Search

Phil Tovey

The Rethink | Letting go of certainty offers a new way to tackle global crises

Q1: The idea of a "triple planetary crisis"—climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution—presents some tough challenges. What do you think are the biggest governance issues when these three crises overlap? The biggest governance challenge in…

27 March 2025

Journal paper: Navigating systemic risks in low-carbon energy transitions in an era of global polycrisis

Authors: Ashwin K. Seshadri, Ajay Gambhir, and Ramit DebnathThe world experienced its hottest year on record in 2024. 150 unprecedented climate disasters inflicted devastation across the globe. Transitioning to low-carbon energy has never been more…

02 April 2025

The Rethink | Awakening the nature-centric mindset

Q1: Leading science-policy initiatives -- IPBES, IPCC, UNDP, etc --have established that governance approaches focused solely on technology, regulation, and economics are insufficient. Western society is trapped in the 'Consumer Story'—what social…

22 April 2025

Speaker Update: Christiana Figueres to Keynote 'Currents of Change' Symposium; Additional Leaders Confirmed

ASRA is proud to announce that Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), will deliver the headline address during the opening plenary session on Sunday, 8 June, at Currents…

24 April 2025

From Benches to Boardrooms: Responding to systemic risks

To guide this work, ASRA’s Systemic Risk Response (SRR) Working Group co-developed a comprehensive set of assessment criteria that is grounded in ASRA’s Principles for Systemic Risk Assessment and Response. These 14 criteria transform broad…

29 April 2025

South Africa’s Climate Justice Charter Movement

Launched in 2020, South Africa’s Climate Justice Charter (CJC) is a grassroots-driven legal and moral framework responding to the country’s escalating climate crisis. Informed by communities, scientists, and activists, the CJC calls for a deep just…

29 April 2025

Community Action Collab: Building Resilience in India

The Community Action Collab (CAC), formerly the COVID Action Collab, is a nationwide platform strengthening the resilience of India’s most vulnerable populations—including informal workers, LGBTQ+ individuals, and smallholder farmers—against…

29 April 2025

Zimbabwe Friendship Bench

The Zimbabwe Friendship Bench is a grassroots mental health initiative that reimagines care delivery by training elders—“grandmothers”—to provide culturally resonant, evidence-based therapy in safe, public spaces. Born out of national trauma and a…

29 April 2025

Quito’s Resilient Agrifood System

Summary: Quito, Ecuador has built a resilient, inclusive agrifood system through two decades of coordinated, multi-stakeholder action. Faced with economic, geographic, and climate-related vulnerabilities, the city addressed the risk of food…

29 April 2025

New Zealand's Dynamic Pathways for Resilient Planning

Summary: New Zealand has more than a decade of experience in adopting Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU) approaches, such as Dynamic Adaptive Pathways Planning (DAPP) to manage climate-related risks such as flooding and sea-level rise.…

29 April 2025

Community Managed Natural Farming in Andhra Pradesh, India

Summary: The Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) initiative is a transformative, farmer-led response to systemic agricultural crises—soil degradation, water stress, biodiversity loss, and rural distress. Backed by the state and…

29 April 2025

The Doughnut model and Amsterdam’s Resilience Strategy

Summary: This case study explores the Doughnut model within the Doughnut Economics theory developed by economist Kate Raworth and its practical application through the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL). In response to mounting ecological…

29 April 2025

The Rethink: Inequality—History's Great Villain

There is a lot that is new – and scary – in our modern world. We have seen an accelerating onslaught of crises across global economic, environmental, and socio-political systems; what commentators refer to as a polycrisis. At the same time, as…

15 May 2025

ASRA announces STEER: First-of-Its-Kind Tool to Assess Systemic Risks

PARIS, FRANCE – Sunday, 8 June 2025: At its flagship symposium, "Currents of Change: New Horizons in Systemic Risk," ASRA (the Accelerator for Systemic Risk Assessment) today announced a demonstration version of STEER: Systemic Tool for Exploring…

08 June 2025

Imagining the Possible: New Responses to Systemic Risks

Shaped by the long arc of history and rooted in shared drivers and structural injustices, systemic risks bring with them compounding and cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to predict. Yet they also offer a rare opportunity to…

05 June 2025

Systemic Risk in Development Finance, ASRA-IDB Partnership

ASRA and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) are working together to co-develop a flagship briefing paper that reframes risk for multilateral development banks (MDBs), demonstrating how a new approach to risk planning can unlock new pathways…

09 June 2025

Introducing STEER | Your entry point to systemic risk thinking and action

In today’s world, risks don’t exist in isolation. We live in a time of polycrisis, where risks cascade and compound across systems. STEER (Systemic Tool for Exploring and Evaluating Risks) is a first-of-its-kind tool designed to help individuals and…

10 June 2025