Key findings

Twelve findings carry the global baseline. They are grouped by system and never ranked. Each resolves to its source or, where Nexus analysis is involved, to its stated method.

3 min read1 figure0 tables14 notesNR-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE

Contents
  1. ·Edition home
  2. ·Executive summary
  3. 1Crises are entangled, not stacked
  4. 2Key findings
    1. 2.1 Headline finding
    2. 2.2 Climate forcing
    3. 2.3 Finance
    4. 2.4 Energy
    5. 2.5 Food
    6. 2.6 Water
    7. 2.7 Health
    8. 2.8 Biodiversity
    9. 2.9 Systemic
  5. 3Systems and sectors at baseline
  6. 4Risks and capability
  7. 5Concurrent breadbasket shortfall and energy price shock
  8. 6Lenses and readings
  9. 7The 2027 agenda
  10. 8Systems in depth
  11. AMethodology
  12. BData appendix
  13. CReferences and record
  14. ·Complete edition, for print

2.1Headline finding

ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-003

Insurers covered about 48% of the US$224 billion in natural-disaster losses in 2025, about 70% in North America, about half in Europe, about 12% in Asia and under a fifth in Africa.

Figure 2.1Natural-disaster losses in 2025 (US$ billion)
ItemBar, scaled to the largest valueValue
Insured108
Uninsured116

Source: Munich Re NatCatSERVICE 20252; the uninsured share is the difference between overall and insured losses.

Implication

The protection gap is widest where exposure is growing fastest and fiscal space is thinnest. Uninsured losses become household debt, delayed reconstruction and pressure on public budgets, which feed back into vulnerability before the next event21318.

What would move it

Regional loss splits by peril (agenda item P-02), the growth of sovereign and parametric cover, and the 2026 and 2027 loss years would each move this finding.

2.2Climate forcing

  1. ReportedEQL 5NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-CLI-001

    Global temperature was 1.43 ± 0.13 °C above 1850–1900 in 2025, after a record 1.55 °C in 2024; 2015–2025 are the eleven warmest years.1

  2. ReportedEQL 3NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-CLI-010

    Six of nine planetary boundaries were assessed as transgressed in 2023, and five major tipping systems are at risk at current warming.2021

2.3Finance

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-002

    Natural disasters caused US$224 billion in losses in 2025, of which US$108 billion (48%) was insured.2

  2. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-003

    Insured shares differ sharply by region: about 70% in North America, about half in Europe, about 12% in Asia and under a fifth in Africa (2025).2

  3. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FIN-011

    Public debt reached US$102 trillion in 2024; 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest than on health or education.13

2.4Energy

  1. ReportedEQL 5NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-004

    Energy-related CO₂ emissions reached a record 37.8 Gt in 2024; total greenhouse-gas emissions were 57.1 Gt CO₂e in 2023.34

  2. ReportedEQL 3NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-ENE-005

    Data centres used about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of the world total, with use projected to roughly double by 2030.5

2.5Food

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-FOO-006

    About 673 million people faced hunger in 2024, and 2.3 billion were moderately or severely food insecure.7

2.6Water

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-WAT-007

    2.2 billion people lacked safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lacked safely managed sanitation in 2022.8

2.7Health

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-HLT-008

    Ambient and household air pollution together cause about 6.7 million deaths a year.14

2.8Biodiversity

  1. ReportedEQL 4NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-BIO-009

    Monitored wildlife populations declined by 73% on average between 1970 and 2020; 17.6% of land and 8.4% of the ocean are protected.910

2.9Systemic

  1. Expert inputEQL 2NRF-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-SYS-012

    The leading compound pathway for 2027 testing is a concurrent breadbasket shortfall coinciding with an energy and fertiliser price shock. § scenario

Notes

Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references

  1. 2Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
  2. 13UNCTAD (ed.), A World of Debt 2025: It Is Time for Reform. UNCTAD, Geneva, 2025.back
  3. 18UNDRR (ed.), Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2025: Resilience Pays. UNDRR, Geneva, 2025.back
  4. 1WMO (ed.), State of the Global Climate 2025, WMO-No. 1391. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, March 2026.back
  5. 20K. Richardson, W. Steffen, W. Lucht et al., “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries,” Science Advances, vol. 9, eadh2458, 2023.back
  6. 21T. M. Lenton, D. I. Armstrong McKay, S. Loriani et al. (eds.), The Global Tipping Points Report 2023. University of Exeter, Exeter, 2023.back
  7. 3UNEP (ed.), Emissions Gap Report 2024: No more hot air … please! UNEP, Nairobi, 2024.back
  8. 4International Energy Agency (ed.), Global Energy Review 2025. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
  9. 5International Energy Agency (ed.), Energy and AI. World Energy Outlook Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
  10. 7FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025. FAO, Rome, 2025.back
  11. 8WHO and UNICEF (eds.), Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000–2022. Joint Monitoring Programme, New York and Geneva, 2023.back
  12. 14World Health Organization (ed.), “Ambient (outdoor) air pollution” and “Household air pollution” fact sheets. WHO, Geneva, retrieved 2026-09-30.back
  13. 9WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
  14. 10UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (eds.), Protected Planet Report 2024. UNEP-WCMC and IUCN, Cambridge and Gland, 2024.back

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 2: Key findings. In Strategic Systems Report 2026: Global Polycrisis and Cascading Systems Risk (Baseline Edition 2026, Report No. NR-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE) [Draft under review]. The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI).

Every citation form of the whole report, BibTeX and RIS included, is on the edition home. Cite this report

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