandemic influenza.", "narrative": { "dateline": "November 2028", "text": "The cluster is reported on a Thursday; genomic sequences are public by Monday and the case fatality estimate, 1.2 per cent, is three times the number the plans were written for. Borders close in the second week; the closures are porous and the pathogen is already in 30 countries. Intensive-care demand passes capacity in week five in the first affected cities and the triage protocols that were drafted but never adopted are adopted overnight. Oxygen, not ventilators, is the binding constraint this time; then it is staff, as 20 per cent of the health workforce is infected or isolating. Export bans on protective equipment and antivirals return within a month, as they did in 2020, and the countries that had built regional manufacturing in the interim find it matters. Schools close; the learning loss of the previous pandemic is doubled. Vaccines arrive in 11 months for the countries that had pre-purchase agreements and in 20 for the ones that did not. The public health measures are contested from the start, because the last pandemic left half the population distrustful of the institutions asking for compliance. The capability that fails first is not the laboratory; it is the state's ability to be believed." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "covid-19-2020", "date": "2020–2022", "event": "COVID-19", "what_happened": "Global GDP fell 3.1 per cent in 2020; millions of deaths; border closures; export bans on medical goods", "calibrates": "Standard Severe economic path" }, { "shock_id": "1918-influenza", "date": "1918–1919", "event": "1918 influenza", "what_happened": "Tens of millions of deaths; case fatality above 2.5 per cent", "calibrates": "Standard Extreme" }, { "shock_id": "h5n1-in-us-dairy-cattle-2024", "date": "2024–2025", "event": "H5N1 in US dairy cattle", "what_happened": "Spread across hundreds of herds; dozens of human cases; first US death in January 2025", "calibrates": "zoonotic warning signal" }, { "shock_id": "exercise-cygnus-2016", "date": "October 2016", "event": "Exercise Cygnus", "what_happened": "UK pandemic influenza exercise found NHS surge, PPE, social care and excess-death planning inadequate; unpublished until 2020", "calibrates": "capability gaps, non-disclosure lesson" }, { "shock_id": "global-health-security-index-2019", "date": "2019 and 2021", "event": "Global Health Security Index", "what_happened": "Ranked the US first and the UK second before COVID; outcomes did not follow the rankings", "calibrates": "capacity versus capability" }, { "shock_id": "lloyds-human-pandemic-scenario-2024", "date": "December 2024", "event": "Lloyd's human pandemic scenario", "what_happened": "Five-year global loss US$13.6 trillion weighted; up to 6.4 per cent of global GDP in the extreme case; US$396 billion annual expected loss", "calibrates": "systemic impact" }, { "shock_id": "swiss-and-norwegian-national-risk-analyses-2025", "date": "2025 and 2019", "event": "Swiss and Norwegian national risk analyses", "what_happened": "Pandemic first-ranked hazard in both", "calibrates": "national-register precedent" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year (acute)", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "days to weeks", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "natural (accidental variant)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "none in the first six months", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Basic reproduction number", "default": "2.5", "range": "1.5–5", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Infection fatality rate", "default": "1 per cent", "range": "0.3–3", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Vaccine lead time", "default": "12 months", "range": "4–24", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Border closure duration", "default": "6 months", "range": "1–12", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Health-care surge demand multiple", "default": "×3", "range": "×1.5 to ×6", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Workforce absence peak", "default": "20 per cent", "range": "10–40", "unit": "per cent", "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "International spread before detection.", "Health system overload.", "Workforce absence across all sectors.", "Border closures and supply-chain breaks for medical goods.", "School and economic closures.", "Fiscal expansion and debt.", "Trust and compliance dynamics.", "Long-run health, education and labour effects." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "military medical and logistics support; biosecurity" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "essential services under workforce absence" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "genomic surveillance, vaccine and therapeutics manufacturing" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "public health command, procurement, communication, border policy" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "health system surge, workforce, education continuity" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "trust, compliance, information integrity" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "fiscal expansion, output loss" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "medical goods, export bans, logistics" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "demand collapse" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Surge capacity, stockpiles, manufacturing access, communication credibility", "actions": [ "Maintain regional manufacturing and pre-purchase agreements", "Exercise triage and oxygen supply", "Invest in trust before the event" ], "watch": [ "WHO Disease Outbreak News", "Zoonotic surveillance" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Remote operations, health data, misinformation", "actions": [ "Continuity plans for 20 per cent absence", "Health-data interoperability" ], "watch": [ "Workforce absence indices" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Healthcare, travel, sovereign debt", "actions": [ "Scenario on COVID-plus" ], "watch": [ "Outbreak alerts", "Vaccine platform readiness" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Health, work and schooling", "actions": [ "Household plans" ], "watch": [ "Official guidance channels" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Connectivity; trust deficits" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": null }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Density; prior experience" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Connectivity; strong prior response capability" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Density, health system capacity" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Capital; migrant workforce" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Health system capacity; late vaccine access" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": null }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": null } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "WHO Disease Outbreak News and PHEIC declarations", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Zoonotic surveillance", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null, "note": "H5N1 herd and human case counts" }, { "name": "Wastewater surveillance", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Genomic sequence sharing speed", "source": "GISAID", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Vaccine platform and manufacturing capacity by region", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "IHR Joint External Evaluation scores", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Trust in health authorities", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S03", "note": null }, { "id": "S04", "note": null }, { "id": "S07", "note": null }, { "id": "S12", "note": "staff" }, { "id": "S08", "note": "restricted" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S10", "note": null }, { "id": "S11", "note": "zoonotic spillover pressures" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "antimicrobial resistance", "urbanisation", "climate change expanding vector ranges", "trust erosion" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether an engineered or accidental-release variant should be specified separately.", "How to score nations whose capability improved after COVID against those whose trust fell.", "Whether border closure belongs in Standard Severe given its limited effect in 2020." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.2", "lenses": { "political": "Public health measures are **contested from the start**. The capability that fails first is the state's ability to be believed.", "economic": "Borders and economies close and governments borrow. COVID-19 cut global GDP by **3.1 per cent** in 2020.", "social": "Schools close and **learning loss doubles**. A fifth of the health workforce is infected or isolating.", "technological": "Sequences are public within days. Vaccines arrive in **11 months** with pre-purchase agreements and 20 without.", "legal": "**Export bans** on protective equipment and antivirals return within a month; triage protocols are adopted overnight.", "environmental": "Spillover from animals is the origin; energy **demand collapses**." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Connectivity and **trust deficits**.", "europe": "High connectivity; intensive care **passes capacity within weeks** in the first affected cities.", "china": "**Density**, and prior experience.", "indo-pacific": "Connectivity, with **strong prior response capability**.", "south-asia": "Density and **health system capacity**.", "gulf-middle-east": "Capital to respond; a large **migrant workforce**.", "africa": "Health system capacity and **late vaccine access**.", "latin-america": "Surge capacity is exceeded and vaccines **arrive late** without pre-purchase agreements.", "russia-eurasia": "Exposed through workforce absence and **medical supply chains**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": 8, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 5, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.2.0", "date": "2026-10-02", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.2 with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S14 Pandemic with a novel pathogen, Scenario Library v0.2. scenarios.ginc.org/library/pandemic-novel-pathogen" }, { "id": "S15", "slug": "superintelligence-takeoff", "title": "Superintelligence takeoff", "version": "0.3.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "D", "short_title": "Superintelligence takeoff", "thematics": [ "ai-cyber-digital", "economic-security-supply-chains", "demographics-human-capital" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Frontier laboratories have set dates for automated research: an 'intern' in 2026 and a full AI researcher by 2028. Measured task horizons have been doubling every few months. Yet as of April 2026 no laboratory reported a doubling of overall research progress, and sceptics put the feedback loop well short of self-sustaining." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Published forecasts cluster the start of an intelligence explosion between 2027 and the early 2030s; expert surveys put it far later. Band 4 splits the difference." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 5, "rationale": "Level 5 on irreversible structural change rather than loss: output may rise sharply while the distribution of power and income is rewritten." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "For a nation with no frontier capability, the tax base, labour market and strategic position all shift at once." }, "confidence": { "level": "very low", "reason": "The central mechanism has never been observed and informed forecasters disagree by decades." }, "priority": 15, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (months)", "duration": "3 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (technological)", "external_support": "none", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "AI systems automate AI research itself. Each generation designs a better successor and, within about two years of the loop closing, systems outperform the best human experts in every field of science and engineering. A century of research progress is compressed into a decade or less: new drugs, materials, energy designs and weapons arrive faster than institutions can absorb them. Output grows at rates with no precedent. The gains go first to whoever owns the models, compute and energy. Many researchers class this as the largest risk of all; the Library carries it as an upside scenario because the central case is abundance, with control, concentration and distribution as the open problems.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "Nations hosting frontier projects, compute and power", "Owners of models and chips", "Patients, as medical research accelerates", "Any state that adopts faster than its peers" ], "loses": [ "Knowledge-work exporters and graduate labour markets", "States that tax payroll more than capital", "Militaries without frontier systems", "Nations with nothing the model owners need" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "March 2030", "text": "The announcement is three paragraphs long. The laboratory's research agents have been improving their own training methods for eleven months, and the newest system has not been evaluated by any human who fully understands its results. Two rivals say the same within a quarter. By then the evidence is in the journals: a room-temperature catalyst, a malaria vaccine designed and trialled in simulation before a single dose is made, a reactor design that passes review in weeks. A year of this produces more patents than the previous twenty. Growth in the two economies that host the data centres runs at 9 per cent and their electricity demand at twice that. Elsewhere the picture is stranger. Finance ministries watch corporate profits migrate to three jurisdictions. A mid-sized country's entire professional-services export sector is repriced to the cost of inference. Defence staffs brief that the side with the better models now designs, tests and fields a weapon in months, and that nobody can verify what the other side has. Governments that asked for a seat at the table are offered an API key. The leaders' summit agrees a notification protocol and a compute registry, and neither can be inspected by the people who signed it. Hospitals are the first to feel unambiguous benefit, and the first to ask who is liable. The countries that do well are not the ones with the most engineers. They are the ones with power to spare, a state that can adopt as fast as its firms, and something the owners of the models need." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "i-j-good-speculations-concerning-the-first-ultraintelligent-machine-1965", "date": "1965", "event": "I. J. Good, 'Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine'", "what_happened": "First statement of the intelligence explosion: a machine that can design better machines leaves human intelligence far behind", "calibrates": "the core mechanism" }, { "shock_id": "bostrom-superintelligence-2014", "date": "2014", "event": "Bostrom, Superintelligence", "what_happened": "Set out slow, moderate and fast takeoff and the idea of a decisive strategic advantage for the first project to cross the threshold", "calibrates": "takeoff speed as the key parameter" }, { "shock_id": "aschenbrenner-situational-awareness-2024", "date": "June 2024", "event": "Aschenbrenner, Situational Awareness", "what_happened": "Argued that automated AI research could compress a decade of algorithmic progress into about a year, and framed the race as a national security project", "calibrates": "speed; state involvement" }, { "shock_id": "amodei-machines-of-loving-grace-2024", "date": "October 2024", "event": "Amodei, Machines of Loving Grace", "what_happened": "Described 'a country of geniuses in a datacenter' compressing 50 to 100 years of biological progress into five to ten", "calibrates": "the upside case" }, { "shock_id": "forethought-preparing-for-the-intelligence-explosion-2025", "date": "March 2025", "event": "Forethought, Preparing for the Intelligence Explosion", "what_happened": "MacAskill and Moorhouse argued that AI could drive a century of technological progress in a decade, raising many grand challenges at once", "calibrates": "breadth of consequences" }, { "shock_id": "ai-2027-2025", "date": "April 2025", "event": "AI 2027", "what_happened": "Kokotajlo and co-authors published a month-by-month scenario in which a superhuman coder leads to superintelligence within about a year, with race and slowdown endings", "calibrates": "a concrete takeoff path" }, { "shock_id": "metr-time-horizon-measurements-2025", "date": "March 2025 to April 2026", "event": "METR time-horizon measurements", "what_happened": "The length of tasks AI agents complete doubled about every seven months, then faster; in April 2026 laboratories reported no dramatic speed-up of their own research", "calibrates": "leading indicator and counter-evidence" }, { "shock_id": "narayanan-and-kapoor-ai-as-normal-technology-2025", "date": "April 2025", "event": "Narayanan and Kapoor, AI as Normal Technology", "what_happened": "Argued that diffusion is limited by institutions and that transformation will take decades", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on speed" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "3 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (months)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (technological)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "none", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Research speed-up at peak", "default": "×10", "range": "×3 to ×100", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Time from automated researcher to superintelligence", "default": "12 months", "range": "3–60", "unit": "months", "note": null }, { "name": "Leading projects", "default": "3", "range": "1–10", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Control of the leading systems", "default": "adequate", "range": "options: contested / lost", "unit": null, "note": "lost at Extreme" }, { "name": "Access for nations that host no project", "default": "paid API", "range": "options: open weights / restricted", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Binding constraint", "default": "compute and power", "range": "options: data / regulation / none", "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "AI systems automate AI research; each generation shortens the next.", "Research output in science and engineering multiplies; discoveries outrun regulators and standards.", "Output and profits concentrate in the firms and jurisdictions that own models, compute and power.", "Knowledge work is repriced to the cost of inference; tax bases built on employment erode.", "Military and intelligence advantage shifts to the leading projects; verification fails.", "States without capability bargain for access with energy, data, minerals or alignment.", "Abundance in health, energy and materials arrives unevenly, by ability to adopt.", "Governance lags: liability, control and distribution are settled after the fact." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "High", "channel": "decisive advantage for the leading projects; verification gap" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "data centres, power and grid become the binding constraint" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "frontier models, chips and compute decide who hosts the takeoff" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "state adoption speed, liability and control rules, tax redesign" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "knowledge work repriced; education and retraining rebuilt" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "distributional conflict; influence over standards and treaties" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "growth surge, profit migration, tax base and asset repricing" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "services exports repriced; research-led industries leap" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "electricity demand surge; minerals for compute" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Strategic position, the tax base and the state's own capacity to adopt", "actions": [ "Secure access to frontier models on terms that survive a crisis", "Build power and compute ahead of demand", "Redesign taxation to follow value, not payroll", "Join verification and notification regimes early" ], "watch": [ "Laboratory statements on automated research", "Frontier compute and power build-out", "Export controls on chips and model weights" ], "relevance": 5 }, "technology": { "exposure": "The shock is the sector: firms either ride the leading models or are repriced by them", "actions": [ "Hold more than one frontier provider", "Invest in evaluation and control of autonomous systems", "Secure power contracts" ], "watch": [ "Task-horizon and research-automation benchmarks", "Model pricing and access terms" ], "relevance": 5 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Extreme concentration of returns; repricing of labour-intensive services and of long-dated assumptions", "actions": [ "Test portfolios on a growth surge with profit concentrated in a few firms", "Map holdings by exposure to inference-priced work" ], "watch": [ "Hyperscaler capital expenditure", "Share of research output attributed to AI systems", "Electricity demand in host regions" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Jobs and incomes in knowledge work; earlier access to medical advances", "actions": [ "Build skills in directing and checking AI work" ], "watch": [ "Entry-level hiring", "Public service adoption" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Host of most leading projects; concentration of gains and of risk" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Dependence without a frontier project; regulation as its main lever" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "The other host; domestic chips and power decide its pace" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Chip manufacturing leverage in Taiwan, Korea and Japan; services exporters repriced" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "IT services and outsourcing repriced; large gains from cheap expertise" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Energy and capital to host compute; a seat bought, not built" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Largest gains from health and agricultural science; least bargaining power" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Minerals and power as bargaining chips; services exposed" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Cut off from frontier chips; military implications dominate" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Length of tasks AI agents complete autonomously", "source": "METR", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Share of frontier laboratory research and code produced by AI systems", "source": "company disclosures", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Frontier compute and data-centre power under construction", "source": "Epoch AI, IEA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Price of inference at fixed capability", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Forecasts for automated AI research", "source": "Metaculus", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Export controls on chips and model weights", "source": "BIS", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "AI safety notification and verification agreements", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S13", "note": "displacement at speed" }, { "id": "S03", "note": "asset repricing" }, { "id": "S07", "note": "distributional conflict" }, { "id": "S16", "note": "energy research accelerates" }, { "id": "S17", "note": "biomedical research accelerates" } ], "triggered_by": [], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "compute scaling", "algorithmic progress", "capital concentration in AI", "great-power competition" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a scenario many researchers rank as the gravest risk belongs on the upside list, or needs a paired loss-of-control scenario.", "Whether takeoff is one event or a decade of fast diffusion, in which case it is S13 at higher intensity.", "How to rate impact when output rises but most nations' share of it falls." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3", "lenses": { "political": "Governments that asked for a seat at the table are **offered an API key**. A summit agrees a compute registry nobody can inspect.", "economic": "Growth in the host economies runs at **9 per cent**. Profits migrate to three jurisdictions and services exports are repriced to the cost of inference.", "social": "Hospitals feel the benefit first. **Knowledge work is repriced** and the question becomes who shares in the gain.", "technological": "Research agents improve their own training for eleven months. **A year produces more patents than the previous twenty**.", "legal": "**Liability and control** are settled after the fact; no human fully understands the newest system's results.", "environmental": "Host-economy **electricity demand** grows at twice the rate of output; new reactor designs pass review in weeks." }, "regions": { "north-america": "**Host** of most leading projects: the gains, the power demand and the control problem all land here first.", "europe": "**Dependence** without a frontier project. Regulation is the main lever and adoption speed the main test.", "china": "**The other host**. Domestic chips and power decide whether it keeps pace.", "indo-pacific": "**Chip manufacturing** gives Taiwan, Korea and Japan leverage; services exporters are repriced.", "south-asia": "IT services and outsourcing are **repriced to the cost of inference**, while cheap expertise reaches hundreds of millions.", "gulf-middle-east": "Energy and capital **buy a seat**: compute is hosted where power is cheap.", "africa": "The largest gains from health and agricultural science, with the **least bargaining power** over access.", "latin-america": "**Minerals and power** are bargaining chips; services employment is exposed.", "russia-eurasia": "Cut off from frontier chips; the **military implications** dominate." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 5, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "very low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.3.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.3 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S15 Superintelligence takeoff, Scenario Library v0.3. scenarios.ginc.org/library/superintelligence-takeoff" }, { "id": "S16", "slug": "energy-abundance", "title": "Energy abundance breakthrough", "version": "0.3.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "C", "short_title": "Energy abundance", "thematics": [ "climate-energy-resources", "economic-security-supply-chains" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Battery storage costs fell 27 per cent in a year to a record low and the first commercial enhanced geothermal plant is due on the grid in 2026. A Standard Severe price collapse within two years needs oil demand to turn as well." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "The IEA expects oil demand to plateau by 2029, and cost curves for solar and storage are still falling." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Level 3: a large transfer from exporters to importers, with a net gain to world output." }, "impact_national": { "level": 5, "rationale": "Level 5 for hydrocarbon exporters whose budgets depend on oil and gas; the 1986 price collapse is the precedent." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Cost trends are well measured; the timing of a demand peak is contested." }, "priority": 15, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (years)", "duration": "5 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (technological)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "Solar, batteries and one firm clean source (enhanced geothermal, advanced nuclear or fusion) fall far enough in cost that new electricity is cheaper than running existing fossil plant across most of the world. Wholesale power costs halve in adopting economies within five years. Oil demand peaks and the price settles 40 per cent lower for good. Importers gain a permanent tax cut; energy-intensive industry moves to where power is cheapest; hydrocarbon exporters lose the revenue their states run on. The shock is the speed: a transition expected over thirty years arrives in five.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "Energy importers: Europe, Japan, Korea, India and most of Africa", "Energy-intensive industry and data centres", "Households, through lower bills", "Makers of solar, batteries and drilling equipment" ], "loses": [ "Hydrocarbon exporters without fiscal buffers", "Coal regions and refinery towns", "Holders of stranded fossil assets", "States whose leverage rested on energy supply" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "June 2031", "text": "The auction clears at a price nobody would have bid three years ago: round-the-clock power from solar and batteries, delivered for less than the fuel cost of the gas plant next door. The geothermal wells that were a demonstration in 2026 are now drilled like shale, forty at a time. Electricity bills in the importing economies have fallen for the fourth year running and finance ministers are spending the saving twice. An aluminium smelter closes in Europe and reopens in a desert with a 20-year power contract. Data centres follow. Crude has not traded above US$45 for eighteen months. In the Gulf, the producers with sovereign funds and low costs pump more and wait; the ones without cut public salaries, then subsidies, then the peg. Two national oil companies stop paying dividends to the state. A government that borrowed against reserves it will never sell asks for a programme. Coal regions and refinery towns get their transition funds a decade too late. Grid operators are the new bottleneck: the queue for a connection is four years and the cheapest power in history is curtailed at noon. The countries that gain most are the ones that built wires, storage and permits before they were needed. The ones that lose most had one export." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "us-shale-revolution-2008", "date": "2008–2016", "event": "US shale revolution", "what_happened": "US crude output roughly doubled; oil fell from above US$100 a barrel in mid-2014 to below US$30 in early 2016", "calibrates": "speed of a supply-side technology shock; exporter stress" }, { "shock_id": "oil-price-collapse-1986", "date": "1986", "event": "Oil price collapse", "what_happened": "Prices fell by more than half within months; exporter revenues collapsed, straining Soviet finances", "calibrates": "Standard Severe for exporters" }, { "shock_id": "solar-cost-decline-2010", "date": "2010–2020", "event": "Solar cost decline", "what_happened": "The cost of electricity from utility-scale solar fell by more than 80 per cent in a decade", "calibrates": "learning-curve precedent" }, { "shock_id": "battery-storage-cost-record-2025", "date": "2025", "event": "Battery storage cost record", "what_happened": "The benchmark cost of a four-hour battery project fell 27 per cent in a year to US$78 per MWh, the lowest since tracking began in 2009", "calibrates": "storage as the enabler" }, { "shock_id": "fusion-ignition-at-the-national-ignition-facility-2022", "date": "December 2022", "event": "Fusion ignition at the National Ignition Facility", "what_happened": "The first laboratory fusion experiment to release more energy than the lasers delivered to the target", "calibrates": "firm clean source: proof of principle" }, { "shock_id": "enhanced-geothermal-at-cape-station-2026", "date": "2026", "event": "Enhanced geothermal at Cape Station", "what_happened": "The first 100 MW phase of the largest enhanced geothermal project was scheduled to deliver power to the grid", "calibrates": "firm clean source at commercial scale" }, { "shock_id": "iea-oil-demand-outlook-2025", "date": "2025", "event": "IEA oil demand outlook", "what_happened": "Global oil demand projected to plateau near 105.6 million barrels a day by 2029 and to fall slightly in 2030", "calibrates": "demand peak" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "5 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (years)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (technological)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Fall in wholesale electricity cost in adopting economies", "default": "50 per cent", "range": "25–75", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Firm clean source", "default": "enhanced geothermal", "range": "options: advanced nuclear / fusion / long-duration storage", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Sustained fall in the oil price", "default": "40 per cent", "range": "20–60", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Years from tipping point to the new price regime", "default": "5 years", "range": "3–10", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Grid and permitting constraint", "default": "binding", "range": "options: eased", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Exporter fiscal buffers", "default": "2 years of spending", "range": "0–10", "unit": "years of spending", "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "New clean power undercuts the running cost of fossil plant.", "Electricity prices fall; importers gain a lasting improvement in their terms of trade.", "Oil and gas demand peaks; prices reset lower and exporter revenue collapses.", "Energy-intensive industry relocates to the cheapest power.", "Grids, storage and permitting become the binding constraint.", "Exporter states cut spending; pegs, subsidies and social contracts come under strain.", "Stranded assets hit banks, pension funds and coal and refinery regions." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Medium", "channel": "instability in exporter states; chokepoints lose leverage" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "grids, storage, interconnection and permitting decide who captures the gain" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Medium", "channel": "manufacture and deployment of generation, storage and drilling" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "permitting speed, fiscal diversification, transition delivery" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "workers in fossil regions; cheaper energy for households" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "exporter leverage falls; regional winners and losers" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "exporter budgets, pegs and stranded assets; importer windfall" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "relocation of energy-intensive industry" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "price regime change; demand for transition minerals" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Fiscal dependence on hydrocarbons, or the grid's ability to absorb cheap power", "actions": [ "Build transmission, storage and permitting capacity ahead of demand", "Exporters: test the budget on oil 40 per cent lower for good", "Fund transition in fossil regions before plants close" ], "watch": [ "Auction prices for firm clean power", "Grid connection queues", "Exporter fiscal break-even prices" ], "relevance": 4 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Power is the main input to compute; siting follows price", "actions": [ "Sign long-term contracts where firm clean power is cheapest", "Design for flexible demand" ], "watch": [ "Curtailment rates", "Connection lead times" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Stranded hydrocarbon assets; exporter sovereigns; a relocation of heavy industry", "actions": [ "Test holdings on a permanent 40 per cent fall in oil", "Reprice exporter sovereign debt by fiscal break-even" ], "watch": [ "Oil demand outlooks", "Storage and solar cost benchmarks", "National oil company dividends" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Lower bills; jobs lost in fossil regions", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Tariff reviews", "Transition fund announcements" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Shale producers lose, consumers and data centres gain; permitting decides the balance" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Importer windfall; heavy industry may still leave for cheaper power" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Largest maker of solar and batteries and largest energy importer" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Japan, Korea and Taiwan cut import bills; Australia loses coal and gas revenue" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Cheaper power and a lower import bill for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Revenue collapse for exporters without buffers; low-cost producers outlast the rest" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Cheap distributed power for importers; Nigeria, Angola and Algeria lose revenue" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Mineral exporters gain; Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia lose oil income" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Budget dependence on oil and gas; a second 1986" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Levelised cost of solar, storage and firm clean power", "source": "BloombergNEF, IRENA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Auction prices for round-the-clock clean power", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Oil demand outlook and peak estimates", "source": "IEA, OPEC", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Fiscal break-even oil price by exporter", "source": "IMF", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Grid connection queue length and curtailment rates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Enhanced geothermal, fusion and advanced nuclear milestones", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Electric vehicle share of new car sales", "source": "IEA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S04", "note": "exporter states" }, { "id": "S07", "note": "exporter states" }, { "id": "S03", "note": "stranded assets, if abrupt" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S15", "note": "research acceleration" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "falling technology cost curves", "electrification", "industrial policy competition", "data-centre power demand" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a five-year transition is a shock or an accelerated trend.", "How to rate one scenario that is level 5 for exporters and a gain for importers.", "Whether cheap power without grid capacity produces any gain at all." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3", "lenses": { "political": "Exporter leverage drains away. Governments without buffers **cut salaries, then subsidies, then the peg**.", "economic": "Wholesale power costs **halve**. Crude stays below US$45; a smelter closes in Europe and reopens in a desert.", "social": "Bills fall for a fourth year. **Coal regions and refinery towns** get their transition funds a decade late.", "technological": "Geothermal wells are **drilled like shale**, forty at a time; round-the-clock solar and storage undercut gas.", "legal": "**Permitting** is the constraint: the queue for a grid connection is four years.", "environmental": "Fossil plant is retired on cost. The **cheapest power in history is curtailed at noon** for want of wires." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Shale producers lose and **data centres gain**. Permitting decides the balance.", "europe": "An **importer windfall**, though heavy industry may still leave for cheaper power.", "china": "The largest maker of solar and batteries and the largest energy importer: **gains on both sides**.", "indo-pacific": "Japan, Korea and Taiwan cut import bills; **Australia loses** coal and gas revenue.", "south-asia": "A **lower import bill** and cheaper power for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.", "gulf-middle-east": "Low-cost producers with sovereign funds pump more and wait. **The rest face fiscal collapse**.", "africa": "Cheap distributed power for importers; **Nigeria, Angola and Algeria** lose revenue.", "latin-america": "Mineral exporters gain; **Venezuela, Ecuador and Colombia** lose oil income.", "russia-eurasia": "The budget rests on oil and gas: **a second 1986**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 5, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.3.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.3 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S16 Energy abundance breakthrough, Scenario Library v0.3. scenarios.ginc.org/library/energy-abundance" }, { "id": "S17", "slug": "biomedical-breakthrough-wave", "title": "Biomedical breakthrough wave", "version": "0.3.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "E", "short_title": "Biomedical breakthroughs", "thematics": [ "demographics-human-capital", "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "ai-cyber-digital" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Three of the pieces are in rollout: generic semaglutide launched in India and Canada in 2026, twice-yearly lenacapavir reached more than 55,000 people in South Africa within months, and two malaria vaccines are in routine use. No AI-designed drug has yet been approved." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Pipelines in obesity, HIV, malaria and cancer vaccines mature within the decade." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Level 3 as a gain: a healthier workforce and a lower disease burden, offset by pension and care costs." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4: high-burden nations gain years of healthy life; ageing nations face a pension and fiscal reset." }, "confidence": { "level": "low", "reason": "Uptake, price and durability of effect are all uncertain." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (years)", "duration": "5 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (technological)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "Several medical advances reach scale in the same five years: cheap generic obesity and diabetes drugs, long-acting HIV prevention, effective malaria vaccines, personalised cancer vaccines and the first medicines designed by AI. Together they cut the burden of the main killers by a fifth in countries that deploy them and add years of healthy life. Health systems shift from treatment to prevention. The gains depend on price, manufacturing and delivery, so they arrive first where systems already work. Longer lives strain pensions and care, and industries built on chronic disease shrink.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "High-burden nations for HIV and malaria", "People with obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease", "Generic manufacturers", "Employers, through a healthier workforce" ], "loses": [ "Pension funds and annuity providers", "Providers of chronic care such as dialysis", "Food and drink makers reliant on high consumption", "Nations that cannot fund delivery" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "September 2031", "text": "The health ministry's annual report has a chart nobody has seen before: admissions for heart attack and stroke down for the third year, by a fifth in all. The obesity drug that cost a month's wages in 2024 is a generic tablet bought with the groceries. The HIV clinic in the township gives two injections a year and has recorded no new infection among its regular patients since it opened. In the villages to the north, the children's ward that filled every rainy season has empty beds; the malaria vaccine is given with the measles one. A cancer vaccine is made to order for each patient in six weeks, and the first drug designed end to end by a model has been on pharmacy shelves for a year. The actuaries noticed before the politicians. Life expectancy at 65 is up two years in five, the pension fund's deficit has doubled and the retirement age is back in parliament. A dialysis chain files for protection. Sugar and snack makers issue profit warnings. The harder story is next door, where the same medicines are licensed but the cold chain, the nurses and the budget are not there. Its government is asked why its citizens die of what the neighbours no longer catch." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "combination-antiretroviral-therapy-1996", "date": "1996 onward", "event": "Combination antiretroviral therapy", "what_happened": "Turned HIV from a fatal to a chronic condition; access in Africa lagged by about a decade", "calibrates": "speed of benefit; the access gap" }, { "shock_id": "covid-19-mrna-vaccines-2020", "date": "2020", "event": "COVID-19 mRNA vaccines", "what_happened": "Vaccines were authorised within about 11 months of the pathogen being sequenced", "calibrates": "speed of development at scale" }, { "shock_id": "glp-1-medicines-2021", "date": "2021–2026", "event": "GLP-1 medicines", "what_happened": "Demand outran supply for years; generic semaglutide launched in India in March 2026 and was approved in Canada", "calibrates": "price as the gate to scale" }, { "shock_id": "lenacapavir-for-hiv-prevention-2024", "date": "2024–2026", "event": "Lenacapavir for HIV prevention", "what_happened": "A twice-yearly injection; more than 55,000 people had started it in South Africa's public system by September 2026", "calibrates": "delivery in a high-burden setting" }, { "shock_id": "malaria-vaccines-rts-s-and-r21-2021", "date": "2021–2024", "event": "Malaria vaccines RTS,S and R21", "what_happened": "WHO recommended RTS,S in 2021 and R21 in 2023; routine childhood use began in African countries in 2024", "calibrates": "low-cost prevention at scale" }, { "shock_id": "ai-designed-drug-candidates-2026", "date": "July 2026", "event": "AI-designed drug candidates", "what_happened": "No AI-designed drug had full approval; the most advanced candidate entered a Phase III trial", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on speed" }, { "shock_id": "smallpox-eradication-1980", "date": "1980", "event": "Smallpox eradication", "what_happened": "Declared eradicated after a global vaccination campaign", "calibrates": "Standard Extreme precedent" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "5 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (years)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (technological)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Fall in burden of the leading causes of death where deployed", "default": "20 per cent", "range": "10–40", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Gain in healthy life expectancy", "default": "2 years", "range": "1–5", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Price relative to launch price", "default": "one tenth", "range": "one half to one hundredth", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Lag between high-income and low-income access", "default": "5 years", "range": "1–15", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Technologies in the wave", "default": "5", "range": "3–8", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Readiness of delivery systems", "default": "uneven", "range": "options: ready / absent", "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Prices fall as generics and new manufacturers enter.", "Uptake scales through primary care and public programmes.", "Deaths and hospital admissions from the main chronic and infectious diseases fall.", "Workforce participation and productivity rise.", "Longevity raises pension and long-term care liabilities.", "Industries built on chronic disease contract; health budgets shift to prevention.", "Access gaps between and within nations become a political issue." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Low", "channel": "fitter recruits; biosecurity of new platforms" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "cold chain, primary care and manufacturing sites" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "drug discovery, biomanufacturing and regulatory science" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "procurement, pricing, regulation and delivery at scale" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "healthy life years, workforce participation, child survival" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "access inequality; health diplomacy" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "pension liabilities, health budgets, labour supply" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "pharmaceutical trade; decline of chronic-care industries" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "food demand shifts" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Health budgets, pension systems and the capacity to deliver at scale", "actions": [ "Negotiate price and local manufacture early", "Shift budgets from hospital care to primary prevention", "Re-test pension systems on two more years of life" ], "watch": [ "Generic entry dates", "Uptake by income group", "Hospital admissions for cardiovascular disease" ], "relevance": 3 }, "technology": { "exposure": "AI-led discovery and biomanufacturing platforms", "actions": [ "Build regulatory-grade evidence, not only candidates", "Invest in manufacturing where demand is" ], "watch": [ "First approvals of AI-designed medicines", "Trial success rates" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Pharmaceutical winners; insurers and pension funds exposed to longevity; chronic-care providers in decline", "actions": [ "Test annuity and pension books on faster longevity gains", "Review holdings in food, dialysis and chronic-care services" ], "watch": [ "Mortality improvement tables", "Patent expiries" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Access and affordability; longer working lives", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Coverage decisions", "Retirement age proposals" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "High obesity and drug prices; large gains once prices fall" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Ageing populations gain health and face pension strain" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Rapid ageing and large domestic manufacturing" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Japan and Korea face the sharpest longevity pressure" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Generic manufacturing base; large diabetes burden" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "High diabetes prevalence; capacity to pay" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Largest gains from HIV and malaria prevention; delivery is the constraint" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Rising chronic disease; uneven systems" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "High cardiovascular mortality; access constrained" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Price and generic availability of GLP-1 medicines by country", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "People on long-acting HIV prevention", "source": "UNAIDS, national programmes", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Malaria vaccine coverage and child mortality", "source": "WHO, Gavi", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Approvals of AI-designed medicines", "source": "FDA, EMA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Cardiovascular admissions and mortality rates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Life expectancy at 65 and pension funding ratios", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Late-stage cancer vaccine trial results", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S04", "note": "pension liabilities in ageing sovereigns" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S15", "note": "research acceleration" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "demographic ageing", "falling cost of sequencing and biomanufacturing", "rising chronic disease burden", "aid retrenchment" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether benefits that arrive over five years are a shock or a trend.", "How to score nations where the medicines are licensed but cannot be delivered.", "Whether longer lives count as a load on capability or a gain to it." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3", "lenses": { "political": "The **retirement age is back in parliament**. Next door, a government is asked why its citizens die of what the neighbours no longer catch.", "economic": "Life expectancy at 65 is up two years in five and the **pension deficit has doubled**. A dialysis chain files for protection.", "social": "Heart attack and stroke admissions fall by **a fifth**. The children's ward that filled every rainy season has empty beds.", "technological": "A cancer vaccine is made to order in six weeks; the first drug **designed end to end by a model** is on the shelves.", "legal": "The medicines are **licensed everywhere**; price, patents and generic entry decide who gets them.", "environmental": "Food demand shifts as appetite-suppressing drugs scale; **snack and sugar makers** issue profit warnings." }, "regions": { "north-america": "High obesity and high prices: **large gains once prices fall**.", "europe": "Ageing populations gain years of health and face **pension strain**.", "china": "**Rapid ageing** meets a large domestic manufacturing base.", "indo-pacific": "Japan and Korea face the **sharpest longevity pressure** on pensions and care.", "south-asia": "The **generic manufacturing base** supplies the world, and a large diabetes burden at home.", "gulf-middle-east": "High diabetes prevalence and the **capacity to pay**.", "africa": "The largest gains, from HIV and malaria prevention. **Delivery is the constraint**: cold chain, nurses and budget.", "latin-america": "Rising chronic disease and **uneven health systems**.", "russia-eurasia": "High cardiovascular mortality; **access is constrained**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.3.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.3 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S17 Biomedical breakthrough wave, Scenario Library v0.3. scenarios.ginc.org/library/biomedical-breakthrough-wave" }, { "id": "S18", "slug": "great-power-detente", "title": "Great-power détente and peace dividend", "version": "0.3.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "B", "short_title": "Great-power détente", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "information-integrity-social-cohesion" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Washington and Beijing held a state visit in September 2026, extended their trade truce to January 2027 and agreed an AI safety notification mechanism, but left tariffs, rare earths, chips and Taiwan unresolved. Ukraine talks stalled in March 2026." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Long rivalries have ended in negotiated settlements before, usually after a crisis." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Level 3 as a gain: the reverse of the trade and energy shocks in S01 and S09, on a slower path." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4 for states whose security or leverage is traded in the settlement." }, "confidence": { "level": "low", "reason": "Settlements depend on a few leaders and can reverse quickly." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "3 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "negotiated between great powers", "external_support": "full", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "The United States and China reach a settlement that rolls back most tariffs and export controls, sets rules for AI and chips and lowers the temperature over Taiwan. A ceasefire in Ukraine becomes a signed agreement with sanctions relief in stages. Trade volumes recover, shipping and insurance costs fall and defence budgets stop rising. The peace dividend is real and uneven: industries built behind tariff walls lose protection, middle powers lose the leverage of being courted, and allies discover which of their interests were bargained away.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "Consumers and trade-dependent economies", "Shipping, insurance and reconstruction", "Treasuries, through lower defence spending", "Russia and Ukraine, if the ceasefire holds" ], "loses": [ "Industries built behind tariffs and subsidies", "Detour economies such as Vietnam and Mexico", "Defence contractors", "Allies whose interests are bargained away" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "November 2028", "text": "The communiqué runs to nine pages and the annexes to four hundred. Tariffs on both sides return to their 2017 levels over three years. The licence regimes for rare earths and for most chips are replaced by a shared list. A hotline between the two militaries is staffed around the clock, and inspectors from each side sit in the other's AI evaluation centres. Three months later the guns stop along a line in eastern Ukraine that neither capital calls a border. Freight rates fall by a third. War-risk premiums in the Black Sea and the Gulf go back to what underwriters call boring. Europe's finance ministers, who had pencilled in defence at 3.5 per cent of GDP, quietly revise the line. The complaints begin at once. A battery plant in Ohio and a chip packaging plant in Penang were financed on tariffs that no longer exist. Vietnam and Mexico, which grew rich as the detour, watch orders go back to the direct route. Taipei, Kyiv and Warsaw study the annexes for what was promised about them without them. The defence contractors guide earnings down. The countries that gain most are the ones that had kept trading with both sides and built nothing that needed the confrontation to survive." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "nixons-visit-to-china-1972", "date": "February 1972", "event": "Nixon's visit to China", "what_happened": "Opened relations after two decades of hostility; the Shanghai Communiqué set the Taiwan question aside", "calibrates": "settlement by leaders; allies surprised" }, { "shock_id": "inf-treaty-1987", "date": "December 1987", "event": "INF Treaty", "what_happened": "The United States and the Soviet Union eliminated a class of nuclear missiles, with on-site inspection", "calibrates": "verification" }, { "shock_id": "end-of-the-cold-war-1989", "date": "1989–1991", "event": "End of the Cold War", "what_happened": "US defence spending fell from about 6 per cent of GDP in the late 1980s to about 3 per cent by 2000", "calibrates": "scale of a peace dividend" }, { "shock_id": "chinas-wto-accession-2001", "date": "December 2001", "event": "China's WTO accession", "what_happened": "Tariff cuts and legal certainty; China's goods exports grew more than fivefold in the following decade", "calibrates": "trade response to reopening; adjustment costs for importers" }, { "shock_id": "us-china-leaders-meeting-2025", "date": "30 October 2025", "event": "US–China leaders' meeting", "what_happened": "A truce: China's extraterritorial rare earth regime was suspended for a year", "calibrates": "first step" }, { "shock_id": "xi-state-visit-to-washington-2026", "date": "23–25 September 2026", "event": "Xi state visit to Washington", "what_happened": "Truce extended to 10 January 2027; a Board of Trade to identify tariff cuts; an AI safety notification mechanism; core disputes left unresolved", "calibrates": "distance from Standard Severe" }, { "shock_id": "ukraine-peace-talks-2026", "date": "2026", "event": "Ukraine peace talks", "what_happened": "US-mediated talks set a June target, then stalled in March as Washington's attention moved to Iran", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on likelihood" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "3 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "negotiated between great powers", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "full", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Share of post-2018 tariffs and controls removed", "default": "70 per cent", "range": "30–100", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Conflicts settled", "default": "1", "range": "1–3", "unit": null, "note": "Ukraine by default" }, { "name": "Defence spending path", "default": "flat in real terms", "range": "options: falling / still rising", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Sanctions relief", "default": "staged", "range": "options: none / full", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Verification regime", "default": "inspections on AI and chips", "range": "options: declaratory only", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Durability", "default": "one electoral cycle", "range": "one to three", "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "A leaders' settlement; tariffs and controls are phased out.", "Trade volumes and investment recover; freight and insurance costs fall.", "Ceasefire and staged sanctions relief reopen energy and grain flows.", "Defence budgets plateau; fiscal space is redirected.", "Protected industries and detour economies lose their advantage.", "Allies and middle powers reprice their security guarantees and leverage.", "Domestic opponents contest the settlement; reversal risk persists." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "High", "channel": "force posture, alliance guarantees and defence industry reset" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Low", "channel": "ports and corridors rerouted" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "chip and AI controls replaced by shared rules; subsidised plants exposed" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "trade negotiation, sanctions unwinding, budget reallocation" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Low", "channel": "talent mobility reopens" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "alliance trust; lost leverage for middle powers; domestic contest" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "lower inflation and risk premia; defence savings" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "trade recovery; protected and detour industries lose" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "sanctioned energy and grain return to market" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Security guarantees, industrial policy built on rivalry and the terms of any settlement reached over their heads", "actions": [ "Identify which national interests could be traded and seek them in writing", "Test industrial subsidies on tariffs at 2017 levels", "Plan the use of defence savings before they are spent" ], "watch": [ "Leaders' meetings and truce extensions", "Tariff schedules", "Defence budget guidance" ], "relevance": 5 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Export controls and subsidy regimes that shaped where plants were built", "actions": [ "Model plants and supply chains with controls lifted", "Prepare for joint evaluation and inspection regimes" ], "watch": [ "Control list changes", "AI safety notification agreements" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Defence, protected manufacturing and detour economies down; shipping, trade and reconstruction up", "actions": [ "Test portfolios on a trade recovery and flat defence budgets", "Review holdings financed on tariff protection" ], "watch": [ "War-risk premiums", "Sanctions relief schedules", "Defence order books" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Lower prices; jobs at risk in protected industries", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Tariff changes on consumer goods" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Party to the settlement; consumers gain, protected plants lose" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Security settlement on its border; defence build-up and energy policy both reopened" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Party to the settlement; export access restored" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia most exposed to the terms and to lost diversion" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "India loses some diversion gains and leverage" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Lower risk premia; less room to play the powers against each other" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Cheaper food and freight; less competition for its alignment" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Mexico loses nearshoring advantage; commodity demand recovers" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Sanctions relief in stages; the terms of a Ukraine settlement" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Leaders' meetings and truce extensions", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Trade-weighted effective tariff rates", "source": "WTO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Export-control list removals", "source": "BIS, MOFCOM", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "War-risk premiums and freight rates", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Defence budget plans as a share of GDP", "source": "NATO, SIPRI", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Sanctions designations removed", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Ceasefire monitoring reports", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S07", "note": "in states whose interests were traded" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S05", "note": "a crisis that forces a settlement" }, { "id": "S03", "note": "shared economic distress" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "fiscal pressure on defence budgets", "war fatigue", "supply-chain concentration", "leader-level diplomacy" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a settlement that one election can reverse is a scenario or an interlude.", "How to rate allies whose security is the price of the bargain.", "Whether trade reopening and a peace settlement should be separate scenarios." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3", "lenses": { "political": "The communiqué runs to nine pages. **Taipei, Kyiv and Warsaw** study the annexes for what was promised about them without them.", "economic": "Freight rates fall by **a third** and tariffs return to 2017 levels over three years. Plants financed on tariff walls are stranded.", "social": "Prices ease. Jobs go in **protected industries** and domestic opponents contest the settlement.", "technological": "Licences for rare earths and most chips give way to **a shared list**; inspectors sit in each other's AI evaluation centres.", "legal": "Four hundred pages of annexes: **staged sanctions relief**, tariff schedules and a verification regime.", "environmental": "Sanctioned **energy and grain** return to market; war-risk premiums in the Black Sea and the Gulf fall." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Party to the settlement. Consumers gain; **plants built on tariffs** lose their protection.", "europe": "A security settlement on its border. Finance ministers **quietly revise** the defence line.", "china": "Party to the settlement: **export access is restored** and controls on its inputs are lifted.", "indo-pacific": "**Vietnam and Malaysia** lose the detour trade; Taiwan reads the annexes.", "south-asia": "India loses some **diversion gains** and some leverage as the powers stop courting.", "gulf-middle-east": "Risk premia fall, with **less room to play the powers** against each other.", "africa": "Cheaper food and freight, and **less competition** for its alignment.", "latin-america": "**Mexico loses** its nearshoring advantage as orders return to the direct route.", "russia-eurasia": "**Sanctions relief in stages**, on the terms of a ceasefire line neither side calls a border." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.3.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.3 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S18 Great-power détente and peace dividend, Scenario Library v0.3. scenarios.ginc.org/library/great-power-detente" }, { "id": "S19", "slug": "sovereign-debt-reset", "title": "Coordinated sovereign debt reset", "version": "0.3.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "A", "short_title": "Sovereign debt reset", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "resilience-crisis-preparedness" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 2, "rationale": "The 2025 Sevilla Commitment and the Jubilee report revived the case for relief on the scale of the 1990s, but the Common Framework remains slow and no creditor coalition has formed." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "The HIPC Initiative took a decade of pressure to deliver; a repeat within ten years is possible." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Level 2: small in global output, large for the nations treated." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4 as a gain: debt service falls by half and fiscal space returns for health, education and investment." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Precedents are well documented; the creditor base is harder to coordinate than in 1996." }, "priority": 8, "tier": "III", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (months)", "duration": "3 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global (about 50 nations)", "origin": "negotiated between creditors and debtors", "external_support": "full", "policy_response": "best practice", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "Official, Chinese and private creditors agree a single, time-bound treatment for about 50 debt-distressed nations: maturities extended, interest cut and principal written down where needed, with new multilateral lending alongside. Debt service falls by half for the nations treated and the saving is tied to health, education and infrastructure. It is the mirror of S04: the funding crisis resolved before it breaks. Creditors take losses, credit ratings fall before they recover, and nations that paid their debts on time ask what they gained.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "About 50 debt-distressed nations", "Their health and education systems", "Exporters selling to recovering economies" ], "loses": [ "Bondholders and bilateral creditors, who take losses", "Nations that paid on time and receive nothing", "Borrowers shut out of markets during the pause" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "April 2029", "text": "The term sheet is two pages, which is the point. Any country with debt service above a fifth of revenue can opt in. Maturities go out fifteen years, the coupon falls to 2 per cent, and bondholders who refuse are bound by a majority vote written into law in New York and London the previous autumn. China's policy banks sign on the same terms as the Paris Club for the first time. Forty-seven governments apply in the first six months. In the finance ministry of a West African state, the line for interest, which had been larger than health and education together, is cut in half, and the difference is assigned in the budget to teachers' salaries and a vaccine cold chain. The currency rises. The rating agencies downgrade every applicant to selective default on the day of signing and upgrade most of them within eighteen months. Not everyone is pleased. A neighbour that cut spending for a decade to stay current gets nothing and says so. Two asset managers sue. Lending to the poorest borrowers dries up for a year, then returns at lower rates than before. The measure of the deal comes later: whether the space was spent on capability or on the next election." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "london-debt-agreement-1953", "date": "1953", "event": "London Debt Agreement", "what_happened": "West Germany's external debt was cut by about half, with repayment linked to export earnings", "calibrates": "relief as a basis for recovery" }, { "shock_id": "brady-plan-1989", "date": "1989", "event": "Brady Plan", "what_happened": "Bank loans to indebted countries, mainly in Latin America, were exchanged for tradable bonds with reduced principal or interest", "calibrates": "private creditor participation" }, { "shock_id": "hipc-initiative-and-mdri-1996", "date": "1996 and 2005", "event": "HIPC Initiative and MDRI", "what_happened": "Debt relief for more than 35 low-income countries, worth over US$100 billion in total", "calibrates": "Standard Severe scale" }, { "shock_id": "debt-service-suspension-initiative-2020", "date": "May 2020 to December 2021", "event": "Debt Service Suspension Initiative", "what_happened": "48 countries deferred about US$13 billion of official debt service", "calibrates": "speed when creditors agree" }, { "shock_id": "g20-common-framework-2020", "date": "2020 onward", "event": "G20 Common Framework", "what_happened": "Chad, Zambia, Ghana and Ethiopia sought treatment; negotiations took years", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on speed" }, { "shock_id": "sevilla-commitment-and-jubilee-report-2025", "date": "2025", "event": "Sevilla Commitment and Jubilee report", "what_happened": "The fourth Financing for Development conference and a Vatican-backed commission called for faster and deeper debt treatment", "calibrates": "current momentum" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "3 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (months)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global (about 50 nations)", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "negotiated between creditors and debtors", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "full", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "best practice", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Nations treated", "default": "50", "range": "20–70", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Reduction in debt service over five years", "default": "50 per cent", "range": "25–75", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Creditor participation", "default": "official, Chinese and private", "range": "options: official only", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Principal write-down", "default": "case by case", "range": "options: none / across the board", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Conditionality", "default": "savings tied to social and capital spending", "range": "options: none", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "New multilateral lending alongside", "default": "yes", "range": null, "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Creditors agree common terms; eligible nations opt in.", "Debt service falls; fiscal space opens.", "Ratings fall to selective default, then recover.", "Savings are directed to health, education and infrastructure, or are not.", "Creditors book losses; lending to low-income borrowers pauses.", "Nations that did not qualify contest the fairness of the deal.", "Market access returns on better terms where the space was used well." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Low", "channel": "budget room; reduced fragility" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "capital spending resumes" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "imported equipment affordable again" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "debt management, budget credibility, use of fiscal space" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "health and education budgets restored" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "creditor relationships; fairness between debtors" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "debt service, ratings, market access" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "import financing recovers" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "fuel import capacity" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Debtor nations gain fiscal space; creditor nations book losses", "actions": [ "Publish all debt, including collateralised and state-enterprise loans", "Commit the saving in the budget before signing", "Creditors: legislate majority voting for bondholders" ], "watch": [ "Creditor committee announcements", "Debt service to revenue ratios", "IMF and World Bank framework reviews" ], "relevance": 3 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Public digital and infrastructure spending resumes in treated nations", "actions": [ "Prepare for public investment pipelines to restart" ], "watch": [ "Capital budgets in treated nations" ], "relevance": 2 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Haircuts on frontier sovereign bonds; a re-rating afterwards", "actions": [ "Test frontier holdings on the common terms", "Price the recovery path after selective default" ], "watch": [ "Rating actions", "Collective action clause legislation", "Frontier bond spreads" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Health and education spending restored where the saving is used well", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Budget allocations after relief" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Creditor; New York law governs many bonds" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Creditor; London law and the Paris Club" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Largest bilateral creditor; books losses and sets a precedent" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Laos and Pacific islands among those treated" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh among the candidates" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon as debtors; Gulf states as creditors" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Most of the nations treated; interest bills above health and education" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina as candidates" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Little direct exposure" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Debt service as a share of revenue", "source": "IMF, World Bank", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Nations at high risk of or in debt distress", "source": "IMF DSA ratings", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Common Framework case durations", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Creditor composition by country", "source": "World Bank International Debt Statistics", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Collective action clause legislation in New York and London", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Frontier sovereign bond spreads", "source": "EMBI", "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S04", "note": "a cluster of defaults forces coordination" }, { "id": "S03", "note": null } ], "amplified_by": [ { "id": "S18", "note": "creditor cooperation" } ], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "debt accumulation", "aid retrenchment", "creditor diversification", "high global interest rates" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether relief without reform of how nations borrow only resets the clock.", "How to treat nations that stayed current and receive nothing.", "Whether a negotiated event belongs in a library of shocks." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.3", "lenses": { "political": "**China's policy banks sign** on the same terms as the Paris Club. A neighbour that stayed current gets nothing and says so.", "economic": "Debt service **falls by half**. Applicants are downgraded to selective default on signing and most are upgraded within eighteen months.", "social": "The interest line was larger than health and education together. The saving goes to **teachers' salaries and a vaccine cold chain**.", "technological": "Public investment restarts; otherwise the **technology load is low**.", "legal": "Holdouts are **bound by majority vote**, written into law in New York and London. Two asset managers sue.", "environmental": "**Capital spending resumes** on water, power and climate resilience where the saving is used well." }, "regions": { "north-america": "A creditor. **New York law** governs many of the bonds.", "europe": "A creditor: **London law** and the Paris Club.", "china": "The **largest bilateral creditor** books losses and sets a precedent by signing common terms.", "indo-pacific": "**Laos and Pacific islands** are among those treated.", "south-asia": "**Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh** are candidates.", "gulf-middle-east": "Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon as debtors; **Gulf states as creditors**.", "africa": "**Most of the nations treated** are here. Interest bills had passed health and education combined.", "latin-america": "**Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina** are candidates.", "russia-eurasia": "**Little direct exposure**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 2, "L10y": 3, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.3.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.3 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S19 Coordinated sovereign debt reset, Scenario Library v0.3. scenarios.ginc.org/library/sovereign-debt-reset" }, { "id": "S20", "slug": "emerging-market-breakout", "title": "Emerging-market growth breakout", "version": "0.4.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "A", "short_title": "Emerging-market breakout", "thematics": [ "economic-security-supply-chains", "demographics-human-capital" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "India has grown at about 7 to 8 per cent a year and supply chains are already moving to Vietnam, Mexico and Indonesia. A Standard Severe breakout needs that pace to hold across a dozen large economies at once." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Demography favours it: most of the world's new workers to 2035 are in South Asia and Africa." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Level 3 as a gain: a visible lift to world output and a shift in where demand sits." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4: for a nation that breaks out, a decade of catch-up; for one that is bypassed, a lasting loss of position." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Growth spurts are common; sustained ones are rare and hard to call." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (years)", "duration": "5 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (economic)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "A dozen large developing economies sustain growth of 6 to 8 per cent for five years at once. Investment, manufacturing and services demand shift towards India, South-East Asia, Mexico and parts of Africa as supply chains diversify and young workforces come of age. Hundreds of millions join the middle class and world demand tilts south. The nations that break out are those with power, ports, schools and a state that can deliver. Advanced-economy incumbents lose market share, commodity prices rise for importers, and developing nations that are bypassed fall further behind.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "Large developing economies with power, ports and schools", "Their new urban middle class", "Commodity and energy exporters", "Global firms with products for mass markets" ], "loses": [ "Incumbent manufacturing exporters", "Developing nations bypassed by investment", "Commodity importers that are not growing", "Nations that lose their graduates to the winners" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "July 2031", "text": "The container terminal that was a fishing harbour in 2026 is the fourth busiest in the region. The industrial park beside it has no vacant plots; the phone assembler, the battery maker and the pharmaceutical packer all arrived within eighteen months of each other, and all three run their own training colleges because the public ones cannot keep up. Wages have doubled in five years and the city's rents have tripled. In the capital, the finance minister presents a budget in which income tax receipts exceed aid for the first time. The pattern repeats from Gujarat to Java to the Gulf of Guinea. Global firms that used to describe these markets as optional now report them as a third of revenue. The old exporters feel it. A machine-tool town in central Europe loses its last mid-sized manufacturer to a competitor that did not exist a decade ago. Copper, cement and LNG are dear, and the importers who are not growing pay the same prices as the ones who are. Not every country with young people makes the list. The ones that do had reliable power, a port that clears a container in a day and a school system that taught reading. The ones that did not watch their graduates leave for the ones that did." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "east-asian-growth-1965", "date": "1965–1995", "event": "East Asian growth", "what_happened": "Eight economies, among them Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand, sustained rapid growth for three decades on exports, schooling and high investment", "calibrates": "what a sustained breakout takes" }, { "shock_id": "china-after-wto-accession-2001", "date": "2001–2010", "event": "China after WTO accession", "what_happened": "Growth averaged about 10 per cent a year and goods exports grew more than fivefold", "calibrates": "speed and scale; effect on incumbents" }, { "shock_id": "indias-growth-run-2022", "date": "2022–2025", "event": "India's growth run", "what_happened": "Real growth of about 7 to 8 per cent a year, the fastest of any large economy", "calibrates": "the leading candidate" }, { "shock_id": "supply-chain-diversification-2018", "date": "2018–2025", "event": "Supply-chain diversification", "what_happened": "Assembly and component production moved from China towards Vietnam, Mexico, India and Indonesia after tariffs and the pandemic", "calibrates": "the investment channel" }, { "shock_id": "african-continental-free-trade-area-2021", "date": "1 January 2021", "event": "African Continental Free Trade Area", "what_happened": "Trading began under an agreement covering 54 signatory states", "calibrates": "regional market formation" }, { "shock_id": "middle-income-trap-1960", "date": "1960–2010", "event": "Middle-income trap", "what_happened": "Of about a hundred middle-income economies in 1960, only around a dozen had reached high income half a century later", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on durability" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "5 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (years)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (economic)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Economies in the breakout", "default": "12", "range": "5–25", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Sustained annual growth", "default": "7 per cent", "range": "5–9", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Duration of the run", "default": "5 years", "range": "3–10", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Share of new foreign investment going to them", "default": "40 per cent", "range": "25–60", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Commodity price response", "default": "moderate rise", "range": "options: flat / sharp rise", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Advanced-economy response", "default": "open", "range": "options: protectionist", "unit": null, "note": "protectionist at Extreme" } ] }, "transmission": [ "Supply chains and investment diversify towards large developing economies.", "Young workforces move from farms and informal work into factories and services.", "Domestic demand grows; a new middle class forms.", "Tax bases widen and public investment follows.", "Incumbent exporters lose market share; commodity prices rise.", "Bypassed nations lose investment and skilled people to the winners.", "Economic weight shifts and with it voice in global institutions." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Low", "channel": "larger budgets for defence in rising powers" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "power, ports, roads and water become the binding constraint" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Medium", "channel": "technology absorbed through investment and supplier links" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "permitting, tax administration and delivery of services at speed" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "schooling, skills and health of a young workforce" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "rising voice in global institutions; internal migration strains" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "capital inflows, tax base, currency and inflation management" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "manufacturing and services exports; value-chain entry" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Medium", "channel": "energy and commodity demand; import bills" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Whether the nation is on the list: infrastructure, skills and administrative speed decide it", "actions": [ "Fix power, ports and permitting before the investment arrives", "Fund schools and training ahead of demand", "Manage inflows so the currency and banks stay stable" ], "watch": [ "Investment announcements by destination", "Port and customs clearance times", "Power reliability indices" ], "relevance": 3 }, "technology": { "exposure": "New mass markets and new production bases", "actions": [ "Localise products and supply chains", "Build training capacity alongside plants" ], "watch": [ "Smartphone and payment adoption", "Supplier park occupancy" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "A shift in where growth and earnings come from; currency and governance risk", "actions": [ "Reweight towards the economies with the infrastructure to sustain growth", "Test incumbent exporters on lost market share" ], "watch": [ "Growth differentials", "Current-account balances", "Foreign investment flows" ], "relevance": 5 }, "public": { "exposure": "Jobs, wages and rents in growing cities; fewer openings in those left behind", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Formal job creation", "Urban housing costs" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Mexico gains from proximity; incumbent manufacturers face new rivals" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Incumbent exporters lose share; firms gain markets" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Loses assembly to neighbours; gains customers" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines among the breakout economies" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "India leads; Bangladesh follows" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Capital and energy supplier to the growing economies" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Young workforces; the widest gap between those that break out and those bypassed" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Mexico and Brazil gain; others stay in the middle-income trap" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Commodity demand without the investment" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Real growth in the largest developing economies", "source": "IMF", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Foreign direct investment by destination", "source": "UNCTAD", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Manufacturing export share by country", "source": "WTO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Electricity reliability and port clearance times", "source": "World Bank", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Formal employment growth", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Learning outcomes at age ten", "source": "World Bank, UNESCO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Commodity price indices", "source": "World Bank", "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S16", "note": "demand for cheap power pulls deployment forward" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S18", "note": "trade reopening" }, { "id": "S19", "note": "fiscal space restored" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "supply-chain diversification", "demographic dividend", "urbanisation", "digital public infrastructure" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a five-year growth run is a shock or a trend.", "How to score nations that are bypassed: as losers, or as unaffected.", "Whether the breakout survives a protectionist turn in the advanced economies." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4", "lenses": { "political": "Income tax receipts **exceed aid** for the first time. Economic weight moves south and voice in global institutions follows.", "economic": "A dozen economies grow at 6 to 8 per cent for five years. Firms that called these markets optional report them as **a third of revenue**.", "social": "Wages double and **rents triple** in the growing cities. Bypassed nations watch their graduates leave.", "technological": "The phone assembler, the battery maker and the pharmaceutical packer arrive within eighteen months and **run their own training colleges**.", "legal": "Permitting and customs decide the list: a port that **clears a container in a day**.", "environmental": "Copper, cement and LNG are dear; **power is the binding constraint** in every growing city." }, "regions": { "north-america": "**Mexico gains** from proximity; incumbent manufacturers meet rivals that did not exist a decade ago.", "europe": "A machine-tool town **loses its last mid-sized manufacturer**; its firms gain new markets.", "china": "Assembly moves to neighbours; **customers grow** next door.", "indo-pacific": "**Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines** are among the breakout economies.", "south-asia": "**India leads**: growth near 8 per cent, with Bangladesh following.", "gulf-middle-east": "**Capital and energy supplier** to the growing economies.", "africa": "Young workforces and the **widest gap** between those that break out and those bypassed.", "latin-america": "Mexico and Brazil gain; others stay in the **middle-income trap**.", "russia-eurasia": "Commodity demand **without the investment**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.4.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.4 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S20 Emerging-market growth breakout, Scenario Library v0.4. scenarios.ginc.org/library/emerging-market-breakout" }, { "id": "S21", "slug": "middle-east-settlement", "title": "Middle East regional settlement", "version": "0.4.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "B", "short_title": "Middle East settlement", "thematics": [ "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "climate-energy-resources", "economic-security-supply-chains" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 2, "rationale": "A ceasefire and a US–Iran memorandum followed the 2026 closure of Hormuz, and Gulf states have kept channels open to both Tehran and Israel. A durable framework within two years would need all three tracks to hold at once." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "Settlements in this region have followed wars before, as in 1978 and 1994." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Level 3 as a gain: the risk premium on a fifth of seaborne oil is removed and trade corridors reopen." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4 for the states of the region: reconstruction, investment and a lower defence burden." }, "confidence": { "level": "low", "reason": "Depends on a few leaders and on actors with an interest in spoiling it." }, "priority": 8, "tier": "III", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (months)", "duration": "3 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "regional", "origin": "negotiated between regional powers", "external_support": "full", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "years" }, "summary": "The ceasefires of 2025 and 2026 are converted into a regional security framework. Iran, the Gulf states and Israel agree guarantees for shipping through Hormuz and the Red Sea, limits on missiles and enrichment under inspection, and sanctions relief in stages. Normalisation widens and reconstruction begins in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen. The risk premium on Gulf energy falls and trade corridors from India to Europe open. The region gains most. Suppliers of arms, militias that live off conflict and oil exporters elsewhere that profited from the premium lose.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "The states of the region, through reconstruction and investment", "Energy importers in Asia and Europe", "Egypt and East Africa, as Red Sea trade returns", "The displaced, if return is possible" ], "loses": [ "Armed groups and proxies that live off conflict", "Higher-cost oil exporters elsewhere", "Arms suppliers", "Factions in each capital opposed to the settlement" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "October 2029", "text": "The signing is in Muscat, which hosted the talks nobody admitted to. The document has three parts: a maritime guarantee for Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, policed by a joint centre with officers from six navies; limits on missiles and enrichment with inspectors in residence; and a schedule of sanctions relief tied to each inspection report. War-risk premiums in the Gulf fall to a tenth of their 2026 peak within a month. The reconstruction conference pledges more for Gaza, southern Lebanon and northern Yemen than the previous five conferences together, and this time contractors can get insurance. A rail and cable corridor from Mumbai to Haifa through the Gulf, on paper since 2023, breaks ground. Tehran's stock exchange rises 60 per cent and its currency recovers half of a decade's losses. Defence ministers in the region quietly cancel a third of their missile-defence orders. The losers are easy to find. Armed groups that taxed checkpoints and smuggling routes lose their sponsors. Oil at US$58 is comfortable for the Gulf's low-cost producers and painful for higher-cost exporters elsewhere. And in every capital that signed, there is a faction that calls the document a surrender and waits for the first incident." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "camp-david-accords-and-egypt-israel-treaty-1978", "date": "1978–1979", "event": "Camp David Accords and Egypt–Israel treaty", "what_happened": "A US-brokered framework ended three decades of war between Egypt and Israel; the peace has held", "calibrates": "durability of a negotiated settlement" }, { "shock_id": "abraham-accords-2020", "date": "September 2020", "event": "Abraham Accords", "what_happened": "The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, then Morocco and Sudan, normalised relations with Israel", "calibrates": "normalisation as a process" }, { "shock_id": "saudi-iran-restoration-of-relations-2023", "date": "March 2023", "event": "Saudi–Iran restoration of relations", "what_happened": "Riyadh and Tehran agreed in Beijing to restore diplomatic ties after seven years", "calibrates": "Gulf–Iran channel" }, { "shock_id": "gaza-ceasefire-2025", "date": "October 2025", "event": "Gaza ceasefire", "what_happened": "A ceasefire took effect under a US-backed plan after two years of war", "calibrates": "starting point" }, { "shock_id": "hormuz-closure-and-us-iran-memorandum-2026", "date": "March to June 2026", "event": "Hormuz closure and US–Iran memorandum", "what_happened": "Commercial shipping halted for about five weeks; a ceasefire in April and a memorandum on 17 June; transits still a third of normal in July", "calibrates": "what a settlement would remove" }, { "shock_id": "iran-nuclear-agreement-2015", "date": "2015–2018", "event": "Iran nuclear agreement", "what_happened": "Limits on enrichment under inspection in exchange for sanctions relief; the United States withdrew in 2018", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on durability" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "3 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (months)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "regional", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "negotiated between regional powers", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "full", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "years", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Parties to the framework", "default": "Iran, Gulf states and Israel", "range": "options: Gulf and Iran only", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Maritime guarantee", "default": "Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb", "range": "options: Hormuz only", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Sanctions relief", "default": "staged", "range": "options: none / full", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Fall in war-risk premium", "default": "90 per cent", "range": "50–95", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Reconstruction finance pledged", "default": "US$100 billion", "range": "US$30–200 billion", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Durability", "default": "one leadership cycle", "range": "one to three", "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "A security framework replaces ceasefires; shipping is guaranteed.", "War-risk premiums and the energy risk premium fall.", "Sanctions relief in stages reopens trade and investment with Iran.", "Reconstruction finance flows; contractors and insurers return.", "Trade corridors between India, the Gulf and Europe are built.", "Defence spending in the region plateaus.", "Spoilers contest the settlement; reversal risk persists." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "High", "channel": "force posture, missile limits, joint maritime security" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "reconstruction; ports, rail and cable corridors" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Low", "channel": "inspection and monitoring technology" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "reconstruction delivery, sanctions unwinding, border regimes" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "return of displaced people; rebuilding health and schools" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "normalisation; domestic factions opposed" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "lower risk premia; currencies and sovereign spreads" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "trade corridors and regional supply chains" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "oil and gas risk premium removed; transit secured" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Security guarantees and a share in reconstruction and corridors", "actions": [ "Secure a place in the corridor and reconstruction programmes", "Plan defence budgets for a lower threat", "Prepare for a lower oil price" ], "watch": [ "Inspection reports", "War-risk premiums", "Sanctions relief schedule" ], "relevance": 5 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Cable and data corridors through the Gulf; a reopened Iranian market", "actions": [ "Plan routes and data centres along the corridor" ], "watch": [ "Corridor construction milestones" ], "relevance": 3 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Regional equities, reconstruction and shipping up; defence and higher-cost oil producers down", "actions": [ "Reprice regional sovereigns on a lower risk premium", "Test energy holdings on oil without a Gulf premium" ], "watch": [ "Brent risk premium", "Regional sovereign spreads", "Defence order books" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Return and reconstruction for the displaced; lower fuel prices for importers", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Border openings", "Pump prices" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Guarantor; shale producers face a lower oil price" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Lower energy risk and a new corridor to India" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Largest buyer of Gulf oil; secure supply" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Japan, Korea and Taiwan gain secure energy routes" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "India anchors the corridor; Pakistan's LNG supply secured" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "The parties to the settlement; reconstruction and normalisation" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Red Sea trade and Suez revenue restored for Egypt and East Africa" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Oil exporters lose the premium" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Russia loses price support and arms sales; Caucasus transit gains" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Daily transits through Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb", "source": "Lloyd's List Intelligence, UKMTO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "War-risk premium as a share of hull value", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Inspection and monitoring reports", "source": "IAEA", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Sanctions designations removed", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Reconstruction disbursements against pledges", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Regional defence budgets", "source": "SIPRI", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Ceasefire violations recorded", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S18", "note": "removes a theatre of great-power rivalry" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S05", "note": "a closure that forces negotiation" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "war fatigue", "Gulf economic diversification", "energy transition lowering the stakes", "middle-power diplomacy" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a regional settlement is one scenario or several separate tracks.", "How to rate nations whose leverage came from the conflict.", "Whether a settlement that depends on one leadership cycle is durable enough to rate." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4", "lenses": { "political": "The signing is in Muscat. In every capital that signed, **a faction calls it a surrender** and waits for the first incident.", "economic": "War-risk premiums fall to **a tenth of their 2026 peak**. Tehran's exchange rises 60 per cent.", "social": "Reconstruction begins in Gaza, southern Lebanon and northern Yemen, and **contractors can get insurance**.", "technological": "A rail and **cable corridor from Mumbai to Haifa** breaks ground; inspectors are in residence.", "legal": "**Sanctions relief is tied to each inspection report**; a joint centre with officers from six navies polices the straits.", "environmental": "Oil settles at US$58: comfortable for the Gulf's **low-cost producers**, painful for higher-cost exporters." }, "regions": { "north-america": "A guarantor. **Shale producers** face a lower oil price.", "europe": "Lower energy risk and a **new corridor to India**.", "china": "The largest buyer of Gulf oil gets **secure supply**.", "indo-pacific": "Japan, Korea and Taiwan gain **secure energy routes**.", "south-asia": "**India anchors the corridor**; Pakistan's LNG is secured.", "gulf-middle-east": "**The parties themselves**: reconstruction, normalisation and a lower defence burden.", "africa": "**Red Sea trade and Suez revenue** return for Egypt and East Africa.", "latin-america": "Oil exporters **lose the premium**.", "russia-eurasia": "Russia loses price support and arms sales; **Caucasus transit** gains." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 2, "L10y": 3, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.4.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.4 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S21 Middle East regional settlement, Scenario Library v0.4. scenarios.ginc.org/library/middle-east-settlement" }, { "id": "S22", "slug": "agricultural-yield-revolution", "title": "Agricultural yield revolution", "version": "0.4.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "C", "short_title": "Yield revolution", "thematics": [ "climate-energy-resources", "demographics-human-capital" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 2, "rationale": "Gene-edited crops are on sale in a few markets and drought-tolerant varieties are spreading in Africa, but seed systems, regulation and extension move slowly. A Standard Severe lift in two years is unlikely." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "The Green Revolution doubled Asian cereal yields in about fifteen years; the tools now are faster." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 3, "rationale": "Level 3 as a gain: lower staple prices worldwide and less pressure on land and water." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4 for import-dependent, low-yield nations, where food security is the first constraint on everything else." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "The science is proven; adoption depends on seed systems and regulation." }, "priority": 8, "tier": "III", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "gradual (years)", "duration": "5 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "global", "origin": "accidental (technological)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "current plans", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "Staple yields in the world's low-yield regions rise by a quarter within a decade. Gene-edited and climate-resilient varieties, cheaper nitrogen, precision irrigation and digital advice reach smallholders at scale across Africa and South Asia. Staple prices fall by a fifth and stay there. Nations that import their food gain twice, through cheaper imports and larger harvests of their own. Farm incomes in the big exporting nations fall, some land comes out of production, and the gains go first to countries with seed systems, roads and regulators able to approve new varieties.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "Food-importing, low-yield nations", "Smallholder farmers who adopt", "Consumers everywhere, through lower prices", "Children in the first districts to adopt" ], "loses": [ "Grain-exporting nations and their farmers", "Owners of farmland in exporting regions", "Nations whose regulators lag", "Suppliers of imported fertiliser" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "May 2032", "text": "The maize in the demonstration plot is the same height as the neighbour's and yields twice as much. It was edited to keep its leaves open in a dry spell, and it has just come through one. The extension officer no longer visits; the advice arrives on a phone, in the farmer's language, with the price at three markets. Fertiliser is half what it cost in 2022, made with cheap power in a plant two hundred kilometres away where it used to cross two oceans. For the first time the country's grain reserve is full from its own harvest. The finance ministry cuts the food import line and the subsidy line in the same budget. World wheat and rice prices are a fifth lower than they were and have stayed there for three seasons. On the prairies and the pampas the mood is different. Land prices are down, the co-operative has merged twice, and the farm lobby wants export credits. A regulator in one capital has spent four years reviewing varieties its neighbours approved in one; its farmers buy the seed across the border. The nutrition surveys show the result two years later: stunting down by a third in the districts where yields rose first." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "green-revolution-1960", "date": "1960s to 1980s", "event": "Green Revolution", "what_happened": "High-yielding wheat and rice varieties, fertiliser and irrigation more than doubled cereal yields across Asia", "calibrates": "scale and speed of a yield shift" }, { "shock_id": "bt-cotton-in-india-2002", "date": "2002 onward", "event": "Bt cotton in India", "what_happened": "An insect-resistant variety reached most of the cotton area within a decade", "calibrates": "speed of adoption by smallholders" }, { "shock_id": "gene-edited-foods-reach-market-2021", "date": "2021", "event": "Gene-edited foods reach market", "what_happened": "A gene-edited tomato went on sale in Japan, among the first such foods sold to consumers", "calibrates": "regulatory path for editing" }, { "shock_id": "precision-breeding-act-2023", "date": "2023", "event": "Precision Breeding Act", "what_happened": "England created a lighter regulatory route for gene-edited crops distinct from transgenic ones", "calibrates": "regulatory divergence" }, { "shock_id": "fertiliser-price-spike-2022", "date": "2022", "event": "Fertiliser price spike", "what_happened": "Prices doubled after the invasion of Ukraine; smallholders in Africa cut use", "calibrates": "the input constraint" }, { "shock_id": "african-yield-gap-2020", "date": "2020s", "event": "African yield gap", "what_happened": "Cereal yields in sub-Saharan Africa remain well under half the world average", "calibrates": "room to rise" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "5 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "gradual (years)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (technological)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "current plans", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Yield gain in low-yield regions", "default": "25 per cent", "range": "10–50", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Fall in staple prices", "default": "20 per cent", "range": "10–35", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Years to reach scale", "default": "10 years", "range": "5–15", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Regulatory acceptance of gene editing", "default": "most markets", "range": "options: few / all", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Fall in fertiliser cost", "default": "50 per cent", "range": "20–70", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Smallholder reach", "default": "60 per cent", "range": "30–90", "unit": "per cent", "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "New varieties are approved and seed is multiplied.", "Cheaper fertiliser and digital advice reach smallholders.", "Yields rise in low-yield regions; harvests are more reliable.", "Staple prices fall; import bills and subsidies shrink.", "Nutrition improves; rural incomes rise where farmers sell more.", "Exporters lose income; marginal land leaves production.", "Regulatory laggards import the seed or fall behind." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Low", "channel": "fewer food-driven crises" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "seed systems, irrigation, storage and rural roads" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "crop science, gene editing and fertiliser production" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "variety approval, extension and reserve policy" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "nutrition, child health and rural incomes" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "rural politics in exporting nations; food diplomacy" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "import bills, subsidies and inflation" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "High", "channel": "agricultural trade; exporter income" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "High", "channel": "land, water and fertiliser use" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Food import bills, subsidy budgets and the speed of regulators", "actions": [ "Create a fast route to approve edited varieties", "Invest in seed multiplication and rural roads", "Rebuild grain reserves from domestic harvests" ], "watch": [ "Variety approvals", "Yield surveys", "Staple price indices" ], "relevance": 3 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Seed, crop analytics and low-carbon fertiliser", "actions": [ "Build local seed and advisory businesses", "Site fertiliser plants near cheap power" ], "watch": [ "Seed sales by variety", "Advisory service reach" ], "relevance": 5 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Seed and input firms up; farmland and exporter agribusiness down", "actions": [ "Test farmland and agribusiness holdings on staples a fifth lower" ], "watch": [ "Farmland prices", "Fertiliser price indices" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Cheaper food and better nutrition; lower farm incomes in exporting regions", "actions": [], "watch": [ "Food price indices", "Child nutrition surveys" ], "relevance": 4 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Exporter: lower prices and farm incomes" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Slower regulation; modest price gain for consumers" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Large importer of feed; strong domestic crop science" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Rice importers gain; Australia, Thailand and Vietnam lose export income" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Large smallholder populations; yield and nutrition gains" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Import dependence above 80 per cent for staples" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "The widest yield gap and the largest gain" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Brazil and Argentina lose export income; Central America gains" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Russia and Ukraine lose export leverage" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Cereal yields by region", "source": "FAO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Gene-edited variety approvals by country", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "FAO Food Price Index", "source": "FAO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Fertiliser prices", "source": "World Bank", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Area under improved varieties", "source": "CGIAR", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Child stunting rates", "source": "UNICEF, WHO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Farmland prices in exporting nations", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S20", "note": "rural incomes and food security support growth" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S15", "note": "research acceleration" }, { "id": "S16", "note": "cheap power for fertiliser" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "falling cost of gene editing", "climate stress on harvests", "digital advice for smallholders", "fertiliser dependence" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a decade-long rise is a shock or a trend.", "How to rate exporting nations whose farm sector shrinks.", "Whether consumer and regulatory resistance to gene editing is a parameter or a separate scenario." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4", "lenses": { "political": "The grain reserve is **full from the country's own harvest**. On the prairies the farm lobby wants export credits.", "economic": "Wheat and rice are **a fifth cheaper** for three seasons. The food import line and the subsidy line are cut in one budget.", "social": "Stunting falls by **a third** in the districts where yields rose first.", "technological": "Maize edited to keep its leaves open in a dry spell **yields twice as much**; advice arrives by phone.", "legal": "One regulator takes **four years** over varieties its neighbours approved in one; its farmers buy seed across the border.", "environmental": "Fertiliser is made with cheap power two hundred kilometres away; **marginal land leaves production**." }, "regions": { "north-america": "An exporter: **land prices are down** and co-operatives merge.", "europe": "Slower regulation; a **modest gain** for consumers.", "china": "A large importer of feed with **strong crop science** of its own.", "indo-pacific": "Rice importers gain; **Australia, Thailand and Vietnam** lose export income.", "south-asia": "Large smallholder populations: **yield and nutrition gains**.", "gulf-middle-east": "Import dependence **above 80 per cent** for staples: the import bill falls.", "africa": "The **widest yield gap** and the largest gain.", "latin-america": "**Brazil and Argentina** lose export income; Central America gains.", "russia-eurasia": "Russia and Ukraine **lose export leverage**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 2, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 3, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.4.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.4 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S22 Agricultural yield revolution, Scenario Library v0.4. scenarios.ginc.org/library/agricultural-yield-revolution" }, { "id": "S23", "slug": "digital-state-leapfrog", "title": "Digital public infrastructure leapfrog", "version": "0.4.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "D", "short_title": "Digital state leapfrog", "thematics": [ "ai-cyber-digital", "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "demographics-human-capital" ], "likelihood_type": "idiosyncratic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "India's identity and payment systems and Brazil's Pix reached most adults within a few years, and dozens of states are adopting open versions. For a given developing nation, a Standard Severe adoption within two years is likely but not assured." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 5, "rationale": "Diffusion is fast and the systems are cheap." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 2, "rationale": "Level 2: modest in global output, with gains concentrated in the adopting states." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4 for a state that moves from paper to digital delivery in five years: tax, transfers and services all change." }, "confidence": { "level": "medium", "reason": "Adoption is well evidenced; outcomes depend on governance." }, "priority": 16, "tier": "I", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (years)", "duration": "5 years", "warning": "months", "scope": "national", "origin": "accidental (technological)", "external_support": "partial", "policy_response": "best practice", "recovery_horizon": "structural" }, "summary": "A state builds digital identity, instant payments and data exchange as public goods, and within five years most adults use them. Benefits are paid in minutes, tax collection rises, small firms get credit on their transaction history, and services that needed a queue need a phone. Governments that lagged a generation behind leap level with the best. The same rails make surveillance and exclusion easier: people without a phone or an identity are shut out, a single failure stops everything, and the banks and card networks that sat in the middle lose their margin.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "States that move from paper to digital delivery", "Households receiving transfers and credit", "Small firms entering the formal economy", "Tax authorities" ], "loses": [ "People without a phone, a signal or a readable fingerprint", "Card networks, banks and other intermediaries", "Privacy, where the law lags the system", "Everyone, for the hours when the rails are down" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "February 2030", "text": "The drought payment reaches four million households in a morning. Three years ago the same programme took eleven weeks and lost a fifth of its money on the way. Nothing about the weather changed; what changed is that every adult has an identity number, an account that receives instant payments, and a consent screen that lets the agriculture ministry see the land registry. The tax authority, which used to collect 11 per cent of GDP, collects 15: shops that take digital payments cannot easily hide them. A tailor with no collateral gets a loan in ten minutes on the strength of two years of receipts. The foreign card networks, which took 2 per cent of every sale, now take it only from tourists. Then come the harder stories. An outage at the identity authority stops pensions, pharmacies and SIM sales for nine hours. A widow whose fingerprints no longer read is refused her ration until a journalist takes up her case. The interior ministry asks for access to the payment data 'for security', and the data protection authority, which has eleven staff, is asked to object. The countries that get the leap without the damage wrote the law before the code." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "aadhaar-2009", "date": "2009 onward", "event": "Aadhaar", "what_happened": "India issued a biometric identity number to more than 1.3 billion residents", "calibrates": "scale of identity enrolment" }, { "shock_id": "unified-payments-interface-2016", "date": "2016 onward", "event": "Unified Payments Interface", "what_happened": "An instant payment system that passed 10 billion transactions a month in 2023", "calibrates": "speed of payment adoption" }, { "shock_id": "pix-2020", "date": "November 2020", "event": "Pix", "what_happened": "Brazil's central bank launched instant payments that most adults were using within two years", "calibrates": "adoption outside India" }, { "shock_id": "x-road-2001", "date": "2001", "event": "X-Road", "what_happened": "Estonia built a data exchange layer that lets agencies share records with consent and audit", "calibrates": "data exchange as infrastructure" }, { "shock_id": "novissi-cash-transfers-2020", "date": "2020", "event": "Novissi cash transfers", "what_happened": "Togo paid emergency transfers to informal workers by mobile phone within weeks, using digital targeting", "calibrates": "crisis delivery" }, { "shock_id": "g20-new-delhi-declaration-2023", "date": "September 2023", "event": "G20 New Delhi declaration", "what_happened": "Leaders endorsed a framework for digital public infrastructure", "calibrates": "international uptake" }, { "shock_id": "aadhaar-exclusion-cases-2017", "date": "2017–2019", "event": "Aadhaar exclusion cases", "what_happened": "Reported denials of rations where biometric authentication failed", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on exclusion" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "5 years", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (years)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "national", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "accidental (technological)", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "partial", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "best practice", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "structural", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Adult coverage of digital identity", "default": "90 per cent", "range": "60–99", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Share of adults using instant payments", "default": "70 per cent", "range": "40–95", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Years to reach scale", "default": "5 years", "range": "3–10", "unit": "years", "note": null }, { "name": "Governance", "default": "law before launch", "range": "options: retrofitted / absent", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Architecture", "default": "open and interoperable", "range": "options: proprietary", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Offline fallback", "default": "partial", "range": "options: none / full", "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Identity, payment and data-exchange layers are built as public goods.", "Adoption spreads through transfers, tax and everyday payments.", "Benefits are delivered faster and with less leakage.", "Transactions become visible; tax collection and credit expand.", "Intermediaries lose margin; new services build on the rails.", "Exclusion, outage and surveillance risks concentrate.", "Governance decides whether trust in the state rises or falls." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Low", "channel": "identity and border systems" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "High", "channel": "identity, payment and data rails become critical infrastructure" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "Medium", "channel": "open-source platforms and local engineering" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "service delivery, tax administration, data governance" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "Medium", "channel": "inclusion in finance and services; digital skills" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "Medium", "channel": "trust in the state; privacy and rights" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "High", "channel": "tax base, payments and credit access" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "small-firm formalisation and commerce" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "power and connectivity for the rails" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Delivery, revenue and trust, and the risk of exclusion and outage", "actions": [ "Pass data protection and redress law before launch", "Keep an offline route for every essential service", "Build on open standards to avoid lock-in" ], "watch": [ "Enrolment and active-use rates", "Authentication failure rates", "Tax-to-GDP ratio" ], "relevance": 3 }, "technology": { "exposure": "A national platform to build on, and to keep running", "actions": [ "Build services on the public rails", "Design for outage and for users without smartphones" ], "watch": [ "Uptime of identity and payment systems", "Open-standard adoption" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Payment incumbents lose margin; lenders and fintech gain data", "actions": [ "Review holdings in card networks and remittance firms" ], "watch": [ "Instant-payment volumes", "Card interchange revenue" ], "relevance": 4 }, "public": { "exposure": "Faster payments and services; exclusion for those without identity or a phone", "actions": [ "Enrol, and know the redress route" ], "watch": [ "Service outage notices", "Exclusion and grievance reports" ], "relevance": 3 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Fragmented private systems; incumbents exposed" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Already digitised; an exporter of the model" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "Low", "rationale": "Built its own, on platform firms" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "South-East Asian payment links; Pacific islands leap" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "India is the origin; neighbours adopt" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "State capacity and capital; Gulf digital government" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "The largest leap available; mobile money base" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Brazil's Pix as the regional model" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "State-led systems with weaker safeguards" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Adults with digital identity", "source": "World Bank ID4D", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Instant payment volumes per head", "source": "central banks", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Share of social transfers paid digitally", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Tax-to-GDP ratio", "source": "IMF", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Authentication failure and exclusion reports", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Data protection law and regulator capacity", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Uptime of national identity and payment systems", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [ { "id": "S12", "note": "a single point of failure, if the rails go down" } ], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S14", "note": "emergency transfers force the build" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "smartphone penetration", "open-source government platforms", "decline of cash", "state capacity gaps" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether a programme a government chooses belongs in a library of shocks.", "How to rate the same system as an upside for delivery and a downside for rights.", "Whether dependence on a few vendors or one donor model is a load on sovereignty." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4", "lenses": { "political": "The interior ministry asks for the payment data **'for security'**. The countries that avoid the damage wrote the law before the code.", "economic": "Tax collection rises from **11 to 15 per cent of GDP**; card networks lose their 2 per cent.", "social": "A drought payment reaches **four million households in a morning**. A widow whose fingerprints no longer read is refused her ration.", "technological": "Identity, instant payments and data exchange are built as **public goods** on open standards.", "legal": "The data protection authority has **eleven staff**.", "environmental": "The rails need **power and signal**; an outage stops pensions, pharmacies and SIM sales for nine hours." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Fragmented private systems; **incumbents are exposed**.", "europe": "Already digitised: **an exporter of the model**.", "china": "Built its own, on **platform firms**.", "indo-pacific": "South-East Asian **payment links**; Pacific islands leap.", "south-asia": "**India is the origin**; its neighbours adopt.", "gulf-middle-east": "State capacity and capital: **Gulf digital government**.", "africa": "**The largest leap available**, on a mobile money base.", "latin-america": "**Brazil's Pix** is the regional model.", "russia-eurasia": "State-led systems with **weaker safeguards**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 4, "L10y": 5, "impact_systemic": 2, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "medium" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.4.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.4 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S23 Digital public infrastructure leapfrog, Scenario Library v0.4. scenarios.ginc.org/library/digital-state-leapfrog" }, { "id": "S24", "slug": "hundred-day-pandemic-defence", "title": "Hundred-day pandemic defence", "version": "0.4.0", "status": "active", "orientation": "upside", "family": "E", "short_title": "100-day pandemic defence", "thematics": [ "resilience-crisis-preparedness", "demographics-human-capital", "ai-cyber-digital" ], "likelihood_type": "systemic", "likelihood_note": null, "scores": { "likelihood_2y": { "band": 3, "rationale": "The pieces exist: platform vaccines, wastewater and genomic surveillance, regional manufacturing under construction and a pandemic agreement adopted in 2025. Whether they work together is untested, and the test needs an outbreak." }, "likelihood_10y": { "band": 4, "rationale": "Estimates of a COVID-scale outbreak run near 2 per cent a year; the chance that the defence is ready when it comes rises with each year of investment." }, "impact_systemic": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4 as a gain: the difference between a contained epidemic and a pandemic is several per cent of world output." }, "impact_national": { "level": 4, "rationale": "Level 4: a nation inside the network keeps its hospitals, schools and borders open." }, "confidence": { "level": "low", "reason": "The mechanism has never been run end to end." }, "priority": 12, "tier": "II", "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4" }, "scorecard": { "onset": "rapid (weeks)", "duration": "1 year", "warning": "days to weeks", "scope": "global", "origin": "natural", "external_support": "full", "policy_response": "best practice", "recovery_horizon": "months" }, "summary": "A novel pathogen emerges and the world's defences work. Genomic surveillance finds it within days, a platform vaccine is designed in a week and authorised within 100 days, and regional factories produce doses for every continent at once. Tests and antivirals arrive on the same schedule. The outbreak is held to an epidemic: no general lockdowns, borders open, schools open. The benefit goes to nations inside the surveillance and manufacturing network that can deliver doses and are believed when they ask people to take them. Nations outside it wait, as they did in 2021.", "distribution": { "gains": [ "Nations inside the surveillance and manufacturing network", "Health workers, who are protected first", "Children, whose schools stay open", "Travel, services and trade-dependent economies" ], "loses": [ "Nations outside the sharing network", "Nations with doses but no means to deliver them", "Publics that do not believe their health authorities", "No one else: the losses are the gains not captured" ] }, "narrative": { "dateline": "April 2029", "text": "The sequence is uploaded from a provincial laboratory on a Sunday and matched against nothing known by Monday. The alert is not a press conference; it is an automated notice to forty manufacturing sites that a new construct is coming. The vaccine design takes six days. Trial sites that were kept warm for exactly this enrol their first volunteers in week three. Wastewater in eleven countries shows the pathogen by week five, which is how governments know where to send the first doses. Authorisation comes on day 94. By day 130 the plants in Dakar, Hyderabad, São Paulo and Kigali are filling vials, and the country that hoarded in 2021 finds it cannot corner a supply made on four continents. Hospitals in the first affected cities are stretched, not broken. Schools close for two weeks in three provinces and nowhere else. The economists who priced a pandemic at 3 per cent of world output revise to a few tenths. The failures are local and familiar. A country that left the surveillance network waits five months longer. Another has the doses and not the nurses. A third has both, and a public that learned in the last pandemic not to believe its health ministry." }, "anchors": [ { "shock_id": "covid-19-vaccines-2020", "date": "2020", "event": "COVID-19 vaccines", "what_happened": "Vaccines were authorised about 11 months after the virus was sequenced", "calibrates": "the baseline to beat" }, { "shock_id": "100-days-mission-2021", "date": "2021", "event": "100 Days Mission", "what_happened": "A plan, endorsed by the G7, to have vaccines, tests and treatments ready within 100 days of a pandemic threat being identified", "calibrates": "Standard Severe target" }, { "shock_id": "who-pandemic-agreement-2025", "date": "20 May 2025", "event": "WHO Pandemic Agreement", "what_happened": "Adopted by the World Health Assembly, covering surveillance, pathogen sharing and access to products", "calibrates": "governance" }, { "shock_id": "mrna-technology-transfer-hub-2021", "date": "2021 onward", "event": "mRNA technology transfer hub", "what_happened": "A hub in South Africa began sharing vaccine technology with manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries", "calibrates": "regional manufacturing" }, { "shock_id": "ebola-ring-vaccination-2015", "date": "2015–2019", "event": "Ebola ring vaccination", "what_happened": "A vaccine trialled during the West African outbreak was used to contain later outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo", "calibrates": "vaccine use in an outbreak" }, { "shock_id": "mpox-response-in-africa-2022", "date": "2022–2024", "event": "Mpox response in Africa", "what_happened": "Vaccines reached affected African countries long after wealthy ones; an emergency was declared again in August 2024", "calibrates": "counter-anchor on access" }, { "shock_id": "vaccine-export-restrictions-2021", "date": "2021", "event": "Vaccine export restrictions", "what_happened": "Producers restricted exports and low-income countries waited months for doses", "calibrates": "what regional manufacturing is meant to prevent" } ], "parameters": { "common": { "severity": { "major": "major", "severe": "severe", "extreme": "extreme" }, "duration": { "major": null, "severe": "1 year", "extreme": null }, "onset": { "major": null, "severe": "rapid (weeks)", "extreme": null }, "warning": { "major": null, "severe": "days to weeks", "extreme": null }, "scope": { "major": null, "severe": "global", "extreme": null }, "origin": { "major": null, "severe": "natural", "extreme": null }, "external_support": { "major": null, "severe": "full", "extreme": null }, "concurrency": { "major": null, "severe": "standalone", "extreme": null }, "policy_response": { "major": null, "severe": "best practice", "extreme": null }, "recovery_horizon": { "major": null, "severe": "months", "extreme": null } }, "specific": [ { "name": "Days from identification to authorised vaccine", "default": "100 days", "range": "60–200", "unit": "days", "note": null }, { "name": "Nations in the surveillance network", "default": "120", "range": "60–190", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Manufacturing regions with capacity", "default": "5", "range": "2–6", "unit": null, "note": null }, { "name": "Share of world population reached in six months", "default": "50 per cent", "range": "20–80", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Public uptake", "default": "70 per cent", "range": "40–90", "unit": "per cent", "note": null }, { "name": "Pathogen severity", "default": "COVID-like", "range": "options: milder / 1918-like", "unit": null, "note": null } ] }, "transmission": [ "Surveillance detects and shares the pathogen within days.", "Platform vaccines, tests and treatments are designed and trialled in weeks.", "Regional plants manufacture for every continent in parallel.", "Doses reach the first affected areas, guided by wastewater data.", "Health systems are stretched but hold; closures are local and short.", "Trade, travel and schooling continue.", "Nations outside the network, or unable to deliver, wait." ], "loading": [ { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "defence-security", "load": "Low", "channel": "logistics support; biosecurity" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "strategic-infrastructure", "load": "Medium", "channel": "cold chain, laboratories and wastewater networks" }, { "dimension": "Hard", "domain": "critical-technology", "load": "High", "channel": "genomic surveillance, vaccine platforms and regional manufacturing" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "government-effectiveness", "load": "High", "channel": "public health command, regulation at speed, procurement" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "human-capital", "load": "High", "channel": "health workforce and delivery to every district" }, { "dimension": "Soft", "domain": "influence-cohesion", "load": "High", "channel": "public trust and uptake; data sharing between states" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "macro-financial", "load": "Medium", "channel": "pre-agreed financing; avoided fiscal cost" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "industry-trade-supply", "load": "Medium", "channel": "supply chains for vials, lipids and reagents" }, { "dimension": "Economic", "domain": "energy-resources", "load": "Low", "channel": "no demand shock" } ], "stakeholders": { "government": { "exposure": "Membership of the network, delivery capacity and public trust", "actions": [ "Join surveillance and pathogen-sharing arrangements", "Keep trial sites and manufacturing warm between outbreaks", "Invest in trust before it is needed" ], "watch": [ "Sequence-sharing times", "Regional manufacturing capacity", "Vaccine confidence surveys" ], "relevance": 3 }, "technology": { "exposure": "Platform vaccines, sequencing and data systems", "actions": [ "Maintain surge capacity under contract", "Build regulatory-grade data sharing" ], "watch": [ "Platform readiness exercises" ], "relevance": 4 }, "investors": { "exposure": "Avoided losses in travel, services and sovereign debt; capacity payments to manufacturers", "actions": [ "Value the standing capacity, not only outbreak sales" ], "watch": [ "Preparedness financing commitments" ], "relevance": 3 }, "public": { "exposure": "Health, work and schooling continue", "actions": [ "Take up vaccination when offered" ], "watch": [ "Official guidance channels" ], "relevance": 5 } }, "regions": [ { "region": "north-america", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Platform owners and manufacturers; trust deficits decide uptake" }, { "region": "europe", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Manufacturing and regulation at speed" }, { "region": "china", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Large manufacturing base; data sharing is the question" }, { "region": "indo-pacific", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "Strong surveillance and prior response capability" }, { "region": "south-asia", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "India's manufacturing reaches the world; density at home" }, { "region": "gulf-middle-east", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Capital to buy; a mobile workforce" }, { "region": "africa", "exposure": "High", "rationale": "New regional plants; delivery and workforce are the constraint" }, { "region": "latin-america", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Regional plants in Brazil and Argentina" }, { "region": "russia-eurasia", "exposure": "Medium", "rationale": "Partly outside the sharing network" } ], "indicators": [ { "name": "Days from sequence to public sharing", "source": "GISAID", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Vaccine manufacturing capacity by region", "source": "CEPI, WHO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Nations reporting wastewater surveillance", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Standing trial networks and platform readiness exercises", "source": null, "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Preparedness financing committed", "source": "Pandemic Fund", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Vaccine confidence", "source": "national surveys", "threshold": null, "cadence": null }, { "name": "Ratification of the pandemic agreement", "source": "WHO", "threshold": null, "cadence": null } ], "compounds": { "triggers": [], "triggered_by": [ { "id": "S17", "note": "the same platforms and manufacturing" }, { "id": "S15", "note": "faster design and trials" } ], "amplified_by": [], "triggered_by_other": [], "amplifying_trends": [ "platform vaccine technology", "regional manufacturing", "genomic surveillance", "declining institutional trust" ] }, "open_questions": [ "Whether this is a scenario of its own or the best-practice policy response to S14.", "How to rate a defence that works for nations inside the network and fails for those outside.", "Whether trust can be treated as a capability and measured." ], "commentary": null, "overview": { "source": "ginc-desk-v0.4", "lenses": { "political": "The alert is not a press conference; it is **a notice to forty manufacturing sites**. A country that left the network waits five months longer.", "economic": "A pandemic priced at 3 per cent of world output is revised to **a few tenths**.", "social": "Schools close for **two weeks in three provinces** and nowhere else. One public has learned not to believe its health ministry.", "technological": "The vaccine design takes **six days**; authorisation comes on day 94; four continents fill vials by day 130.", "legal": "Pathogen sharing and access rules agreed in advance mean **no one can corner the supply**.", "environmental": "A spillover from animals is caught by **wastewater surveillance** in eleven countries by week five." }, "regions": { "north-america": "Platform owners and manufacturers; **trust decides uptake**.", "europe": "**Manufacturing and regulation at speed**.", "china": "A large manufacturing base; **data sharing** is the question.", "indo-pacific": "Strong surveillance and **prior response capability**.", "south-asia": "**India's manufacturing** reaches the world.", "gulf-middle-east": "Capital to buy; a **mobile workforce** to protect.", "africa": "**New regional plants**; delivery and workforce are the constraint.", "latin-america": "Regional plants in **Brazil and Argentina**.", "russia-eurasia": "Partly **outside the sharing network**." } }, "history": [ { "edition": 2027, "rank": null, "L2y": 3, "L10y": 4, "impact_systemic": 4, "impact_national": 4, "confidence": "low" } ], "changelog": [ { "version": "0.4.0", "date": "2026-10-03", "change": "Entered the Library at v0.4 as an upside scenario, with GINC desk scores." } ], "citation": "GINC (2027). Scenario S24 Hundred-day pandemic defence, Scenario Library v0.4. scenarios.ginc.org/library/hundred-day-pandemic-defence" } ]