交叉的未来：未来百年受气候变化塑造及塑造气候变化的全球趋势

Climate Change over the Next Century Thijs van Aken and Laura BirkmanMay 2026 Intersecting FuturesGlobal Trends Shaping and Shaped by Climate Change over the Next Century Authors: Thijs van Aken and Laura Birkman Contributors: Anna Hoefnagels, Lennart Engel and Ali Aydogdu The cover image was AI-generatedwith OpenAI’s ChatGPT. May 2026 This essay has been adapted from research conductedin 2025 for the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure andWater Management. ©The HagueCentre for Strategic Studies. All rightsreserved. No part of this report may be reproduced and/or published in any form by print, photo print, microfilm orany other means without prior written permission fromHCSS. All images are subject to the licenses of theirrespective owners. Table of Contents 1.Introduction42.Geopolitical Shifts and Pressures72.1.Climate Geopolitics in a Fragmenting World (now-2050)72.2.Demographic Shifts and Emerging Risks to GlobalStability (2050-2100)103.Geoeconomic and Technological Trends123.1.Critical Dependencies: Innovation, Supply Chainsand Financing (now-2050)133.2.The New Economics of Climate Resilience:Perpetuating Inequalities? (2050-2100)164.Environmental and Societal Developments194.1.Climate Impacts on Social Stability (now-2050)194.2.Climate Displacement, Environmental Degradationand Sovereign Decline (2050-2100)215.Conclusion24 1.Introduction The risks of climate change are well known. Rising seas, extreme weather, higher temper-atures, and natural resource scarcity are driving ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss,and economic pressures. These direct, or first-order, effects are worsening. States aroundthe world are already facing increased disaster risks, such as the deadly flash flood seen inTexas in July 2025 or the unprecedented 70 day heatwave that struck China’s Yangtze RiverValley in 2022, affecting more than 900 million people. Extreme weather events and environ-mental changes also impact economic sectors and livelihoods. Over the last three decades,for example, climate impacts alone have negatively impacted agricultural efficiency with 7.4%in Indonesia, 2.8% in China and 2.5% in Western Europe. Under a high-emission scenariowithout adaption, these losses could rise to a 36.6% decline of staple crop yields by the end ofthe century.1 Indirect, or second-order, effects are on the rise too, impacting human wellbeing, societalstability, and global relations. The World Health Organization, for example, estimates thatclimate change could cause around 250,000 additional deaths annually between 2030 and2050 due to undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea, and heat stress.2Additionally, conflicts relatedto scarce water resources more than doubled between 2021 and 2023,3concentrating inWestern and sub-Saharan Africa, Southern Asia and Latin America. According to EU’s currentclimate chief, Wopke Hoekstra, access to such resources has long played a role in conflictand warfare, but the intensifying effects of climate change are expected to multiply thiseffect significantly, potentially by a factor of four. Maintaining the flexibility to adapt to climatechange, is essential.4 To address these diverse impacts of climate change now and in the future, states and inter-national organisations around the world are devising climate adaptation strategies. In 2021,for example, the EU presented its renewed commitment to increase climate change prepar-edness and resilience by 2050. It aims to accelerate adaptation through knowledge gener-ation, data enhancement and by promoting nature-based solutions for adaptation.5Buildingon this strategy, the European Commission aims to establish a new integrated frameworkfor European climate resilience and risk management in the second half of 2026.6Othercountries that have developed a National Adaptation Plan or are in the process of doing so include China, India, and 75 other countries across the Global South.7International effortsare also being made to address the unevenly distributed impacts of climate change in nationsthat lack the capacity to respond. The United Nations Environment Programme, for example,has supported climate adaptation initiatives in more than 50 countries, primarily in theGlobal South.8 These efforts are not enough, however, as developing countries still face a financing gap ofat least $284 billion annually to adequately adapt to the adverse effects of climate change.9While significant amounts of funding are needed to enable worldwide climate adaption, thecosts of inaction are equally daunting. Under a scenario of 3°C global warming, average globalGDP losses are projected to reach 10%, with some regions in the Global South facing lossesof more than 15%.10Even in a conservative scenario of 1.5°C, climate impacts are projected bythe World Meteorological Organization to reach $1.266 trillion over the period 2025-2100.11 Climate change ismore than anenvironmentalissue: it acts as athreat multiplieracross social,economic andpolitical systems. As more