Systemic risks and governance of the global polycrisis in the Anthropocene: stability of the climate–conflict–migration–pandemic nexus

Abstract Non-technical summary As human development is colliding with planetary boundaries, the world is facing interconnected crises, disasters, and geopolitical conflicts that require and complicate cooperative solutions for navigating the global polycrisis between a collapse of human civilisation and a sustainable transformation of nature–society relationships. When multiple crises are compounding and become ‘overcritical’ beyond tipping points, they may trigger cascading chain reactions that overwhelm efforts to control the dynamics. Understanding the complex dynamic interaction between climate, conflict, migration, and pandemic risks offers insights to develop capabilities for effective earth system governance to facilitate a transformation from a negative to a positive nexus. Technical summary To assess the complex interplay and stability conditions of multiple risks in the polycrisis, an integrative framework involves interacting changes, sensitivities, and pathways in nature–society interaction with natural resources and human security. Results highlight the role of additive compounding and multiplicative cascading events for crisis expansion or containment which can be influenced across thresholds by interventions and governance. The analysis is specified for the climate–conflict–migration–pandemic nexus in which the interactions of climate sensitivity and conflict sensitivity affect internal stability against destabilising external factors. For a risk minimization and containment strategy, desirable is a stable low-risk case compared to unlimited risk escalation, compensated by efforts and investments enabling anticipative governance, adaptive management and cooperative institutional mechanisms, moving from individual to collective action and converting a destabilising vicious circle into a stabilising virtuous circle. Social media summary The present polycrisis is unprecedented, increasing the interconnectivity, complexity and intensity of interactions with globalisation, breeding instability, overwhelming adaptation, and requiring new anticipative governance and management capacities.