CASCADES enjoyed considerable success on all fronts. The project engaged a broad set of stakeholders (e.g. focused on trade, supply chains, finance and international business) and contributed to a whole system understanding of the relevant stakeholders through workshops, policy briefs and the immersive ‘policy simulation’ method.
The project improved stakeholder knowledge of risk-management intervention points (i.e. policies and management strategies that help them steer future system development) by integrating research and policy activities on development and security issues, as well as trade choke points and developing impact assessment tools for the financial and insurance sectors (Image 3).
Publications from several different work packages were shared on Prevention Web, the knowledge platform of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. A WP4 report (Detges & Foong (2022)) fed into a confidential report to the UN Special Coordinator for development in the Sahel and formed the basis for a briefing of the Crisis Early Warning and Analysis Unit at the German Federal Foreign Office. Companies and financial investors have applied the climate stress test developed in WP5 to evaluate their exposure to climate-related risks internationally. CASCADES' policy exercises extended beyond the project, reaching various stakeholder groups from young professionals in the Arctic to high-level professionals in Brussels during the Food Alert event, creating a ripple effect.
CASCADES has produced video explainers, comment pieces, blogs and podcasts, and choreographed communication and dissemination activities. At the 5th ECCA conference in June 2021, which was co-organised by CASCADES, we released a range of social media outputs, including videos outlining the CASCADES conceptual framework and a promotional campaign around our strategic simulation exercise.
During COP26, Chatham House hosted a virtual ‘Climate Risk and Security Pavilion’, in which CASCADES played a major role, showcasing the innovative work taking place and bringing together a range of experts to discuss the challenges in grappling with cascading climate risks. Five CASCADES events were hosted, spanning the different workstreams, with high-level representatives from organisations including the European Central Bank, World Bank, and IPCC. The pavilion attracted nearly 2000 unique users from 120 countries. During COP27, CASCADES hosted a virtual platform dedicated to the project, and at COP28 the strategic recommendations were presented and well received by attending policymakers, leading to further invitations and engagements.
CASCADES has had a major impact on the international research community by pioneering and developing new methods and interdisciplinary analysis. Over 40 peer-reviewed journal articles and 17 policy briefs have been produced and were published in high-ranking journals such as Science, PNAS and Nature Climate Change. Several of these publications were cited in the IPCC AR6 WG2 report and laid the groundwork for decision text at COP28 on cascading climate risks for the first time: “recognizing that climate change impacts are often transboundary in nature and may involve complex, cascading risks that can benefit from collective consideration and knowledge-sharing, climate-informed transboundary management and cooperation on global adaptation solutions”.
The topic of ‘cascading and systemic risks’ has gained momentum within the scientific community, which led to a scientific conference on ‘Cascading climate change impacts and systemic risks in Europe and beyond’ co-organised by sister projects CASCADES and RECEIPT, bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of scientists.
