H Heuristics Digital Reports
H Heuristics Digital Reports The series

Topics

The research themes running through the series. Most reports sit in more than one, so the themes overlap by design.

Topics
53
Reports
87

All topicsReports per theme

Systemic Risk43 reports →

№ 2026-84 · November 2026 · 27 min

The Economics of Resilience in an Age of Global Polycrisis

Volatility costs 0.04 points of growth a year while shortfalls of three points or more cost 0.9, shortfalls are largely permanent (permanent share 0.72–1.06, labour productivity 1.05), recorded disasters are only 4% of the loss while 65% is idiosyncratic and not disaster-linked (81% in low-income countries), and the global cycle explains just 6% of low-income growth variance, so a world risk pool removes over 90% of national risk and halving every shortfall would have left the average country about 8% richer after twenty years (the median country 5%).

  1. 2026-68 Human Exposure Across the Polycrisis CenturyProjecting changing patterns of risk, vulnerability, and protection through 2100 Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026
  2. 2026-67 The Compound Hazard CenturyUnderstanding how heat, drought, flooding, and pollution interact Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 23 October 2026
  3. 2026-66 The Geography of Global VulnerabilityIdentifying where compound hazards intersect with limited adaptive capacity Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 22 October 2026
  4. 2026-65 The Global Polycrisis and the Architecture of Systemic RiskMapping interconnected threats across climate, economics, technology, demographics, and governance Systemic Risk · Institutions & Governance 22 October 2026

and 38 more reports in Systemic Risk →

Climate Adaptation32 reports →

№ 2026-76 · November 2026 · 13 min

The Economics of Innovation Adoption

We know a lot about which innovations make communities more resilient: better seeds, cheaper solar, early warning, mobile money. We know far less about why some of them sweep through a population in a few years while others sit on the shelf for decades. The answer is mostly economics — and a polycrisis raises the stakes on getting it right.

  1. 2026-69 The Survivability TrapHow humanity's demographic shift into heat and polluted air is concentrating the late-century majority in survivability risk, and what it will take to protect them Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026
  2. 2026-68 Human Exposure Across the Polycrisis CenturyProjecting changing patterns of risk, vulnerability, and protection through 2100 Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026
  3. 2026-67 The Compound Hazard CenturyUnderstanding how heat, drought, flooding, and pollution interact Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 23 October 2026
  4. 2026-66 The Geography of Global VulnerabilityIdentifying where compound hazards intersect with limited adaptive capacity Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 22 October 2026

and 27 more reports in Climate Adaptation →

Energy Transition23 reports →

№ 2026-77 · November 2026 · 26 min

Accelerating the Global Clean Energy Transition

World clean electricity gains about one percentage point a year, against 2.3 needed for a fully clean grid by 2050 and 3.8 by 2040, yet wind and solar additions have grown 19% a year since 2019 and coal, oil and gas use outside power is still rising. Five countries generate two thirds of fossil power, and if every country at least matched the pace of the fastest tenth of its income peers, world power would be about 95% clean by 2050 rather than 65%.

  1. 2026-73 Financing Clean Energy Access in Emerging EconomiesFollowing the money to the 671 million people without electricity and the 2 billion without clean cooking Energy Access · Development Finance 30 October 2026
  2. 2026-72 The Clean Energy TrajectoryHow the global transition could reshape humanity's development path and cut cumulative exposure to environmental, economic and health risks, 2026–2100 Energy Transition · Development 30 October 2026
  3. 2026-60 The Clean Transition as a Polycrisis Mitigation StrategyReducing interconnected environmental, health and energy-security risks Energy Transition · Systemic Risk 22 October 2026
  4. 2026-59 Addressing the Pollution–Poverty–Climate Feedback LoopIntegrated pathways for reducing environmental exposure and accelerating development Public Health · Energy Transition 22 October 2026

and 18 more reports in Energy Transition →

Development Finance17 reports →

№ 2026-76 · November 2026 · 13 min

The Economics of Innovation Adoption

We know a lot about which innovations make communities more resilient: better seeds, cheaper solar, early warning, mobile money. We know far less about why some of them sweep through a population in a few years while others sit on the shelf for decades. The answer is mostly economics — and a polycrisis raises the stakes on getting it right.

  1. 2026-74 The Economics of Prevention Versus the Cost of CrisisWhat humanity could save by reducing many risks at once, before their consequences materialise Polycrisis · Development Finance 30 October 2026
  2. 2026-73 Financing Clean Energy Access in Emerging EconomiesFollowing the money to the 671 million people without electricity and the 2 billion without clean cooking Energy Access · Development Finance 30 October 2026
  3. 2026-70 Healthcare Convergence in the Developing WorldBuilding affordable systems that narrow global health inequalities Global Health · Human Development 23 October 2026
  4. 2026-62 The Architecture of Global Polycrisis MitigationA systems framework for reducing interconnected risks Systemic Risk · Institutions & Governance 22 October 2026

and 12 more reports in Development Finance →

Infrastructure15 reports →

№ 2026-52 · October 2026 · 17 min

Demographic Growth Inside the Global Risk Envelope

Since 1975 the world's urban centres have added 2.1 billion people, and growth has leaned into the floodplain: the urban population in 100-year river flood zones tripled to 507 million while cities as a whole grew 2.3 times, with one new resident in six settling in a flood zone. Six in ten new city dwellers settled in cities exposed to at least one major hazard, and 746 million now live where two or more compound. Most of the growth still to come is unbuilt — the cheapest moment for safer settlement decisions.

  1. 2026-51 The Global Water PolycrisisInteracting risks across water, food, energy, health, and development Systemic Risk · Climate Adaptation 21 October 2026
  2. 2026-39 The Geography of Human Survivability Under Climate StressMapping exposure, adaptive capacity, infrastructure deficits and avoidable mortality Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 20 October 2026
  3. 2026-30 The Infrastructure of Sustainable Economic ConvergenceHow electricity, logistics, cooling and connectivity enable catch-up growth Infrastructure · Emerging Markets 19 October 2026
  4. 2026-29 The Global South Resilience StackSequencing energy, water, health and digital development before 2050 Infrastructure · Energy Transition 19 October 2026

and 10 more reports in Infrastructure →

Institutions & Governance20 reports →

№ 2026-65 · October 2026 · 22 min

The Global Polycrisis and the Architecture of Systemic Risk

Multi-domain shock years rose from about 6% of countries a year before 2020 to 9% since, after 33% in 2020. The observed network has a sink: economic shocks, internet shutdowns and governance shocks raise the next year's risk of displacement or mortality shocks 2.5, 2.0 and 1.6 times. Low-income countries carry eleven times the multi-domain burden of rich ones, and twenty countries with 705 million people face a 30% or higher modelled risk of multi-domain shocks in 2026.

  1. 2026-62 The Architecture of Global Polycrisis MitigationA systems framework for reducing interconnected risks Systemic Risk · Institutions & Governance 22 October 2026
  2. 2026-45 The Architecture of Global Convergence Under Systemic RiskBuilding development pathways that reduce multiple crises simultaneously Emerging Markets · Systemic Risk 21 October 2026
  3. 2026-44 Digital Infrastructure as a Resilience Multiplier in Crisis-Prone Developing EconomiesHow connectivity, data systems and digital payments accelerate recovery from shocks Technology · Systemic Risk 21 October 2026
  4. 2026-43 Resource Scarcity, Environmental Stress, and the Escalation of Armed ConflictHow water shortages and crop failures feed violence in already fragile states Conflict & Fragility · Systemic Risk 20 October 2026

and 15 more reports in Institutions & Governance →

Emerging Markets40 reports →

№ 2026-76 · November 2026 · 13 min

The Economics of Innovation Adoption

We know a lot about which innovations make communities more resilient: better seeds, cheaper solar, early warning, mobile money. We know far less about why some of them sweep through a population in a few years while others sit on the shelf for decades. The answer is mostly economics — and a polycrisis raises the stakes on getting it right.

  1. 2026-66 The Geography of Global VulnerabilityIdentifying where compound hazards intersect with limited adaptive capacity Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 22 October 2026
  2. 2026-65 The Global Polycrisis and the Architecture of Systemic RiskMapping interconnected threats across climate, economics, technology, demographics, and governance Systemic Risk · Institutions & Governance 22 October 2026
  3. 2026-64 The Geography of Growing Human ExposurePopulation growth, urbanization, and environmental risk Urbanisation · Climate Adaptation 22 October 2026
  4. 2026-63 Convergent Development as Polycrisis Risk ReductionAccelerating human development across vulnerable economies Human Capital · Emerging Markets 22 October 2026

and 35 more reports in Emerging Markets →

Public Health30 reports →

№ 2026-74 · October 2026 · 24 min

The Economics of Prevention Versus the Cost of Crisis

In 2015–2024 official donors spent $263 billion responding to crises in developing countries and $21 billion preventing them, 8 cents for every response dollar, while recorded disaster damage averaged $194 billion a year. Seventeen published estimates put prevention's return at 2 to 87 dollars per dollar across air pollution, climate, health, food, water, infrastructure, pandemics and conflict, and a cautious portfolio still returns several times its cost.

  1. 2026-72 The Clean Energy TrajectoryHow the global transition could reshape humanity's development path and cut cumulative exposure to environmental, economic and health risks, 2026–2100 Energy Transition · Development 30 October 2026
  2. 2026-69 The Survivability TrapHow humanity's demographic shift into heat and polluted air is concentrating the late-century majority in survivability risk, and what it will take to protect them Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026
  3. 2026-67 The Compound Hazard CenturyUnderstanding how heat, drought, flooding, and pollution interact Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 23 October 2026
  4. 2026-61 The Human Dividend of Polycrisis PreventionEstimating lives protected through coordinated development and risk reduction Systemic Risk · Public Health 22 October 2026

and 25 more reports in Public Health →

Human Capital14 reports →

№ 2026-78 · November 2026 · 24 min

Artificial Intelligence as an Accelerator of Global Development

High-income countries, with 17% of the world's people, generate 57% of Claude.ai usage and the five low-income countries with published data 0.2%; income alone explains 80% of usage per capita and English adds nothing, while 1.2 billion people live where doctors are fewest and digital foundations weakest, so the accelerator is not yet pointed at the need.

  1. 2026-63 Convergent Development as Polycrisis Risk ReductionAccelerating human development across vulnerable economies Human Capital · Emerging Markets 22 October 2026
  2. 2026-61 The Human Dividend of Polycrisis PreventionEstimating lives protected through coordinated development and risk reduction Systemic Risk · Public Health 22 October 2026
  3. 2026-58 Sustainable Development as Global Risk ReductionAccelerating human development to reduce climate, health and economic vulnerability Human Capital · Systemic Risk 22 October 2026
  4. 2026-53 The Education–Climate Vulnerability TrapLearning disruptions, heat exposure, and unequal adaptation capacity Human Capital · Climate Adaptation 21 October 2026

and 9 more reports in Human Capital →

Environment & Biodiversity7 reports →

№ 2026-57 · October 2026 · 20 min

Escaping the Pollution–Poverty Trap

Forty-eight countries, 36 of them in sub-Saharan Africa, are trapped in two or more degradation cycles, and they hold 78% of the world's extremely poor. Polluting cooking fuel, missing sanitation and forest loss move together even among countries at the same income. Fifty-two countries escaped at least one cycle after 2000, through clean-cooking drives, sanitation campaigns and forest recovery, and cut extreme poverty by a median 26 points, more than twice as much as those that stayed trapped. Air pollution is the cycle growth has not broken.

  1. 2026-47 The Geography of Human Pollution ExposurePopulation density, atmospheric transport, and unequal environmental burdens Public Health · Environment & Biodiversity 21 October 2026
  2. 2026-34 Mapping the Interdependencies of Twenty-First-Century RiskHow environmental, economic, demographic and technological pressures reinforce global instability Systemic Risk · Institutions & Governance 20 October 2026
  3. 2026-33 S-Curves Against the ClockDiffusion dynamics under planetary boundary constraints: when exponential adoption races irreversible environmental tipping points Energy Transition · Technology 20 October 2026
  4. 2026-27 The Pollution–Climate Risk NexusBreaking feedback loops across health, ecosystems and development Public Health · Environment & Biodiversity 19 October 2026

and 2 more reports in Environment & Biodiversity →

Technology12 reports →

№ 2026-78 · November 2026 · 24 min

Artificial Intelligence as an Accelerator of Global Development

High-income countries, with 17% of the world's people, generate 57% of Claude.ai usage and the five low-income countries with published data 0.2%; income alone explains 80% of usage per capita and English adds nothing, while 1.2 billion people live where doctors are fewest and digital foundations weakest, so the accelerator is not yet pointed at the need.

  1. 2026-76 The Economics of Innovation AdoptionWhy life-saving ideas spread slowly, and what a polycrisis does to the math Technology · Climate Adaptation 7 November 2026
  2. 2026-65 The Global Polycrisis and the Architecture of Systemic RiskMapping interconnected threats across climate, economics, technology, demographics, and governance Systemic Risk · Institutions & Governance 22 October 2026
  3. 2026-44 Digital Infrastructure as a Resilience Multiplier in Crisis-Prone Developing EconomiesHow connectivity, data systems and digital payments accelerate recovery from shocks Technology · Systemic Risk 21 October 2026
  4. 2026-33 S-Curves Against the ClockDiffusion dynamics under planetary boundary constraints: when exponential adoption races irreversible environmental tipping points Energy Transition · Technology 20 October 2026

and 7 more reports in Technology →

Africa1 report →

№ 2026-73 · October 2026 · 22 min

Financing Clean Energy Access in Emerging Economies

Sub-Saharan Africa has 89% of the world's people without electricity but received 28% of international public clean-energy finance in 2015–2024, about $82 per person without power over a decade. Twenty-five 'forgotten frontier' countries with 486 million people without electricity received 7%. Where finance does arrive, capital costs more than twice as much as in rich economies and currencies have lost three quarters of their value, so the price of money becomes the price of power.

The first report in this theme.

Cities1 report →

№ 2026-38 · October 2026 · 18 min

The Compounding Burden of Heat and Air Pollution

Very hot days are deadlier when the air is dirty: across 620 cities, a very hot day raised deaths by 12.8% when particle pollution was high against 5.3% when it was low. And the two hazards travel together — in 2024 ozone was higher on hot days in 131 of 149 large cities. About 2.6 billion people live in countries that are both hot and polluted, three-quarters of the population of lower-middle-income countries against 4% in high-income ones.

The first report in this theme.

Climate Change3 reports →

№ 2026-42 · October 2026 · 17 min

Wet-Bulb Temperatures and the Emerging Geography of Unsurvivable Heat

No site analysed reaches the 35 °C wet-bulb ceiling before about 4.4 °C of global warming; the binding line is lower. Healthy young adults lose the ability to cool themselves in humid heat near 30.5 °C, a level 11 of 161 sites reached for at least an hour in 2024. Under current policies, about 2.8 °C, the cities touching it would hold 161 million people, up from 9 million today — around the Gulf, across South Asia and in eastern China.

  1. 2026-41 Six of Nine Boundaries Breached — What Transgressing Planetary Limits Actually MeansTranslating Earth system science into language that decision-makers can act on Systemic Risk · Ecosystems 20 October 2026
  2. 2026-36 The Pollution–Climate Feedback SystemTracing interactions between greenhouse gases, toxic exposure, ecosystems and human health Climate Change · Public Health 20 October 2026

Climate Risk3 reports →

№ 2026-77 · November 2026 · 26 min

Accelerating the Global Clean Energy Transition

World clean electricity gains about one percentage point a year, against 2.3 needed for a fully clean grid by 2050 and 3.8 by 2040, yet wind and solar additions have grown 19% a year since 2019 and coal, oil and gas use outside power is still rising. Five countries generate two thirds of fossil power, and if every country at least matched the pace of the fastest tenth of its income peers, world power would be about 95% clean by 2050 rather than 65%.

  1. 2026-72 The Clean Energy TrajectoryHow the global transition could reshape humanity's development path and cut cumulative exposure to environmental, economic and health risks, 2026–2100 Energy Transition · Development 30 October 2026
  2. 2026-71 The Polycrisis Apocalypse Humanity Is FacingMeasuring the Survivability Risk Region, its geography and its long tail Polycrisis · Climate Risk 28 October 2026

Concept1 report →

№ 2026-86 · November 2026 · 22 min

Polycrisis Resilience: The H Heuristics Concept

Polycrisis Resilience, the H Heuristics concept, is the systematic development of five capacities to prevent, absorb, adapt to and recover from interconnected crises while reducing their cascading effects; across 145 countries the five capacities rise together (one component carries 81% of their variance; income explains 86% of the composite, 22nd percentile in low-income against 76th in high-income countries), they go with lower structural vulnerability but do not forecast any single shock's outcome, so the concept's claim is about cascades and long-term consequences.

The first report in this theme.

Conflict & Fragility1 report →

№ 2026-43 · October 2026 · 19 min

Resource Scarcity, Environmental Stress, and the Escalation of Armed Conflict

Scarcity is an accelerant, not a detonator. Drought cuts cereal yields by about 6% and doubles the odds of a crop failure, but in the same country an ordinary dry year barely changes the risk of war. Severe droughts raise the chance a new conflict starts the next year by about 60%, and in fragile states local droughts shift fighting toward communal and militia violence. Violence concentrates where scarcity meets weak states: 24 such countries, 7% of humanity, suffered 37% of conflict deaths in 2016–24.

The first report in this theme.

Conflict & Security1 report →

№ 2026-71 · October 2026 · 24 min

The Polycrisis Apocalypse Humanity Is Facing

On a central measure, 1.2 billion people (16% of humanity) live today where two or more survivability tiers bind on weak institutions; holding today's institutions fixed, warming lifts that to 2.8–4.5 billion by the 2090s, three in five of them in Africa. With 65 armed conflicts in 2025, the most since 1946, and an unsafe equilibrium that could outlast every past civilisation, the cheapest time to choose the buffered path is now.

The first report in this theme.

Coordination1 report →

№ 2026-85 · November 2026 · 26 min

Addressing Interconnected Global Crises Through Coordinated Economic Development

Earlier progress in one system predicts faster later progress in others (9 of 42 pairs significant against 2 by chance, mean standardised coefficient +0.095, stable across four time windows), with water and sanitation, power and income the strongest leading systems and health almost isolated; lopsided development is associated with worse survival in the pandemic (−0.33 standard deviations of life expectancy against trend per standard deviation of imbalance) but not with growth risk or disaster mortality, and water and sanitation is the highest-leverage bottleneck in 47 of 124 countries.

The first report in this theme.

Cost-Benefit1 report →

№ 2026-80 · November 2026 · 26 min

The Economics of Polycrisis Prevention: Quantifying the Human and Economic Returns of Resilience

Recorded disaster loss is so lumpy that the worst 1% of country-years hold 58% of damage and 76% of deaths, so an early-warning investment worth four dollars per dollar on average recovers its cost in only 69% of decades; it would return $51 per dollar in rich countries but $0.5 in the poorest on assets alone, and aiming it at the riskiest tenth by past deaths halves the cost per life but still misses two thirds of later deaths.

The first report in this theme.

Debt1 report →

№ 2026-79 · November 2026 · 24 min

Polycrisis Resilience: Who Can Afford It?

In 34 of 141 countries, home to 2.7 billion people, central-government interest exceeds government health spending, and 17 of the 36 highest-risk countries are among them; the median low-income country's interest bill tripled to 1.9% of GDP since 2010 while health spending slipped to 0.9%, and a resilience programme worth 1% of GDP would cost a quarter of the squeezed countries' interest bill.

The first report in this theme.

Definition1 report →

№ 2026-86 · November 2026 · 22 min

Polycrisis Resilience: The H Heuristics Concept

Polycrisis Resilience, the H Heuristics concept, is the systematic development of five capacities to prevent, absorb, adapt to and recover from interconnected crises while reducing their cascading effects; across 145 countries the five capacities rise together (one component carries 81% of their variance; income explains 86% of the composite, 22nd percentile in low-income against 76th in high-income countries), they go with lower structural vulnerability but do not forecast any single shock's outcome, so the concept's claim is about cascades and long-term consequences.

The first report in this theme.

Definitions1 report →

№ 2026-83 · November 2026 · 26 min

Defining and Understanding Polycrisis Resilience

A country's composite resilience in the 2009 financial crisis correlates just 0.09 with its resilience in the 2020 pandemic, only 4 of 153 countries are in the top third in both (chance gives 4.5), and the five things the word covers agree only partly, so resilience should be defined as that of a system, to a class of shock, in a function, over a horizon, relative to a stated reference path.

The first report in this theme.

Demography3 reports →

№ 2026-71 · October 2026 · 24 min

The Polycrisis Apocalypse Humanity Is Facing

On a central measure, 1.2 billion people (16% of humanity) live today where two or more survivability tiers bind on weak institutions; holding today's institutions fixed, warming lifts that to 2.8–4.5 billion by the 2090s, three in five of them in Africa. With 65 armed conflicts in 2025, the most since 1946, and an unsafe equilibrium that could outlast every past civilisation, the cheapest time to choose the buffered path is now.

  1. 2026-69 The Survivability TrapHow humanity's demographic shift into heat and polluted air is concentrating the late-century majority in survivability risk, and what it will take to protect them Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026
  2. 2026-68 Human Exposure Across the Polycrisis CenturyProjecting changing patterns of risk, vulnerability, and protection through 2100 Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026

Development6 reports →

№ 2026-87 · November 2026 · 38 min

Polycrisis Resilience: A General Definition and the H Heuristics Framework

Polycrisis Resilience, a concept developed by Hunter Hughes, is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, economies, societies and interconnected systems to anticipate, withstand, adapt to, recover from and reduce vulnerability to multiple interacting crises; the H Heuristics framework builds it through development (the world death rate from natural disasters fell 98% between the 1920s and 2010s; composite capacity averages 22 in low-income and 70 in high-income countries, income explaining 81% of the variation), and a permutation test shows the clustering of weaknesses across 166 countries is almost entirely income.

  1. 2026-85 Addressing Interconnected Global Crises Through Coordinated Economic DevelopmentA framework for reducing vulnerabilities across interconnected socioeconomic systems: spillovers, balance and bottlenecks Development · Polycrisis 16 November 2026
  2. 2026-78 Artificial Intelligence as an Accelerator of Global DevelopmentWho uses AI, what for, what it does, and where scarcity meets low readiness Technology · Development 9 November 2026
  3. 2026-77 Accelerating the Global Clean Energy TransitionMeasuring the pace, locating the gap and testing what faster would take Energy Transition · Climate Risk 8 November 2026
  4. 2026-75 The Architecture of Global Technological DiffusionWhy transformative technologies emerge faster than they spread, and how to accelerate adoption Technology Diffusion · Economic Convergence 31 October 2026

and 1 more report in Development →

Digital Economy1 report →

№ 2026-78 · November 2026 · 24 min

Artificial Intelligence as an Accelerator of Global Development

High-income countries, with 17% of the world's people, generate 57% of Claude.ai usage and the five low-income countries with published data 0.2%; income alone explains 80% of usage per capita and English adds nothing, while 1.2 billion people live where doctors are fewest and digital foundations weakest, so the accelerator is not yet pointed at the need.

The first report in this theme.

Disaster Risk1 report →

№ 2026-74 · October 2026 · 24 min

The Economics of Prevention Versus the Cost of Crisis

In 2015–2024 official donors spent $263 billion responding to crises in developing countries and $21 billion preventing them, 8 cents for every response dollar, while recorded disaster damage averaged $194 billion a year. Seventeen published estimates put prevention's return at 2 to 87 dollars per dollar across air pollution, climate, health, food, water, infrastructure, pandemics and conflict, and a cautious portfolio still returns several times its cost.

The first report in this theme.

Disasters2 reports →

№ 2026-81 · November 2026 · 25 min

Polycrisis Resilience This Century, 2000–2100

The world's disaster death rate fell 97% from the 1920s to the 1990s and has been flat since, while years with 100,000 or more deaths still come about one in five; on 2000–24 death rates and UN population paths the century's deaths run from about 3 million (capacity improving 3% a year) to 9 million (hazards growing 1% a year with no capacity gain), a factor of three that dwarfs the quarter-wide luck within any one path.

  1. 2026-80 The Economics of Polycrisis Prevention: Quantifying the Human and Economic Returns of ResilienceExpected, realised and aimed returns in dollars and lives, measured on 25 years of disaster losses in 170 countries Polycrisis · Resilience 11 November 2026

Economic Convergence1 report →

№ 2026-75 · October 2026 · 26 min

The Architecture of Global Technological Diffusion

Infrastructure-embedded technologies took a median of 26.5 years to go from 10% to 50% of US households, five times as long as stand-alone products; today no low-income country has passed 50% internet use, and the poorest trail the rich by 20 to 34 years or more on the technologies that matter most. Income, schooling, institutions, finance, power and place explain 86% of cross-country diffusion, vaccination escapes them, and at equal income each 10 points of diffusion goes with 19% lower child mortality.

The first report in this theme.

Economic Growth1 report →

№ 2026-40 · October 2026 · 18 min

Heat Stress, Labor Productivity, and the Hidden Economic Cost of Warming

Heat cut work capacity enough in 2024 to put about $490 billion of output at risk, a conservative estimate from hourly heat stress in 149 cities. The Lancet Countdown's broader estimate is $1.09 trillion. Either figure is of the same order as all climate damages in the DICE model at 1.5 °C. The loss is regressive (3% of hours in lower-middle-income countries against 0.2% in rich ones) and convex: one extra degree adds 73%, two nearly triple it. Moving work out of the afternoon recovers 20–30%.

The first report in this theme.

Economics1 report →

№ 2026-84 · November 2026 · 27 min

The Economics of Resilience in an Age of Global Polycrisis

Volatility costs 0.04 points of growth a year while shortfalls of three points or more cost 0.9, shortfalls are largely permanent (permanent share 0.72–1.06, labour productivity 1.05), recorded disasters are only 4% of the loss while 65% is idiosyncratic and not disaster-linked (81% in low-income countries), and the global cycle explains just 6% of low-income growth variance, so a world risk pool removes over 90% of national risk and halving every shortfall would have left the average country about 8% richer after twenty years (the median country 5%).

The first report in this theme.

Ecosystems2 reports →

№ 2026-41 · October 2026 · 16 min

Six of Nine Boundaries Breached — What Transgressing Planetary Limits Actually Means

The 2023 headline was six of nine planetary boundaries breached; by 2025–26 it is seven, all worsening. Measured as a multiple of the disturbance each boundary allows, humanity has used 2.1 times its CO₂ allowance, 3.1 times its climate-forcing allowance, about 2.7–2.9 times its nitrogen and phosphorus allowances and 11 to 111 times its extinction allowance. Each boundary translates into a budget, a floor, a ceiling or a ban — and the ozone layer shows a breached boundary can be brought back.

  1. 2026-36 The Pollution–Climate Feedback SystemTracing interactions between greenhouse gases, toxic exposure, ecosystems and human health Climate Change · Public Health 20 October 2026

Energy Access2 reports →

№ 2026-73 · October 2026 · 22 min

Financing Clean Energy Access in Emerging Economies

Sub-Saharan Africa has 89% of the world's people without electricity but received 28% of international public clean-energy finance in 2015–2024, about $82 per person without power over a decade. Twenty-five 'forgotten frontier' countries with 486 million people without electricity received 7%. Where finance does arrive, capital costs more than twice as much as in rich economies and currencies have lost three quarters of their value, so the price of money becomes the price of power.

  1. 2026-37 The Unequal Geography of Human Air Pollution ExposureHow industrialisation, income, urban form and energy access shape population exposure Public Health · Inequality 20 October 2026

Energy Policy1 report →

№ 2026-77 · November 2026 · 26 min

Accelerating the Global Clean Energy Transition

World clean electricity gains about one percentage point a year, against 2.3 needed for a fully clean grid by 2050 and 3.8 by 2040, yet wind and solar additions have grown 19% a year since 2019 and coal, oil and gas use outside power is still rising. Five countries generate two thirds of fossil power, and if every country at least matched the pace of the fastest tenth of its income peers, world power would be about 95% clean by 2050 rather than 65%.

The first report in this theme.

Fiscal Policy1 report →

№ 2026-79 · November 2026 · 24 min

Polycrisis Resilience: Who Can Afford It?

In 34 of 141 countries, home to 2.7 billion people, central-government interest exceeds government health spending, and 17 of the 36 highest-risk countries are among them; the median low-income country's interest bill tripled to 1.9% of GDP since 2010 while health spending slipped to 0.9%, and a resilience programme worth 1% of GDP would cost a quarter of the squeezed countries' interest bill.

The first report in this theme.

Food Security2 reports →

№ 2026-43 · October 2026 · 19 min

Resource Scarcity, Environmental Stress, and the Escalation of Armed Conflict

Scarcity is an accelerant, not a detonator. Drought cuts cereal yields by about 6% and doubles the odds of a crop failure, but in the same country an ordinary dry year barely changes the risk of war. Severe droughts raise the chance a new conflict starts the next year by about 60%, and in fragile states local droughts shift fighting toward communal and militia violence. Violence concentrates where scarcity meets weak states: 24 such countries, 7% of humanity, suffered 37% of conflict deaths in 2016–24.

  1. 2026-23 Resilience in an Age of PolycrisisA framework for navigating cascading risks — an interactive dashboard Systemic Risk · Food Security 11 October 2026

Framework2 reports →

№ 2026-87 · November 2026 · 38 min

Polycrisis Resilience: A General Definition and the H Heuristics Framework

Polycrisis Resilience, a concept developed by Hunter Hughes, is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, economies, societies and interconnected systems to anticipate, withstand, adapt to, recover from and reduce vulnerability to multiple interacting crises; the H Heuristics framework builds it through development (the world death rate from natural disasters fell 98% between the 1920s and 2010s; composite capacity averages 22 in low-income and 70 in high-income countries, income explaining 81% of the variation), and a permutation test shows the clustering of weaknesses across 166 countries is almost entirely income.

  1. 2026-82 A Unified Framework for Understanding and Mitigating the Global PolycrisisIntegrating environmental, economic, technological and geopolitical risk assessment: domains, robustness, validation and levers Polycrisis · Risk Assessment 13 November 2026

Global Health1 report →

№ 2026-70 · October 2026 · 22 min

Healthcare Convergence in the Developing World

The life-expectancy gap between developing and high-income countries fell from 25 years in 1960 to 8.4 today, but it closed four times faster before 2000 than since, and coverage growth has halved since 2015. Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam show good health at low cost, yet in the median low-income country governments spend $7 a person on health, households pay nearly half of all costs, and an essential package would cost 11% of GDP.

The first report in this theme.

Governance1 report →

№ 2026-41 · October 2026 · 16 min

Six of Nine Boundaries Breached — What Transgressing Planetary Limits Actually Means

The 2023 headline was six of nine planetary boundaries breached; by 2025–26 it is seven, all worsening. Measured as a multiple of the disturbance each boundary allows, humanity has used 2.1 times its CO₂ allowance, 3.1 times its climate-forcing allowance, about 2.7–2.9 times its nitrogen and phosphorus allowances and 11 to 111 times its extinction allowance. Each boundary translates into a budget, a floor, a ceiling or a ban — and the ozone layer shows a breached boundary can be brought back.

The first report in this theme.

Growth1 report →

№ 2026-84 · November 2026 · 27 min

The Economics of Resilience in an Age of Global Polycrisis

Volatility costs 0.04 points of growth a year while shortfalls of three points or more cost 0.9, shortfalls are largely permanent (permanent share 0.72–1.06, labour productivity 1.05), recorded disasters are only 4% of the loss while 65% is idiosyncratic and not disaster-linked (81% in low-income countries), and the global cycle explains just 6% of low-income growth variance, so a world risk pool removes over 90% of national risk and halving every shortfall would have left the average country about 8% richer after twenty years (the median country 5%).

The first report in this theme.

Health1 report →

№ 2026-42 · October 2026 · 17 min

Wet-Bulb Temperatures and the Emerging Geography of Unsurvivable Heat

No site analysed reaches the 35 °C wet-bulb ceiling before about 4.4 °C of global warming; the binding line is lower. Healthy young adults lose the ability to cool themselves in humid heat near 30.5 °C, a level 11 of 161 sites reached for at least an hour in 2024. Under current policies, about 2.8 °C, the cities touching it would hold 161 million people, up from 9 million today — around the Gulf, across South Asia and in eastern China.

The first report in this theme.

Human Development2 reports →

№ 2026-70 · October 2026 · 22 min

Healthcare Convergence in the Developing World

The life-expectancy gap between developing and high-income countries fell from 25 years in 1960 to 8.4 today, but it closed four times faster before 2000 than since, and coverage growth has halved since 2015. Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam show good health at low cost, yet in the median low-income country governments spend $7 a person on health, households pay nearly half of all costs, and an essential package would cost 11% of GDP.

  1. 2026-68 Human Exposure Across the Polycrisis CenturyProjecting changing patterns of risk, vulnerability, and protection through 2100 Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026

Inequality14 reports →

№ 2026-70 · October 2026 · 22 min

Healthcare Convergence in the Developing World

The life-expectancy gap between developing and high-income countries fell from 25 years in 1960 to 8.4 today, but it closed four times faster before 2000 than since, and coverage growth has halved since 2015. Sri Lanka, Thailand and Viet Nam show good health at low cost, yet in the median low-income country governments spend $7 a person on health, households pay nearly half of all costs, and an essential package would cost 11% of GDP.

  1. 2026-69 The Survivability TrapHow humanity's demographic shift into heat and polluted air is concentrating the late-century majority in survivability risk, and what it will take to protect them Climate Adaptation · Demography 23 October 2026
  2. 2026-66 The Geography of Global VulnerabilityIdentifying where compound hazards intersect with limited adaptive capacity Climate Adaptation · Systemic Risk 22 October 2026
  3. 2026-63 Convergent Development as Polycrisis Risk ReductionAccelerating human development across vulnerable economies Human Capital · Emerging Markets 22 October 2026
  4. 2026-59 Addressing the Pollution–Poverty–Climate Feedback LoopIntegrated pathways for reducing environmental exposure and accelerating development Public Health · Energy Transition 22 October 2026

and 9 more reports in Inequality →

Labour1 report →

№ 2026-40 · October 2026 · 18 min

Heat Stress, Labor Productivity, and the Hidden Economic Cost of Warming

Heat cut work capacity enough in 2024 to put about $490 billion of output at risk, a conservative estimate from hourly heat stress in 149 cities. The Lancet Countdown's broader estimate is $1.09 trillion. Either figure is of the same order as all climate damages in the DICE model at 1.5 °C. The loss is regressive (3% of hours in lower-middle-income countries against 0.2% in rich ones) and convex: one extra degree adds 73%, two nearly triple it. Moving work out of the afternoon recovers 20–30%.

The first report in this theme.

Measurement1 report →

№ 2026-83 · November 2026 · 26 min

Defining and Understanding Polycrisis Resilience

A country's composite resilience in the 2009 financial crisis correlates just 0.09 with its resilience in the 2020 pandemic, only 4 of 153 countries are in the top third in both (chance gives 4.5), and the five things the word covers agree only partly, so resilience should be defined as that of a system, to a class of shock, in a function, over a horizon, relative to a stated reference path.

The first report in this theme.

Polycrisis11 reports →

№ 2026-87 · November 2026 · 38 min

Polycrisis Resilience: A General Definition and the H Heuristics Framework

Polycrisis Resilience, a concept developed by Hunter Hughes, is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, economies, societies and interconnected systems to anticipate, withstand, adapt to, recover from and reduce vulnerability to multiple interacting crises; the H Heuristics framework builds it through development (the world death rate from natural disasters fell 98% between the 1920s and 2010s; composite capacity averages 22 in low-income and 70 in high-income countries, income explaining 81% of the variation), and a permutation test shows the clustering of weaknesses across 166 countries is almost entirely income.

  1. 2026-86 Polycrisis Resilience: The H Heuristics ConceptA conceptual framework for reducing global vulnerability and strengthening human survivability Polycrisis · Resilience 17 November 2026
  2. 2026-85 Addressing Interconnected Global Crises Through Coordinated Economic DevelopmentA framework for reducing vulnerabilities across interconnected socioeconomic systems: spillovers, balance and bottlenecks Development · Polycrisis 16 November 2026
  3. 2026-83 Defining and Understanding Polycrisis ResilienceFive measures, two global shocks and 160 countries: resilience is relational, not a national trait Polycrisis · Resilience 14 November 2026
  4. 2026-82 A Unified Framework for Understanding and Mitigating the Global PolycrisisIntegrating environmental, economic, technological and geopolitical risk assessment: domains, robustness, validation and levers Polycrisis · Risk Assessment 13 November 2026

and 6 more reports in Polycrisis →

Resilience8 reports →

№ 2026-87 · November 2026 · 38 min

Polycrisis Resilience: A General Definition and the H Heuristics Framework

Polycrisis Resilience, a concept developed by Hunter Hughes, is the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, economies, societies and interconnected systems to anticipate, withstand, adapt to, recover from and reduce vulnerability to multiple interacting crises; the H Heuristics framework builds it through development (the world death rate from natural disasters fell 98% between the 1920s and 2010s; composite capacity averages 22 in low-income and 70 in high-income countries, income explaining 81% of the variation), and a permutation test shows the clustering of weaknesses across 166 countries is almost entirely income.

  1. 2026-86 Polycrisis Resilience: The H Heuristics ConceptA conceptual framework for reducing global vulnerability and strengthening human survivability Polycrisis · Resilience 17 November 2026
  2. 2026-84 The Economics of Resilience in an Age of Global PolycrisisDevelopment, adaptation, productivity and systemic risk reduction in one growth identity: the resilience wedge and its dividend Resilience · Economics 15 November 2026
  3. 2026-83 Defining and Understanding Polycrisis ResilienceFive measures, two global shocks and 160 countries: resilience is relational, not a national trait Polycrisis · Resilience 14 November 2026
  4. 2026-82 A Unified Framework for Understanding and Mitigating the Global PolycrisisIntegrating environmental, economic, technological and geopolitical risk assessment: domains, robustness, validation and levers Polycrisis · Risk Assessment 13 November 2026

and 3 more reports in Resilience →

Risk Assessment1 report →

№ 2026-82 · November 2026 · 27 min

A Unified Framework for Understanding and Mitigating the Global Polycrisis

Environmental exposure is uncorrelated with economic, technological and geopolitical exposure across 146 countries (|r| at most 0.05) and a single score keeps only 39% of the information; under 10,000 random weightings just three countries are reliably in the worst twenty and the median country's rank spans 62 places, so the framework should unify the language, the diagnosis and the response while keeping four scores and a capacity score visible.

The first report in this theme.

Scenarios1 report →

№ 2026-81 · November 2026 · 25 min

Polycrisis Resilience This Century, 2000–2100

The world's disaster death rate fell 97% from the 1920s to the 1990s and has been flat since, while years with 100,000 or more deaths still come about one in five; on 2000–24 death rates and UN population paths the century's deaths run from about 3 million (capacity improving 3% a year) to 9 million (hazards growing 1% a year with no capacity gain), a factor of three that dwarfs the quarter-wide luck within any one path.

The first report in this theme.

Systems1 report →

№ 2026-85 · November 2026 · 26 min

Addressing Interconnected Global Crises Through Coordinated Economic Development

Earlier progress in one system predicts faster later progress in others (9 of 42 pairs significant against 2 by chance, mean standardised coefficient +0.095, stable across four time windows), with water and sanitation, power and income the strongest leading systems and health almost isolated; lopsided development is associated with worse survival in the pandemic (−0.33 standard deviations of life expectancy against trend per standard deviation of imbalance) but not with growth risk or disaster mortality, and water and sanitation is the highest-leverage bottleneck in 47 of 124 countries.

The first report in this theme.

Technology Diffusion1 report →

№ 2026-75 · October 2026 · 26 min

The Architecture of Global Technological Diffusion

Infrastructure-embedded technologies took a median of 26.5 years to go from 10% to 50% of US households, five times as long as stand-alone products; today no low-income country has passed 50% internet use, and the poorest trail the rich by 20 to 34 years or more on the technologies that matter most. Income, schooling, institutions, finance, power and place explain 86% of cross-country diffusion, vaccination escapes them, and at equal income each 10 points of diffusion goes with 19% lower child mortality.

The first report in this theme.

Urbanisation3 reports →

№ 2026-64 · October 2026 · 21 min

The Geography of Growing Human Exposure

The world adds 1.43 billion people by 2050, 69% of them in cities and 57% in sub-Saharan Africa. People living with 30 or more days a year above a 35 °C heat index more than double, from 1.9 to 4.1 billion. Warming drives 1.74 billion of that rise and population growth 0.44 billion, and growth lands disproportionately in hot places. City dwellers in 100-year flood zones, 507 million today, are heading for 630–690 million.

  1. 2026-47 The Geography of Human Pollution ExposurePopulation density, atmospheric transport, and unequal environmental burdens Public Health · Environment & Biodiversity 21 October 2026
  2. 2026-37 The Unequal Geography of Human Air Pollution ExposureHow industrialisation, income, urban form and energy access shape population exposure Public Health · Inequality 20 October 2026

Water Security1 report →

№ 2026-67 · October 2026 · 22 min

The Compound Hazard Century

Droughts have barely become more frequent, but they have become hot. Half of warm-season drought months in 1995–2024 were also extremely hot, up from three in ten in 1951–80 and seven in ten in 2021–24. Dry-to-wet whiplash is up 30%, and hot-dry years produce the great smoke and dust events. By the 2090s, 0.34 billion people would live with two or more compound hazards on a low-emissions path, 5.2 billion on a high one.

The first report in this theme.