New open-access research has been published in the Journal of Global Sustainability by a team of expert international scientists from Canada and Germany, including Johan Rockström, the Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). The research defines the term ‘global polycrisis’ as the causal entanglement of crises in multiple global systems that significantly degrade humanity’s prospects. The authors identify three causal mechanisms linking global systems to produce synchronised crises: common stresses, domino effects, and inter-systemic feedbacks. The authors stress that a systems-based approach is necessary to tackle the causal mechanisms and respond to these crises as a whole, not just individual isolated incidents. They call for structural changes to the global system to mitigate and prepare for further interconnected and interacting crises.