At the heart of the discussion on Antarctic governance is a critical question: how do we design a system that adapts in real-time to emerging crises, rather than one that is reactive and must constantly be rebuilt?

In my last column, I wrote about whether Antarctica should be granted legal personhood. Whether, in a world that only listens to those with (legal) standing, giving the continent a voice might be the way to save it.

But personhood is not an end in itself; it is a possible mechanism, a prosthetic limb attached to something much bigger. The real question is not about status but about structure. In other words, the structure of Antarctic governance (currently the Antarctic Treaty regime) - and how it can be structured in such a way that it does not ossify into a form incapable of responding to the realities it seeks to govern.

To understand why the structure of governance must evolve, we must first recognise that even the best-designed systems can collapse. Here the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is instructive.

In 1940, engineers stood before the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a triumph of modern engineering designed through the rigorous application of known physics. However, when wind came, it moved, not with the rigid defiance of steel, but like a ribbon caught in a draft. At first, this seemed to be an anomaly within acceptable tolerances, a curiosity. Then, one morning, the bridge...