We live in an age of “polycrisis,” a chaotic and unstable set of emergencies that feed off and amplify each other, defying reduction to a singular cause. Great power conflict, declining multilateralism, rising energy and food prices, forced displacement and sovereign debt are accelerating – and being accelerated by – the current and longer-term risk trends of climate, biodiversity loss and rising inequality.
Policies and technologies to address these complex intertwining challenges exist. But despite their well-documented benefits, they also will be disruptive, involve difficult trade-offs between up-front costs and long-term pay-offs, and are sure to be contested by powerful beneficiaries of the status quo. Securing sustained public support for such policies is the political challenge of our lifetimes.
This paper reviews the ideas and processes that could answer such a challenge.