Crises are entangled, not stacked

Part I describes systems and their couplings. It ranks no country and assesses no government or organisation.

7 min read2 figures2 tables14 notesNR-STRATEGIC-POLYCRISIS-GLOBAL-2026-BASELINE.

Contents

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?

Figure 1.1Where did 2025’s natural-disaster losses fall? Overall losses by region (US$ billion)

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

93US$ bn

insured in North America²

9US$ bn

insured in Asia²

17,200deaths

in natural disasters, 2025²

166US$ bn

from floods, storms and wildfires²

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.

Figure 1.2Couplings between the five systems

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.

Table 1.1Coupling matrix: from the row system to the column system
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.

Table 1.2Pairs of systems where both directions are rated strong
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.13850054 back
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

Cite this chapter

Valadbaygi, S. (Ed.). (2026). Chapter 1: Crises are entangled, not stacked. 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.

Crises are entangled, not stacked

1.1The questions this part answers

Key questions

In this part

1.2The argument

1.3Twenty couplings between five systems

Transmission paths

1.4Reinforcing loops

Notes

Cite this chapter

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