While some probably won’t happen, others have about a one-in-four chance, according to officials’ estimates (Picture: Getty)
From another pandemic to volcanic ash, the British government has casually dropped a list of all the greatest threats to life.
Each year, the Home Office publishes a ‘National Risk Register’ that compiles all the ‘most serious threats to the UK’.
There are a fair few. The government has counted just shy of 90 ways our way of life can be well and truly upended.
They include everything from ‘severe space weather’ and climate change-induced wildfires to tree-destroying bacteria and public disorder.
Government officials have rated each based on a few factors to decide whether they’d have a ‘minor’ impact on life or be, to put it bluntly, ‘catastrophic’.
They also try to put a number on how ‘likely’ they are to happen and, to ensure the UK is prepared, lay out a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’.
Massive wildfires, fueled by a heatwave creating tinder-dry conditions, tore through Essex last summer Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Out of the 89 threats, a pandemic once again tearing through the country is rated not only ‘catastrophic’ but also the most likely (between 5-25%.).
WHO says that the next pandemic-causing pathogen, ‘Disease X’, is already something they’re preparing for, while the Home Office adds it’s ‘impossible’ to know when it will erupt.
‘The reasonable worst-case scenario is based on an unmitigated respiratory
pandemic with an unassumed transmission route and a high-attack rate,’ the Home Office report says.
It adds: ‘The scenario assumes 50% of the UK’s population fall ill during the whole course of the pandemic, with about 1.34 million people estimated to require hospital treatment, possibly resulting in up to 840,000 deaths.’
A civil nuclear accident and a ‘radiation release from an overseas nuclear site are two such ‘catastrophic’ incidents but both have a likelihood of less than 0.2%.
Though, with a likelihood of between one and 5% is a ‘larger-scale CBRN attacks’, or those involving chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials.
Another pandemic, like the coronavirus, is the most likely ‘catastrophic’ threat to the UK (Picture: Getty Images Europe)
In a worst-case scenario, the government says ‘terrorists, hostile states or criminals’ could leak ‘radiological material into an unenclosed environment’, one that would be tricky to decontaminate.
The failure of the National Electricity Transmission System (NETS), which keeps the lights on for England and Wales, is also rated about this likely as well.
More contemporary tragedies and disasters also made the cut. Think drone attacks (though, it has both a low likelihood and impact) and the 25% likely killing of a public figure, such as the death of Tory MP Sir David Ames.
AI, meanwhile, may bring with it ‘an increase in harmful misinformation and disinformation, or if handled improperly, reduce economic competitiveness’.
Other risks considered by officials include cyber-attacks, AI, hostage-taking, oil and gas disruptions amid the Russia-Ukraine war, storms, floods, heatwaves, drought and polluted air.
A volcanic eruption of one of a number of volcanoes across Europe as well as Bárðarbunga and Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland are also on the government’s radar.
Officials are wary of how a volcanic eruption and the plumes of smoke brought with it could impact Britain (Picture: AFP)
Worries on officials’ minds range from the ash disruption to British airspace to British nationals becoming stranded there.
‘Even in the three years since we published our last National Risk Register in 2020, we have seen the barbaric invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the wide-ranging and long-lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increasing impact of climate change on our day-to-day lives,’ wrote deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden.
‘Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming our world – bringing with them opportunities, but also a number of risks.’
The Duchy of Lancaster said that Britain must be ‘resilient’ in the face of the laundry list of risks while also ‘working together’ with others.
‘By focusing on our collective resilience, we can help the nation be more safe, more secure,’ he added, ‘and, in turn, more prosperous.’
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