In short: Spanish civil protection would not as of today consider making plans to address specific GCRs
There is this weird tension where they believe that resilience is very important, and that planning in advance is nearly useless for non-recurring risks.
The civil protection system is very geared towards response. Foresight, mitigation and prevention seldom happens.This means they are quite keen on improving their general response capacity but they have no patience for hypotheticals. So they would not consider specific GCRs.
Even if they wanted to address GCRs, their hands are relatively tied (at least at the national level) - the risks they do specific preparationfor are encoded in the law and modifying the list of priority risks would require passing an amendment.
In their opinion some things like geomagnetic storms which could theoretically unleash a global catastrophe are to be addressed by the generalist response plans. And, at least one high ranked person thinks a specific plan for responding to solar storms and similar risks is could be created, but not without a coordinated technical and policy response at the European level.
On the other hand we have seen some autonomies that have enacted their own special civil protection plans independently, but for minor risks (eg coastal environmental protection).And for example Madrid’s city hall wants to have better maps of which expertise is needed and where to find it for conceivable future emergencies.
Also bear in mind that while civil protection is a very important part of risk management in Spain, it is not the only part. The national security system and other organizations might have different attitudes towards GCRs.
Very interesting! Could you say how open you think they are to planning for global catastrophic risks?
(disclaimer: this is my opinion)
In short: Spanish civil protection would not as of today consider making plans to address specific GCRs
There is this weird tension where they believe that resilience is very important, and that planning in advance is nearly useless for non-recurring risks.
The civil protection system is very geared towards response. Foresight, mitigation and prevention seldom happens.This means they are quite keen on improving their general response capacity but they have no patience for hypotheticals. So they would not consider specific GCRs.
Even if they wanted to address GCRs, their hands are relatively tied (at least at the national level) - the risks they do specific preparation for are encoded in the law and modifying the list of priority risks would require passing an amendment.
In their opinion some things like geomagnetic storms which could theoretically unleash a global catastrophe are to be addressed by the generalist response plans. And, at least one high ranked person thinks a specific plan for responding to solar storms and similar risks is could be created, but not without a coordinated technical and policy response at the European level.
On the other hand we have seen some autonomies that have enacted their own special civil protection plans independently, but for minor risks (eg coastal environmental protection).And for example Madrid’s city hall wants to have better maps of which expertise is needed and where to find it for conceivable future emergencies.
Also bear in mind that while civil protection is a very important part of risk management in Spain, it is not the only part. The national security system and other organizations might have different attitudes towards GCRs.