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 actual use of that power to address the problem). The even greater challenge, however, is that climate change is not the only global systemic […]
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, infrastructure, private industry, and financial services. It proposes the emergence of a new global system as past “certainties” come to an end, leading to a
Capital as Force for Good: Solutions to Close the SDG Gap Read More »
Joseph Fiskel argues that the Maui wildfire reveals just how unprepared communities are to face polycrises. In response, he advocates systems thinking and greater resilience: “Rather than simply ‘bouncing back’ from crises, a resilient organization will ‘bounce forward’ by sensing threats, adapting to new conditions, and improving its responsiveness to surprise events. This requires long-term thinking,
Hawaii Wildfires Expose Need for Resilience in a Polycrisis World Read More »
The authors argue that a trigger event can’t start a crisis by itself; some underlying stress or stresses must also be operating. They contend that leaders should pay far more attention to these stresses, because they’re ultimately far more important. The original title of the article was “Let’s Avoid ‘Trigger Fixation.” The Globe and Mail
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This policy brief recommends that the European Union must shift from short-term crises responses to the long term systemic transformations required by a polycrisis era. It argues: “Today’s challenges require both anticipatory governance, long-term systems thinking and adaptive, agile decision-making. We must understand the real nature and root causes of the major crises we are
Transformation in the Poly-Crisis Age Read More »
The authors argue that the most effective way to build general resilience in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world is to foster “response diversity… a system’s variety of responses to disruptions of all kinds.” That entails maintaining a variety of ways to carry out key system process (ideally at different spatial and temporal scales) that
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This 18th edition of the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report is based on a risk perceptions survey of 1200 experts on the likelihood, severity, and interconnections between 37 global risks. It finds that the biggest risk in the next two years is the cost of living crisis, and the biggest risk in the next
Global Risks Report 2023 Read More »
The report highlights the distinctive harms for children and future generations of eight global trends that are part of the polycrisis: continued impacts of the pandemic, inflation, food insecurity, energy shortages, underinvestment in children, threats to democratic rights, international factionalism, and internet inequality.
Prospects for Children in the Polycrisis: A 2023 Global Outlook Read More »
Wolf argues that we cannot think about and address the many problems facing the world separately from one another. “The alternative of thinking about the interactions among [macroeconomics, finance, politics, social change, disease, and the environment] is also too hard. But sometimes, as now, it becomes inescapable… The point is that we need to analyse
How to Think about Policy in a Polycrisis Read More »
Noting that “This is not our first polycrisis”, the authors point out that actors in the Global South proposed a “New International Economic Order (NIEO)” to deal with the polycrisis of the 1970s by addressing food shortages, international debt, control over natural resources, and technology transfers. While the original NIEO failed, Progressive International has launched
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