Polycrisis Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library is a growing collection of media that help to understand polycrisis, develop strategies to address polycrisis, and build a field of polycrisis analysis.

AXA Future Risks Report 2023: A World in Polycrisis

AXA

This tenth edition of insurance company AXA’s Future Risks Report surveyed 3,500 experts in 50 countries and a representative sample of 20,000 members of the general population in 15 countries….

Why So Much is Going Wrong at the Same Time

Thomas Homer-Dixon

Addressing critiques of the polycrisis concept from the political right and left, Thomas Homer-Dixon argues that the world is in a polycrisis generated by novel and unprecedented conditions, as measured…

Understanding Polycrisis: Definitions, Applications, and Responses

Sienna Mark, Samantha Holder, Daniel Hoyer, Rod Schoonover, and Daniel P. Aldrich

This paper compares conceptualizations of the term “polycrisis,” raising questions about the key aspects of different definitions while stressing a convergence in critical features. It conceives a polycrisis as a…

Transformative resilience: the key to governing Europe’s sustainability transitions in the polycrisis

The European Environment Agency

The report examines how the polycrisis challenges the European Union’s sustainability transition. It focuses on transformative resilience, the ability to absorb, adapt to, and anticipate shocks while driving systemic change….

Predicament: Our Intertwined Crises. In: Toward Social-Ecological Well-Being

Éloi Laurent

In this chapter, the author examines the ongoing unsustainability crisis, connecting various dimensions of sustainability while linking planetary health with inequality and cooperation. Environmental crises such as climate change, ecosystem…

Mitigating Global Warming is Not Our Only Problem: Are We “Sleepwalking” Towards a Global Polycrisis?

William White

William White argues that climate policy around the world is lacking in dimensions of “should” (clear analysis of what must be done), “could” (the power to implement solutions), and “would”…

The Polycrisis: An Introduction

Nick King

This webinar addresses the origin and definition of the term ‘Polycrisis’; the environmental, social, political and economic factors contributing to the Polycrisis; and the risks arising from the accumulation, interaction,…

Polycrisis? What Polycrisis?

Alastair Benn

Alistair Benn argues that the polycrisis, with its overwhelming notion of multiple inter-related crises, is an illusory product of social media technologies that overload users with “shock after shock” and…

The Great Disruption has Begun

Paul Gilding

Paul Gilding argues that the world has reached “a multi-system tipping point” that will bring “the Great Disruption”: “a destabilisation of the global climate system at a scale that is…

Capital as Force for Good: Solutions to Close the SDG Gap

The Force for Good Initiative

Noting that the world is failing to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), this report explores six key solution areas to bridge the gap, encompassing policy, public sector activity, technology,…

About the Resource Library

The Polycrisis Resource Library includes resources that:

  • Comment on the polycrisis as a concept and as a present global reality
  • Undertake similar analysis using different—but related—concepts
  • Analyze crisis interactions among multiple global systems

Though not exhaustive, the Library strives to present a diverse representation of views on different aspects of the polycrisis discussion, and will be updated as that discussion evolves. Search for resources with the keyword search bar, or by using the drop-down menus to filter for type of resource, global systems addressed, and key themes.

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