Sustainability and Transition

Reframing Sustainability in an Age of Polycrisis: Economic Models, Indicators, and a New Integrated Baseline for EU Governance

The author examines how sustainability should be reframed in the context of polycrisis. Focusing on the European Union, the article compares green growth, ecological economics, and post-growth approaches and assesses four major sustainability indicator families: the Sustainable Development Goals Index, Human Development Index, Ecological Footprint, and welfare-adjusted measures such as the Genuine Progress Indicator and […]

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Opportunities for Pathways Approaches for Adapting to Complex Climate Change Risks

The authors examine how adaptation pathways can be extended to address complex climate change risks arising from interactions among compounding hazards, cascading impacts, dynamic vulnerabilities, infrastructure interdependencies, and governance failures. They argue that conventional adaptation approaches are often poorly suited to non-linear, deeply uncertain, and potentially irreversible risk conditions, and identify three areas where pathways

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Ten New Insights in Climate Science 2025

This paper presents ten recent advances in climate change research with high policy relevance, spanning Earth system processes, climate impacts, and mitigation action. The record-warm years of 2023–2024 are explained by a combination of long-term greenhouse gas forcing, changes in aerosol loading, internal variability, and feedback processes leading to an elevated Earth energy imbalance —

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How Should the World Confront Climate Derailment Risks?

In this panel discussion, held at Chatham House, panellists James Dyke (University of Exeter), Emma Howard Boyd (London Climate Resilience Review), Thomas Homer-Dixon (Cascade Institute), and Kate Mackenzie (The Polycrisis) explored how escalating climate impacts could either reinforce climate action through virtuous feedback loops or derail it through vicious ones, particularly as the world continues

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The Price of Power: Navigating the Great Simplification

In this Cascade Institute Speaker Series episode, Dr. Nate Hagens, presents a compelling framework for understanding our world as a complex, energy-dependent “Superorganism” operating far from equilibrium. He analyzes potential future scenarios that humanity may be heading toward and introduces the idea that small, focused efforts can elevate entire systems to a higher order. This

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Understanding Polycrisis: Definitions, Applications, and Responses

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 state in which multiple, macroregional, ecologically embedded, and inexorably interconnected systems face high – and advancing – risk across socioeconomic, political, and other dimensions. After

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The Pact for the Future

On September 22, 2024 world leaders adopted a Pact for the Future. The Pact covers a broad range of issues, including peace and security, sustainable development, climate change, digital cooperation, human rights, gender, youth and future generations, and the transformation of global governance.

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Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report: Pathways Out of the Polycrisis

“This report offers the first post-pandemic assessment of global progress toward” the “interlinked goals” of “ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity on a livable planet.” It “explores potential pathways out of today’s polycrisis – an environment where multiple and interconnected challenges are impacting the world simultaneously.” It finds that global “poverty reduction and improvements

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