Climate-driven systemic risk to the sustainable development goals

Abstract

Anthropogenic global warming affects all aspects of ecosystems and human life. Thus far, most climate impact studies have mainly focused on local impacts because climate-driven hazards – e.g., floods, storms, heat waves – occur locally. However, as the occurrence of past events has already shown, local climate impacts cascade across sectors, regions and scales, possibly leading to systemic risks. Here we highlight the main transmission channels of climate-driven systemic risks, and outline how they can challenge the achievement of the sustainable development goals. We argue for more research into integrated modeling frameworks, understanding and modeling of transmission pathways and systemic climate risk governance approaches.