- Global Polycrisis 2026
- Chapter 1
Crises are entangled, not stacked
Part I describes systems and their couplings. It ranks no country and assesses no government or organisation.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Crises are entangled, not stacked
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Concurrent breadbasket shortfall and energy price shock
- 6Lenses and readings
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
1.1The questions this part answers
Key questions
- Where is global risk concentrated, and in which systems?
- Which couplings carry shocks across sectors and borders?
- Which capabilities hold under compound stress, and which are only documented?
- What must the federation measure first in 2027?
In this part
- Narrative
- Headline finding
- Lead figure
- Five mechanism chapters
- Twelve-domain reading
- Sector screens
- Dependency matrix
- Risk objects
- Capability ladder
- Scenario
- Three lenses
- Portfolio
1.2The argument
Polycrisis is often used as a mood. This edition uses it as a model. Lawrence and co-authors define three mechanisms through which crises become entangled: common causes that stress several systems at once, domino effects that carry a shock from one system to the next, and inter-systemic feedbacks that amplify both24. Each can be observed, and each can be tested.
The forcing layer is moving fast. 2024 was the warmest year on record at 1.55 °C above the late nineteenth century, and 2025 the second or third warmest at 1.43 °C; the eleven years 2015–2025 are the eleven warmest observed. Earth’s energy imbalance and ocean heat content reached record highs in 2025, which means the system is still gaining heat1.
Losses follow, but unevenly. Natural disasters caused US$224 billion in losses in 2025, and insured losses exceeded US$100 billion for the sixth year running. No major hurricane struck the United States mainland; the total was driven by floods, severe storms and wildfires, led by the Los Angeles fires at about US$53 billion2. Frequency, not one peak event, now sets the global loss record.
Who pays depends on where the hazard lands. Insurers covered about 70% of losses in North America but about 12% in Asia and under a fifth in Africa2. Where cover is thin, losses fall on households and on public budgets that are already stretched: 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on interest than on health or education13.
Beneath the losses, the core systems are already under strain. About 673 million people faced hunger in 20247, 2.2 billion lacked safely managed drinking water8, air pollution kills about 6.7 million people a year14, and monitored wildlife populations have fallen by 73% on average since 19709. Each of these is coupled to the others through land, water and energy16.
New couplings are forming at the frontier. Data centres used about 415 TWh of electricity in 2024, about 1.5% of the world total, and their use is projected to roughly double by 20305. The minerals behind batteries, grids and chips are refined in very few places: the top three refining countries hold, on average, about 86% of supply for key energy minerals36. Technology risk is therefore also energy, water and supply-chain risk.
Capabilities have grown, but unevenly. 108 countries reported multi-hazard early-warning systems in 2024, more than twice as many as in 201535, and just over half of the world’s people are now covered by at least one social-protection benefit44. Adaptation finance, however, falls short of need by an estimated US$187–359 billion a year42.
This edition therefore reads global risk as a property of couplings rather than a ranking of threats. The dependency matrix, the risk objects, the capability ladder and the compound scenario that follow all ask the same two questions: where does a shock travel next, and who holds the capability to stop it?
North America, including Central America and the Caribbean, carried the largest losses, and about 70% of them were insured. Asia’s losses were more than half as large, but only about US$9 billion was insured. Africa’s recorded losses were small in money terms but almost entirely uninsured2.
| Item | Bar, scaled to the largest value | Value |
|---|---|---|
| North America | 133 | |
| Asia | 73 | |
| Europe | 11 | |
| Africa | 3 |
Source: as cited in the note to this figure. Year 2025.
Figure ID FIG-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE-01-003
1.3Twenty couplings between five systems
The global matrix types the twenty couplings between the five core systems. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited assessments and analogue events; they set the starting graph that federation evidence will test in 2027.
Each line is one coupling from one system to another, drawn by the strength the edition assigns. Strengths are Nexus estimates from the cited evidence and analogue events.
- Strong
- Moderate
- Weak
Source: this edition’s coupling matrix (Table 1.1); status Estimated.
| From, to | WAT | ENE | FOO | HLT | BIO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WAT Water | · | STRONG hydro · thermal cooling | STRONG irrigation · rain-fed yield | STRONG safe water · sanitation | STRONG flows · wetlands |
| ENE Energy | MODERATE pumping · desalination | · | STRONG fuel · fertiliser · cold chain | STRONG air pollution · cooling | MODERATE land use · mining |
| FOO Food | STRONG ≈70% of withdrawals | WEAK bioenergy feedstock | · | STRONG nutrition · food safety | STRONG land conversion |
| HLT Health | WEAK workforce | WEAK workforce | MODERATE labour · disease | · | WEAK residues |
| BIO Biodiversity | STRONG regulation · filtration | MODERATE biomass · hydrology | STRONG pollination · soils | MODERATE zoonoses · medicines | · |
| Strength: strong, moderate or weak; a Nexus estimate (status Estimated) from cited evidence and analogue events. The scale is defined in Annex A. | |||||
Transmission paths
- 01
CLI → FOO → TRD
Heat and drought in several breadbaskets at once cut exports and raise prices.
Inferred 2010–2011 price spike
- 02
ENE → FOO
Gas and fertiliser prices pass into food prices.
Reported 2022 price shock
- 03
CLI → WAT → ENE
Drought cuts hydro and cooling water for thermal plants.
Inferred 2022 European drought
- 04
BIO → HLT
Land-use change raises zoonotic spillover risk.
Inferred IPBES nexus16
- 05
FIN → all
Debt service crowds out adaptation and recovery.
Reported post-2022 debt stress13
1.4Reinforcing loops
A shock entering either system of a loop can return amplified through the other.
| Loop | First direction | Second direction |
|---|---|---|
| WAT and FOO | Water to food: irrigation · rain-fed yield | Food to water: ≈70% of withdrawals |
| WAT and BIO | Water to biodiversity: flows · wetlands | Biodiversity to water: regulation · filtration |
| FOO and BIO | Food to biodiversity: land conversion | Biodiversity to food: pollination · soils |
| A causal-loop reading of the matrix (Sterman, Business Dynamics, 2000): structural, from estimated strengths, not a measured feedback. | ||
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
- 24M. Lawrence, T. Homer-Dixon, S. Janzwood, J. Rockström, O. Renn and J. F. Donges, “Global polycrisis: the causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement,” Global Sustainability, vol. 7, e6, 2024.back
- 1WMO (ed.), State of the Global Climate 2025, WMO-No. 1391. World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, March 2026.back
- 2Munich Re (ed.), Natural disasters in 2025: NatCatSERVICE full-year figures. Munich Re, Munich, January 2026.back
- 13UNCTAD (ed.), A World of Debt 2025: It Is Time for Reform. UNCTAD, Geneva, 2025.back
- 7FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO (eds.), The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2025. FAO, Rome, 2025.back
- 8WHO and UNICEF (eds.), Progress on Household Drinking Water, Sanitation and Hygiene 2000–2022. Joint Monitoring Programme, New York and Geneva, 2023.back
- 14World Health Organization (ed.), “Ambient (outdoor) air pollution” and “Household air pollution” fact sheets. WHO, Geneva, retrieved 2026-09-30.back
- 9WWF (ed.), Living Planet Report 2024: A System in Peril. WWF, Gland, 2024.back
- 16P. D. McElwee, P. A. Harrison, T. L. van Huysen et al. (eds.), Thematic Assessment Report on the Interlinkages among Biodiversity, Water, Food and Health. IPBES secretariat, Bonn, 2024. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13850054. doi:10.5281/zenodo.13850054back
- 5International Energy Agency (ed.), Energy and AI. World Energy Outlook Special Report. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
- 36International Energy Agency (ed.), Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2025. IEA, Paris, 2025.back
- 35WMO and UNDRR (eds.), Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2024. WMO and UNDRR, Geneva, 2024.back
- 44International Labour Organization (ed.), World Social Protection Report 2024–26: Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition. ILO, Geneva, 2024.back
- 42UNEP (ed.), Adaptation Gap Report 2024: Come Hell and High Water. UNEP, Nairobi, 2024.back