File photo: A cemetery sits on melting permafrost tundra at the Yupik Eskimo village of Quinhagak on the Yukon Delta in Alaska. (MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images)
The world is on the verge of a “polycrisis”, where global crises are not just amplifying and accelerating, but appear to be synchronising, the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Science Council have warned.
This has huge implications for global planetary health and human well-being, according to their new report. Eight critical global shifts are accelerating the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, as well as pollution and waste.
These include humanity’s degradation of the natural world, the rapid development of technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), competition for natural resources, widening inequalities and declining trust in institutions.
The triple planetary crisis is “feeding into human crises”, the report said, and the world is facing a different context than it grappled with even 10 years ago.
Some issues remain the same, but the rapid changes, combined with technological developments, more frequent and devastating disasters and an increasingly turbulent geopolitical landscape, have resulted in a new operating context, “where any country can be thrown off course more easily and more often”.
The speed of change is staggering. “Social norms, employment, leisure and our relationship with nature are all inexorably shifting. The rapid development of new technologies and AI are influencing all facets of life.”
Overlapping and interrelated factors that will influence the environment include competition for natural resources; new forms of conflict; mass forced displacement and migration; persistent widening inequalities; declining trust and weakened institutions; the prevalence of mis/disinformation and an “increasing global multipolarity”.
“As witnessed over the past two years, even seemingly improbable or distant disruptions or circumstances, for example Covid-19; the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine; major conflicts and mass displacement in Gaza and Sudan; the global energy and cost-of-living crises, can quickly become a reality and affect the whole world.”
Environmental degradation
Humanity’s relationship with the environment is a key shift identified in the report, which describes how material extraction; fossil fuel use and production; plastics; water use and the economy are increasing at the expense of well-being.
Temperature records are being exceeded. Extreme weather events such as floods and fires are occurring more frequently with greater intensity. Biodiversity continues to decline. Pollution and waste are found from the once pristine Antarctic to the Pacific Ocean, the report said.
Despite the climate pledges of the Paris Agreement, the world is on track for a “catastrophic” temperature increase of between 2.1°C and 3.9 °C by 2100.
One key signal of change linked to this is heating. Reservoirs of ancient, mostly uncharacterised, microorganisms and viruses that “could be viable, if not lethal” are hidden in thawing Arctic permafrost.
“Estimates are that up to four sextillion microorganisms could be released from the thawing cryosphere each year because of climate change. This phenomenon has already led to the revival of ancient mega-viruses and the emergence of an outbreak of anthrax in western Siberia from rapid thawing of Bacillus anthracis spores in permafrost killing thousands of reindeer and affecting dozens of people.”
The authors said other signals that require monitoring include growing antimicrobial resistance in the environment and emerging zoonotic diseases.
Energy transition, AI
The demand for critical minerals and materials to meet net zero targets, combined with digital transformation, is “creating new tensions” for planetary health and human well-being, the report said. This is expected to increase fourfold by 2040, worsening pressures on terrestrial biodiversity.
“The pressure to speed up supply is increasing calls for deep-sea mining and even space mining. This presents major challenges for biodiversity and nature, the potential for more pollution and waste, and conflict over land — with vulnerable local and indigenous communities most affected.”
Mining of the deep sea could affect pristine environments and decrease attention on the “circularity and efficiencies” that should be adopted for sustainable development.
AI offers opportunities for economic growth and social progress but the implications for the environment are multifaceted, the report said. While AI and digital transformation can bring many benefits, potential environmental implications need to be considered. These include increased demand for critical minerals and rare earth elements and water resources to meet new data centre demands.
“Old issues” such as the weaponisation of technologies and access to water, food, energy and critical infrastructure have been made “potentially more problematic” with the convergence of new technology and the inability of legal systems to keep pace; notably AI and autonomous weapons systems, which increase the risk of environmental destruction and biological warfare.
It said e-waste recycling, energy-efficient data centres, renewable energy and responsible resource management are essential to mitigate environmental harm.
“The use of AI in weapons systems and the development of synthetic biology need careful review through an environmental lens.”
This critical shift, the report said, intersects with other technology signals of change including the rapid growth in space activity and orbital debris and the potential deployment of solar geoengineering, “which, while perceived as unlikely, must still be monitored”.
Armed conflicts, forced displacement
Armed conflicts are increasing and have many environmental effects that could cause issues for decades. Armed conflict and violence are “rising and evolving”, driven by regional tension; a breakdown in the rule of law; absent or co-opted state institutions; illicit economic gains; the scarcity of resources and climate change.
These conflicts cause ecosystem degradation and pollution, leading to repercussions for vulnerable populations. There are major implications for recovery post-conflict, with the legacy of contamination from destroyed infrastructure and residues from munitions.
Forced displacement is having an increasing effect on human health and the environment in many countries. It leaves an environmental footprint, affecting recovery and the health of populations. One in every 69 people, or 1.5% of the world’s entire population, is forcibly displaced — nearly a doubling of the number who were displaced a decade ago.
“The combination of conflict and climate change is affecting both internal and external displacement, with a wide range of environmental impacts from the lack of services such as water, sanitation and hygiene, solid waste management and energy provision.”
The report also warned that “uninsurable risks and losses” are jeopardising long-term prosperity, poverty alleviation and environmental protection. Fossil fuel subsidies are “eroding” the energy transition, while a mental health crisis is unfolding among adolescents “whose neural systems are increasingly primed for anxiety”.
All these signals hint at deeper, disruptive, changes on the horizon. “Ignoring these signals, as unlikely as they may be, comes with peril.”
New social contract
But the report finds that using foresight tools can help the world to anticipate and prepare for emerging challenges and future disruptions.
To effectively address these critical shifts and signals of change, the report recommends adopting a new social contract that engages a diverse range of stakeholders, including indigenous people, giving young people a stronger voice and rethinking measures of progress to go beyond GDP.
Governments and societies can also introduce shorter-term targets and indicators that allow them to be more agile in governance. Ushering in tools and actions to reconfigure financial systems and reroute capital flows — a positive signal of change in the report — could help reduce inequality, eradicate extreme poverty and address environmental crises.
In the report’s foreword, the United Nations Environment Programme’s executive director Inger Andersen, noted how, in the face of the triple planetary crisis, “we might easily throw up our hands and imagine the world of 2050 — just 25 years from now — as a dangerous, damaged place where both human society and the environment it inhabits face new and heightened threats”.
But the point of the report is not to predict the future, she said. “The intention, by drawing on a wide diversity of disciplines and voices, is to foresee the future.
“Foresight is about imagining the future and then looking at how to change it,” Andersen said. “It enables us to anticipate shocks and disruptions that the world should prepare for. The disruptions presented in this report are not guaranteed to happen. But they could happen. We need to be ready.”