A Call for an International Research Program on the Risk of a Global Polycrisis

The authors propose that hitherto unrecognized, complex teleconnections and self-reinforcing feedbacks among global systems are accelerating, amplifying, and synchronizing crises. The ultimate result of such unrecognized processes could be a global polycrisis—a single, macro-crisis of interconnected, runaway failures of Earth’s vital natural and social systems that irreversibly degrades humanity’s prospects. The authors therefore call for a global scientific collaboration to discern causal mechanisms that might generate a polycrisis and actionable policies to mitigate this risk.