Kemal Derviş for PS Say More

The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Say More]( Welcome to Say More, a weekly newsletter offering readers exclusive insights into the ideas, interests, and personalities of some of the world’s leading thinkers. In each issue, a Project Syndicate contributor is invited to expand on topics covered in their commentaries, address new issues, and share recommendations about everything from books and recordings to hobbies and social media. This week, Project Syndicate catches up with [Kemal Derviş]( Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Turkish economy minister and administrator of the United Nations Development Programme. In [last week's edition]( of Say More, [Sławomir Sierakowski]( founder of the Krytyka Polityczna organization and Senior Fellow at the German Council of Foreign Relations, compared the current situation in Poland to a political thriller, described the foreign policy Europe needs, and provided an ideal pandemic reading list. Kemal Derviş Says More… Project Syndicate[Kemal Dervis]( “Precisely at a time when rules-based multilateralism is in retreat,” you and [Sebastián Strauss]( recently [wrote]( “perhaps the fear and losses arising from COVID-19 will encourage efforts to bring about a better model of globalization.” But how likely is that? As you acknowledge in your most recent PS commentary, “Solidarity across borders will be the most difficult challenge posed by the pandemic catastrophe.” Could the COVID-19 pandemic thus result in uncontrolled deglobalization? How might such an outcome be avoided, or at least mitigated? Kemal Derviş: As Strauss and I acknowledge, it could go either way. Fears about global interdependence are set to deepen, as will the instinct to protect one’s own country by reducing dependence on “foreigners.” US President Donald Trump’s insistence on calling COVID-19 a “Chinese virus” reflects this approach. If the leaders of the world’s major powers succumb to such suspicion and blame, the crisis could be deeply divisive. But there are reasons to hope that the pandemic could lead to greater international cooperation. We are also seeing an unprecedented level of open scientific collaboration, aimed at developing vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics. Japan and China – usually rivals – quickly offered each other generous aid. Even US and Chinese leaders pledged mutual support in a phone call on March 26! Such support must extend to developing countries as well. In fact, if the developed economies neglect poor countries’ enormous needs during this crisis, it would foster deep resentment that would be very difficult to manage in the future. It would also likely lead to additional waves of infections globally – including in the rich countries that have contained the virus. This point is worth stressing, given recent developments in China. Domestic infections almost disappeared, but as soon as border controls began to be relaxed, new “imported” infections were [reported](. This shows that the only way to eradicate COVID-19 in one country is to eradicate it in every country. What is urgently needed is leadership in presenting a forward-looking narrative about how the world should handle not only the COVID-19 crisis, but catastrophic risks more generally. As Nobel laureate [Robert Shiller]( argues in his book [Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events]( (which I recommend below), clear and compelling narratives matter enormously in shaping public opinion – and public policy. Narratives are also often linked to personalities: credible figures who are effective communicators are particularly successful in advancing them. In the US, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo gained national prominence with his compelling case for stricter lockdowns; if some states falter, he points out, everyone will be in danger. A similar sort of leadership is needed globally. International scientific collaboration could play an important role is supporting this effort, showing what global cooperation can achieve. PS: You and Strauss [compared]( the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change. Both “call for eschewing traditional cost-benefit analysis – which relies on known probability distributions – in favor of drastic mitigation to reduce exposure.” The difference, of course, is that COVID-19’s effects are immediate, whereas a similar sense of urgency about climate change may come too late to make a difference. And, in fact, many major economies – including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia – stand to pay a heavy price for delaying their COVID-19 response as long as they did. How might we translate the condensed urgency of the pandemic to climate action? KD: The COVID-19 crisis is a dramatic example of the world [knowing]( about a tail risk, and ignoring it. The same can be said about climate change: science tells us that a global temperature rise of 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels carries potentially catastrophic tail risks, which would affect the entire planet. It may not be possible to imbue the climate conversation with precisely the same level of urgency as the pandemic, but the COVID-19 crisis could help to spur a more general – and much-needed – global debate on the most desirable balance between short-term efficiency and longer-term robustness. Designing robust systems requires building some redundancy and slack into them, at the expense of some efficiency in the short term. But if – or, in the case of climate change, when – the tail risks materialize, the more robust systems will prove to have been more efficient from a long-run perspective. This is not to say, of course, that we should abandon all consideration of short-term efficiency and focus only on robustness. That would be economically and politically unsustainable, and thus counter-productive. But the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the global system’s fragility in the face of risks, which could include not only climate change, but also bio-terror, cyber-attacks, or misuse of artificial intelligence (AI), to name a few realistic threats. Unfortunately, the responses to particular disasters have tended to focus on preventing that exact kind of disaster from recurring, rather than mitigating risks more broadly. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US, for example, robustness was built into airport security – and not much else. Each area of risk will require specific policies. More ambitious climate action, for one thing, is essential. But the sheer magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis should result in a broader shift toward greater systemic robustness. This will require enhanced international cooperation, including global early-warning mechanisms, shared circuit-breakers and shock absorbers, a pool of resources ready to be deployed immediately when a crisis strikes, pre-agreed burden-sharing formulas, and automatic exchanges of critical information. To read the rest of our interview with Derviş – in which he considers how to avoid “sleepwalking” toward crisis, advises African countries on how to increase their weight in international institutions, and recommends the perfect read for long days of confinement – [click here](. If you are not yet a PS subscriber, [subscribe now](. [Special Edition: Beyond the Techlash. For a limited time, when you subscribe to Project Syndicate, we will send you a complimentary copy of our newest special-edition magazine.]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. 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