Executive Summary

This year’s report, Turning Over a New Leaf, analyses what the world could look like if we make these changes, and what is preventing us from doing so.

Research has shown that the public currently disproportionally hears about a narrow slice of climate science: mostly from the natural sciences, and mostly negative projections. While these projections need to be taken seriously, and they may make attention-grabbing headlines, they often create fear and potential paralysis when the public feels doomed no matter what. Moreover, when we respond to negative projections, our natural reaction is to think about how to prevent them. This results in goals and targets such as “limiting climate change” or “preventing biodiversity loss”. However, the report argues that we do not need to settle for just stopping the worst impacts. Instead, we can aim to actively create a world we would wish to live in.

What is preventing us from doing better?

Few people, if any, would say they desire a world with more risks and more destruction. Few people, if any, would argue for more plastic in rivers, more destroyed ecosystems or more inequality. Many would agree that we should reduce waste, protect nature, stop climate change, cooperate more effectively with others and prioritize what truly matters. Many of us are trying to make these kinds of changes already, but it can seem like an overwhelming challenge. You might already be recycling at home, taking a reusable bag to the store, donating to save wildlife or planting trees. But still, things seem to keep getting worse.

This is because many of our well-intentioned actions are in reality rather superficial fixes. Recycling is a valuable pursuit, but it does not get to the underlying question: Why is the supermarket full of plastic packaging? Donating to conservation efforts is undoubtedly a good thing, but does not address the underlying issue that we tend to treat nature like a commodity, and even our best efforts to protect it are often limited to specific areas where nature is allowed to thrive or a particular species we are fond of.

We cannot expect real change unless we explore the reasons behind our actions and question why we are doing what we are doing.

To use an analogy, if society was a tree, climate change and pollution would be the fruits of this tree. They are outcomes – visible events, behaviours and actions. But these fruits do not exist in isolation; they are supported by the branches and trunk, which are the structures of the system that maintain the tree. Structures can be tangible things, like infrastructure, or intangible, like laws and organizations. If these structures remain the same, the fruit stays the same, too. Even further down, the tree has roots that take nutrients from the soil to feed the trunk and give the system life. In this system, the soil represents our values and beliefs. The soil ultimately determines how healthy the tree can be. Similarly, our values determine the outcomes we see in the world, positive or negative. In keeping with the metaphor, rotten roots will produce rotten fruits.

Take plastic waste, for instance. When we see a river so clogged with plastic waste that it creates disastrous floods, we might criticize the waste management system and wish for more recycling. However, this would not be going deep enough, instead we need to rethink waste. The outcome of accumulating waste is maintained by the structures that allow it to exist in the first place, such as the concept of single-use items or mass production. Going even deeper you would notice that the goals of the system are to produce and consume as much as possible, driven by the assumption that material consumption is necessary for happiness and progress. This system is characterized as a linear production system, where we take raw materials from the Earth, make them into products, and then throw them away when we are finished with them, as if the Earth had endless resources to make new products and could absorb unlimited waste. This is obviously not true, and to change the outcome of plastic accumulating in rivers – we will need to change this linear system into something different.

How do we make a change?

Because our current assumptions create risks, real change can only occur when we address the problem at the root, questioning the values and assumptions that ultimately guide our societies.

This year’s Interconnected Disaster Risks report developed a new theory to explain how truly transformative change can be achieved: the Theory of Deep Change (ToDC). Applying the theory involves the observation of existing outcomes, the identification of underlying root causes, a vision of a more desirable future and, based on this, the exploration of changes that could transform the system.

Applied to the example of waste, the Theory of Deep Change identifies the underlying values at play, namely our assumption that material consumption brings happiness, or that “new” things are better than old things, which leads us to accumulate more and more while discarding used items. As long as our system is grown from these assumptions, any measures created to deal with waste will struggle to be truly effective. Recycling can only help to a certain extent if we continue to produce ever-increasing volumes of garbage. In fact, research shows that having the option to recycle can even increase the amount of waste people produce.

If our definition of a more desirable future is a world without waste, we need to question the underlying beliefs of the system. If we would accept that resources are finite and precious, we would have different goals and create different structures than those we have today. We might, for example, value our current possessions more and try to extend their life. Aiming to do so would require different structures too. We may pass laws that mandate companies to offer repair for broken products, for instance, or to design them in such a way that parts can be replaced to keep them in use for as long as possible.

Inner and outer levers

Many of the changes we need to make are big, complex, whole-of-society changes. For this to happen, they need to occur at different levels. The Theory of Deep Change identifies which changes are most effective, namely those at the assumptions and structures levels of society. This is in contrast to many current efforts, which operate more on the surface, centred on altering only the outcomes of the existing systems without changing the system itself.

The Theory of Deep Change differentiates between two types of levers that have to come together to create deep and lasting change: inner and outer levers.

The most powerful levers act at the assumption level, to change our underlying beliefs and values; nurturing the soil from which to grow a new tree. Interventions to shift these assumptions are called inner levers. While assumptions are a powerful leverage point, on a societal level they may seem very difficult to change as it requires collective shifts in assumptions from many individuals. On the other hand, this is a change everyone has the power to make for themselves, and if enough individuals do so, it is extremely powerful. Collective shifts in assumptions do happen. The perception of smoking cigarettes, for instance, has changed dramatically over time. In the past, it was widely accepted and often glamorized, associated with higher social status in many cultures, and even with health benefits. However, as scientific studies in the middle of the 20th century began to expose serious health risks like lung cancer and heart disease, attitudes shifted. This change occurred both individually and collectively, owing to public health campaigns. Today, smoking is largely seen as a harmful habit, and the number of smokers is declining almost everywhere. When people today see old ads touting the benefits of smoking, they will likely wonder how society could possibly believe in this, showing that the change in assumptions truly took place.

While the most powerful leverage points are at the assumption level, changes also need to be made at the level of structures. These changes are called outer levers, and seemingly small changes in the structures of a society can spark imagination of what is possible and change reality. One of the main places where outer levers can be pulled for structural change is in our governance systems, such as laws, tax systems or subsidies. While inner and outer levers work best in unison, it is also possible that a change in one brings about a change in the other. The shift in attitudes towards smoking would not have been as successful without the enactment of new laws at multiple levels of government, for instance, which include measures such as strict regulation of smoking in public places, bans on tobacco advertising or mandatory warning labels on products.

Inner and outer levers can also work together when we reconsider responsibility. As humans, we tend to think about our own communities first when in fact many of the challenges we face affect the whole globe. This leads to many shortsighted actions that push negative consequences to other places; for example, when rich countries attempt to solve their trash disposal issues by exporting plastic waste to other countries, which frequently have much less ability to properly recycle it. This lack of global thinking and cooperation also leads to unilateral attempts by individuals, companies and countries to fix climate issues. There is, for instance, growing interest from scientists, governments and businesses in the research and deployment of solar geoengineering technologies such as spraying aerosols in the Earth’s stratosphere to reflect sunlight and lower average global temperatures. However, potential impacts will likely vary across the globe, as the artificial cooling will affect some regions more than others and there are uncertainties about the effects on regional weather patterns, and the provision of food and water. Their use would also likely concentrate power in the hands of a few major players, thereby increasing inequality.

Solar geoengineering is an example of a unilateral decision being made in one part of the world that would have far-reaching consequences for others. Worse still, solar geoengineering is a superficial fix to a known problem, climate change, to avoid committing to the real solution: phasing out fossil fuels. This cannot be accomplished by unilateral decision-making and self-serving behaviours, but will require cooperation and coordination on a global scale. To make this shift, we can pull an inner lever – shifting our assumptions to view ourselves not as isolated but as part of the global community, with a responsibility to care for the other people sharing the planet with us. Outer levers can be pulled in combination, to create international governance and commitments to work together to solve global problems.

We have made these kinds of changes before, for instance with the adoption and implementation of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, which regulates the production and consumption of substances depleting the ozone layer. The Montreal Protocol began with the recognition of a global problem and brought the world together to solve it. The agreement is often considered the most successful international environmental treaty in history: ratified by 197 countries, it is legally binding with respective penalties and comes with financial support for the implementation in developing countries. This example of both successful global cooperation and global solidarity for a common goal has led to steady improvements, with the ozone layer on track to make a full recovery by 2066.

It is easy to feel hopeless when confronted with the many interconnected risks our world faces today, the sources of which are so deeply rooted in our societies that they can seem impossible to overcome and difficult to imagine how we can change the outcome. But our systems are not set in stone, and human-made problems can be unmade. This report shows that it is possible to move beyond incremental changes and create a world that is not just free from disasters but also thriving. By redefining what we value and assume about the world, we can transform today’s interconnected risks into opportunities for collective well-being and resilience. It is possible to radically imagine a better world, believe in our power to achieve it and turn over a new leaf.