Abstract
This dashboard assembles published indicators into a single view of polycrisis resilience: the pressures bearing on the world system, the adaptive capacity of countries to absorb them, and the financial buffers that decide whether a shock becomes a crisis. Pressures are rising on every measure tracked. NASA's GISTEMP record puts 2024 as the warmest year in the instrumental series at 1.28 °C above the 1951–1980 mean, with 2025 at 1.18 °C; the number of people forcibly displaced rose from 65.3 million at the end of 2015 to 117.8 million at the end of 2025; the UN reports that the number of people affected by climate-related disasters has more than doubled since 2015; and the World Economic Forum's 2026 survey places five environmental risks among the ten most severe over the coming decade.
Adaptive capacity is measured here with the University of Notre Dame's ND-GAIN Country Index, 2026 release, covering 190 countries with data from 1995 to 2024. Using global medians as reference lines, 73 countries combine above-median vulnerability with below-median readiness, including 23 of the 24 low-income countries in the index. The median ND-GAIN score of high-income countries exceeded that of low-income countries by 24.0 points in 1995, 25.2 in 2015 and 25.8 in 2024: on this measure the adaptive-capacity gap has not narrowed in three decades. Change since 2015 has nevertheless been uneven within groups, with two-thirds of lower-middle-income countries improving their score against fewer than half of low-income countries.
The buffers that convert capacity into protection are thin where exposure is highest. Developing countries' adaptation finance needs, estimated by UNEP at US$310–365 billion a year by 2035, are twelve to fourteen times international public flows of US$26 billion in 2023. Of US$318 billion in natural catastrophe losses in 2024, 57 per cent were uninsured. Social protection covers 52.4 per cent of the world's population but 9.7 per cent in low-income countries, and UNCTAD reports that 3.7 billion people live in countries where interest payments exceed spending on health or education.
The dashboard also tracks where capacity has demonstrably grown. Countries reporting multi-hazard early warning systems rose from 52 in 2015 to 108 in 2024 and 119 in 2025, and global social protection coverage rose from 42.8 to 52.4 per cent. These are the clearest instances in the data of capacity built deliberately at scale, and both are low-cost, institution-led interventions rather than capital-intensive ones. The interactive explorer allows readers to locate any country on the vulnerability–readiness plane, filter by region and income group, and compare its 2024 score with 2015.
Overview
Three readings on one screen: the pressures converging on the world system, the capacity of countries to absorb them, and the buffers that decide whether a shock becomes a crisis.
The reading
Every pressure indicator on this dashboard is higher than it was in 2015. Most capacity indicators have moved little, and the gap between the countries most and least able to adapt is wider than it was in 1995. The exceptions — early warning coverage more than doubled, social protection now reaching over half the world — are both cheap, institution-led measures, which is the most practically useful pattern in the data.
1. Pressures
Physical, human and perceived risk, each rising on its own track — and increasingly arriving together.
Global temperature anomaly, 1950–2025
Annual land–ocean mean. 2024 is the warmest year in the record at +1.28°C; 2025 followed at +1.18°C. The baseline is mid-twentieth century, not pre-industrial, so these values sit below the commonly quoted figures against 1850–1900.
People forcibly displaced
2025 recorded the first fall in a decade, from 122m (revised) to 117.8m — still 80 per cent above 2015.
The ten most severe global risks, next decade
- EnvExtreme weather events
- EnvBiodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse
- EnvCritical change to Earth systems
- TechMisinformation and disinformation
- TechAdverse outcomes of AI technologies
- EnvNatural resource shortages
- SocInequality
- TechCyber insecurity
- SocSocietal polarization
- EnvPollution
Five of ten are environmental. Over two years the order changes: geoeconomic confrontation ranks first, misinformation second and societal polarization third — the near term is geopolitical, the long term ecological.
2. Capacity Explorer
Where each of 190 countries sits on vulnerability and readiness. Search for a country, filter by region, or click a point.
Each point is a country (ND-GAIN 2026 release, 2024 data). Dashed lines mark the global medians. Lower-right is the high-vulnerability, low-readiness quadrant. Click legend entries to show or hide income groups.
73
countries in the high-vulnerability, low-readiness quadrant
23 of 24
low-income countries are in that quadrant
38 of 46
lower-middle-income countries are in that quadrant
3. The Capacity Gap
Thirty years of ND-GAIN scores by income group. The lines rise; the distance between them does not shrink.
Median ND-GAIN score by income group, 1995–2024
The difference between the high-income and low-income medians was 24.0 points in 1995, 25.2 in 2015 and 25.8 in 2024. Income groups use current World Bank classifications applied to the whole series.
Countries improving since 2015
Lower-middle-income countries improved most often — 31 of 46. Fewer than half of low-income countries did.
What the gap is made of
Vulnerability combines exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity across six sectors: food, water, health, ecosystem services, human habitat and infrastructure.
Readiness measures the ability to use investment for adaptation: economic, governance and social components.
The score is readiness minus vulnerability, rescaled. A country can improve by reducing exposure, by building institutions, or both — and the data show the second moving more slowly almost everywhere.
4. Buffers & Finance
Capacity becomes protection only through money: adaptation finance, insurance, social protection and the fiscal room to pay for them.
Adaptation finance: needs and flows
Needs by 2035 shown as the modelled-to-plan range; flows are international public adaptation finance in 2023, down from $28bn the year before.
The protection gap, 2024
Total losses $318bn, of which $181bn (57%) uninsured; the insured segment is the difference.
Social protection coverage
The buffer that keeps a household shock from becoming destitution reaches fewer than one in ten people in low-income countries.
Where African budgets went, per person
Interest exceeded both education and health. Developing countries paid $995bn in net interest in 2025.
5. Where Capacity Grew
The clearest gains in the data were built deliberately, at scale, and cheaply.
Countries with multi-hazard early warning systems
From 52 in 2015 to 119 in 2025 — 60 per cent of countries. Coverage remains lowest in small island states (43%) and least-developed countries.
Global social protection coverage
Over half the world is now covered for the first time — but the gain is concentrated in middle-income countries.
Why these two moved
Early warning and social protection share three properties. Their unit cost is low relative to the losses they avoid. They are built by institutions — meteorological services, social registries, payment systems — rather than by large capital projects. And they work against every hazard rather than one, which is what matters when shocks converge. They are the closest thing in this dataset to a general-purpose resilience investment.
6. Reading the Dashboard
What the indicators can and cannot tell you.
This dashboard places indicators from different sources, years and methods side by side. It does not combine them into a composite "polycrisis resilience score", because doing so would require weighting judgements that the evidence cannot settle and would hide the variation that makes the comparison useful.
The central measure of adaptive capacity is the ND-GAIN Country Index, which is designed for climate adaptation rather than for every kind of shock. It is used here because it is the most complete long-run, country-level measure of the combination that matters — exposure to hazards and the institutional and economic readiness to respond — and because its readiness component captures much of what resilience to non-climate shocks also depends on. Readers should treat it as a strong proxy, not a complete measure.
Three cautions apply. Income groups use current World Bank classifications across the whole series, so countries that changed group are counted in their present one. The quadrant lines are global medians, a reference rather than a threshold with policy meaning. And several pressure indicators — disasters, displacement — reflect reporting coverage as well as underlying change, which tends to understate the earlier years.
Related analysis in this series develops the argument behind several panels: financing the synergy on the vulnerability premium in sovereign borrowing; the last third on why recurring public services stalled; and the economics of prevention on why early warning outperforms response spending.
Sources
Every figure on the dashboard is drawn from the sources below.
- University of Notre DameND-GAIN Country Index, 2026 release — vulnerability, readiness and GAIN scores, 1995–2024, for 192 countries; 190 with complete 2024 data are shown. Region and income classifications from the World Bank API.
- NASA GISSGISTEMP v4 — global annual land–ocean temperature anomalies relative to 1951–1980.
- UNHCRGlobal Trends 2025 — 117.8 million forcibly displaced at end-2025, down from 122 million; Global Trends 2015 — 65.3 million; the 2020 edition — 82.4 million.
- World Economic ForumGlobal Risks Report 2026 — ten-year and two-year severity rankings.
- United NationsThe Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026 — people affected by climate-related disasters more than doubled since 2015.
- UNDRR and WMOGlobal Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems 2025 — 119 countries (60%); 108 in 2024 and 52 in 2015.
- UNEPAdaptation Gap Report 2025 — needs of US$310–365bn a year by 2035 against US$26bn of international public flows in 2023.
- Swiss Re Institutesigma 1/2025 — US$318bn of 2024 catastrophe losses, 57% uninsured.
- ILOWorld Social Protection Report 2024–26 — coverage of 52.4% globally (42.8% in 2015) and by income group.
- UNCTADA World of Debt 2025 — African per capita interest, education and health spending; A World of Debt 2026 — US$995bn net interest and 3.7 billion people in 51 countries, as reported by Anadolu Agency.
Metadata
- Keywords
- polycrisisresilienceadaptive capacitydashboardND-GAINclimate vulnerabilityreadinessconverging risksglobal risksforced displacementearly warning systemsadaptation financeprotection gapsocial protection
- JEL classification
- Q54, O19, H12, F63, Q56 — climate and natural disasters; international linkages to development; crisis management; economic development and globalization; environment and development
- Data and method
- This dashboard compiles published data rather than producing new modelling. Country adaptive-capacity scores, vulnerability and readiness are from the University of Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative's ND-GAIN Country Index, 2026 release, downloaded in full (190 countries with complete 2024 data; Liechtenstein and San Marino excluded for missing values) and joined to World Bank region and income classifications from the World Bank API. The quadrant reference lines at the global medians (vulnerability 0.450, readiness 0.385), the count of 73 high-vulnerability, low-readiness countries, the income-group medians over time and the shares of countries improving since 2015 are the author's calculations from those data. Global temperature anomalies are NASA GISTEMP v4 annual land–ocean means relative to 1951–1980, not to a pre-industrial baseline. Displacement figures are from UNHCR Global Trends reports for the years shown; risk rankings from the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2026; early-warning coverage from UNDRR and WMO's Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems reports; adaptation finance from UNEP's Adaptation Gap Report 2025; catastrophe losses from Swiss Re Institute sigma 1/2025; social protection from the ILO World Social Protection Report 2024–26; debt figures from UNCTAD's A World of Debt 2025 and, for 2025 data, A World of Debt 2026 as reported on publication; and disaster and progress statements from the UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2026. All figures were verified against their sources in October 2026. Indicators come from different sources, years and methods and are presented side by side, not combined into a composite score. The dashboard is descriptive rather than predictive.
- Report
- H Heuristics Digital Report № 2026-21 · Published 11 October 2026
- Licence
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- Cite as
- Hunter Hughes (2026). Polycrisis Resilience in the Twenty-First Century: A dashboard on building adaptive capacity for an era of converging global risks. H Heuristics Digital Report 2026-21. https://digitalreports.hheuristics.com/reports/polycrisis-resilience-dashboard/