Anthropocene Diplomacy

How do we find pathways to global sustainability in times of geopolitical turmoil and polycrisis?

Across domains — from climate and biodiversity to oceans, pandemics, and pollution — geopolitical fragmentation, short-term thinking, and growing systemic complexity are making multilateral progress harder to achieve and sustain. Yet human societies have repeatedly demonstrated the capacity to build new forms of cooperation in response to shared challenges, and there is no shortage of actors with both the incentive and the potential to act.

The Anthropocene Diplomacy project asks what it takes to unlock that potential. Drawing on a new scientific understanding of the systemic dynamics that generate and sustain today’s crises — so-called Anthropocene traps — the project works to equip a broader set of diplomatic actors with strategies that can actually work under current conditions. It does so through two core outputs, developed in close interaction with each other: a playbook and a simulator.

The playbook guides key actors on how to advance diplomacy for sustainability when multilateralism is under pressure. It maps the challenges currently facing major international treaties in climate, biodiversity, oceans, pandemics, and pollution — whether in negotiation, ratification, or implementation — and identifies which actors have the leverage to shift these dynamics. To build the playbook, we combine literature review and interviews with diplomats and practitioners, text corpus analysis of treaty processes, and keystone actor mapping across business, government, and civil society. The result will be a set of design principles for engaging these actors to build effective sustainability coalitions.

The simulator introduces a new frontier in quantitative diplomatic modelling. Using agent-based modelling integrated into Earth system models, it predicts how coalitions of keystone actors can achieve interlinked sustainability goals — across climate, biodiversity, and pandemics — while contending with the self-reinforcing dynamics that currently obstruct international cooperation.

The aim is to produce scientific products and promote awareness and action related to the findings obtained through novel forms of collaboration. We will synthesize trends toward biosphere stewardship across society, including civil society and social movements, government, and business, etc. In parallel, the idea is to work with artists and civil society to communicate these empirics of hope in novel ways and invite people from different walks of life to reflect about what it means for them to be hopeful and what it takes to become hopeful. Also to provide a platform to share hope fuelling the belief that it is in our capacity to change in the face of uncertainty.

The project works transdisciplinarily with partners including the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) and the World Benchmarking Alliance. Our international scientific partners include the Science in Diplomacy Lab in Geneva, Utrecht University, and the University of Maine. We also collaborate with the Stockholm Resilience Centre as part of the Mistra Utmana — Anthropocene Navigator project.