THIS CALL FOR PROPOSALS IS NOW CLOSED

The terms Anthropocene and polycrisis suggest that the world is in an unprecedented state. “Anthropocene” indicates that humans have, for the first time in our short existence, become the primary driver of change in the Earth’s ecological and bio-physical systems. “Polycrisis” implies that the Anthropocene epoch features a new character of global crisis in which multiple problems compound and reshape one another, including climate change, ecosystem collapse, pandemics, violent conflict, economic stagnation, unaffordable costs of living, food and energy scarcity, weakened institutions, and systemic inequality. Some propose that these and other problems have concatenated into a “global polycrisis”—a macro-crisis of interconnected, runaway failures of vital natural and social systems that abruptly and irreversibly degrades humanity’s prospects.

The concept of polycrisis, however, is more recent, less established, and more contested than its Anthropocene counterpart. It remains far from certain, for instance, whether the world is in a polycrisis, at risk of a polycrisis, or neither. For some, the term is no more than an empty buzzword. But for others, it implies new ways of thinking about humanity’s predicament that, if carefully developed and applied, could generate crucial insights and new strategies for action.

This special issue of Global Sustainability journal pursues the latter possibility. In it’s lead article, “Global Polycrisis: The Causal Mechanisms of Crisis Entanglement" (https://www.cambridge.org/core), we develop a theoretical framework for polycrisis analysis. We conceptualize a global crisis as a harmful systemic disequilibrium produced by long-term stresses and fast-moving trigger events, and we provide tools with which to trace the causal interactions between global systems that entwine them in a worsening polycrisis. Our hope is that the same system dynamics that enable a polycrisis could be leveraged to mitigate it—if they are better understood. Our article is, therefore, intended to provide conceptual clarity and facilitate more rigorous investigation. But it is only a first step.

With this call, we invite additional papers to advance polycrisis analysis. Contributions may include (but are not limited to):

• Commentary, critique, and further elaboration of the theoretical framework presented in the lead article, or of the polycrisis concept more broadly.
• Theoretical frameworks that provide additional or alternative tools with which to understand and investigate crisis interactions.
• Empirical case studies of interacting crises and societal responses, whether past or present, at local, national, regional, or global scales.
• Forecasts of possible future trajectories of present trends and crises. 
• Practical strategies and actions that have been, or could be, implemented, at whatever scale, to address polycrisis.

The overarching goal of this special issue is to nurture the emerging field of polycrisis analysis, bring together a community of polycrisis knowledge and practice, and (most importantly) generate new insights and strategies with which to address the world’s worsening crises.

Selected contributors will be invited to a workshop in late May 2024 at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) to present their work for peer feedback. Draft manuscripts should be submitted to Global Sustainability before the workshop or shortly thereafter.  

Thomas Homer-Dixon, Ortwin Renn, Johan Rockström, and Michael Lawrence