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 — […]
Ten New Insights in Climate Science 2025 Read More »
The author argues that large-scale corporate artificial intelligence, or “Big AI,” is accelerating a converging set of ecological, cultural, and linguistic crises that together constitute a global metacrisis. Focusing on large language models, the article examines how these technologies intensify environmental pressures, undermine meaning-making and democratic processes, and contribute to the marginalization and loss of
Big AI is accelerating the metacrisis: What can we do? Read More »
This article critically examines the concept of polycrisis, tracing its evolution from rhetorical buzzword to an emerging analytical lens in sustainability and crisis research. Based on a Q-methodology study involving 50 experts, the authors identify four distinct framings of polycrisis: as analytically tractable, as networked shocks, as a global governance challenge, and as requiring conceptual
More Than a Buzzword? Mapping Interpretations of the ‘Polycrisis’ Read More »
This article introduces the Crisis Database, a comprehensive resource that systematically documents 168 historical societal crises across different time periods, regions, and levels of complexity. Aiming to overcome small-sample bias in previous studies, the database captures a wide range of political, economic, cultural, and institutional factors associated with crises, as well as their consequences—such as
This article introduces a focus collection on systemic risk science, arguing that systemic risks, are increasingly amplified by global warming yet remain poorly understood. It summarizes six contributing papers that highlight methodological advances in flood risk monitoring, critical infrastructure modelling, agent-based modelling, and the use of artificial intelligence in climate adaptation, while noting that current
This article interrogates the concept of ‘polycrisis’ through a decolonial, Global South-centered lens, arguing that current polycrisis discourse inadequately addresses entrenched global inequalities and power asymmetries. It contends that the convergence of crises is not a novel universal condition but a structural feature of neoliberal global capitalism, long experienced in the Global South. The author
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The authors examine the concept of synergy and its applications in the polycrisis context. They present an integrative review of 14 disciplines and identify three key attributes of synergy: its magnitudes, spatial and temporal scales, and the possibility for both positive and negative synergy. The review also outlines three conceptual understandings: synergy as outcome, synergy
Synergies: Understandings in a Complex World Read More »
The authors investigate the impact of climate-induced temperature shocks on systemic risk within the banking sector. Using a sample of 35 financial intermediaries across 13 countries and employing the ΔCoVaR methodology, the authors find that deviations from historical temperature averages are associated with heightened systemic risk, concluding that climate volatility threatens financial stability by amplifying
Climate Change and Systemic Risk: Evidence from Financial Intermediaries Read More »
The authors examine how emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, quantum computing, and neurotechnology, are reshaping global security risks. The study argues that traditional threat-based security models are inadequate for addressing the complex, transnational, and increasingly weaponized nature of these technologies. The authors propose a shift toward risk-based frameworks that emphasize resilience, systemic
The authors argue that the root causes and drivers of the polycrisis lie within the modern/colonial system. Drawing on the work of Yellow Bird and collaborations with Indigenous communities in Brazil and Peru, they examine how neurocolonization—the systemic imprinting of separability, superiority, and subjugation onto ways of thinking, perceiving, relating, feeling, and being—has contributed to
Decolonizing Mental Health in the Polycrisis: Pathways Toward Neuro-Decolonization Read More »
