Sooner Than We Think! Breakdown of Our Planetary, Trade & Finance Systems

Sooner Than We Think! Breakdown of Our Planetary, Trade & Finance Systems – Most of us are busy shoring up resilience for extreme weather but is anyone prioritising the deadly risk of fast melting ice? This could trigger a planetary systems breakdown sooner than we think, significantly raising the risk of financial collapse posing grave risks to governments & the private sector.

So, this month, we talk to leading climate scientist, Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, about the decades away breakdown of the Atlantic Ocean current (AMOC) and expert Dr. Chen Zhao on a hidden threat beneath Antarctica’s ice sheets that could accelerate sea level rise (SLR). If this continues, 90% of the top 30 largest oil ports could sink within 25-45 years. We also share 3 thoughts on why financial collapse may not be far behind.

The hotter it is, the faster ice melts. Heatwaves can get as hot as 31°C in Lhasa high up in the Himalayas to 38°C in Verkhoyansk in Arctic Siberia; Singapore’s highest temperature in the last four decades was only 37°C. With these temperatures it’s not hard to imagine that our glaciers, ice sheets, snow & permafrost are melting like ice cream on a hot summer day. No wonder our cryosphere is deteriorating.

When our cryosphere fails, planetary systems fail too as 2/3rds of planetary tipping points are in the cryosphere – it’s the lifeline that regulates our planet’s climate, freshwater, rainfall, weather patterns & ocean circulation. So, why isn’t protecting our cryosphere front & centre of all climate, business & finance forums alongside our forests & oceans? Collapse looms yet there’s no Plan B for rapid ice melt. Key tipping points aren’t 100 years away but just decades away…

AMOC (a critical system of ocean currents that regulates global climate) is showing alarming signs of instability & weakening due to massive losses in sea ice and accelerated ocean warming. Recent studies suggest it could collapse within decades, dramatically impacting weather, ecosystems & food security.

To unpack this, we spoke to Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf, Co-Head of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research – Earth System Analysis. He’s worried and warned that if tipping points are passed in the next few decades, full collapse becomes practically inevitable due to self-amplifying feedback.

How long will it take for AMOC to fully wind down? Can we still prevent this from happening? Read our interview to find out.

Worryingly, since we talked to Rahmstorf, new research has surfaced saying that AMOC collapse can no longer be considered a low-likelihood event. Even with low emissions, AMOC slows drastically by 2100 & completely shuts off after. The tipping point when shutdown becomes inevitable is now likely in 10-20 years.

Another alarming thing that’s happening in Antarctica is the “discovery of subglacial water”. If you’ve never heard of it, this is a case in point that ice melt is a big blind spot. Here, we turn to Antarctica expert Dr. Chen Zhao from the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies to give us the low down on this hidden threat lurking under the ice sheets. Her Nature Comms. paper “Subglacial water amplifies Antarctic contributions to sea level rise” published in April 2025 terrified us.

Subglacial water underneath the thick ice sheet can “lubricate” the ice, allowing it to slide more rapidly toward the ocean. This could triple the ice flow, warns Dr. Zhao. It’s a SLR driver we’ve missed because until now, it was largely hidden – buried under more than 2km of ice – making it extremely difficult to observe.

What’s scarier is that Dr. Zhao says many existing SLR projections neglect subglacial water or use oversimplified assumptions. This means we might be faced with much higher & faster sea levels than what we’re preparing or have planned for! We are thus likely maladapting, widening our risk gaps.

Subglacial meltwater & ice dynamics suggest that tipping points for ice sheet collapse could be reached sooner than expected, possibly by 2050. So, get on top of the newest Antarctica threats with Zhao now – see her ground view on the future of Antarctica, what keeps her up at night, other overlooked risks like “basal sliding” and what needs to be done to improve projections.

Given the current accelerating state of ice melt, we must start preparing for accelerated SLR now. Our global critical energy infrastructure could be the first to go underwater.

Our latest report finds that nearly 90% of the world’s 30 largest oil ports serving the Top 5 oil producing & consuming as well as exporting & importing nations could be hit by fast rising seas by 2070. This should be a wake-up call for the oil industry as ~2/3rds of global oil is shipped. Find out which ports are safe or not here.

We raised this grim irony of oil supertankers being overwhelmed by SLR last year but we felt compelled to expand our analysis from 15 to 30 ports because persistent annual warming this year >1.5°C as well as a new safe threshold for ice sheets that is closer to 1°C set in May 2025, raised the danger levels.

COP30 host Brazil, ranked #5 globally by oil demand, will also be hit as oil terminals in Santos, the country’s key port, will be affected by 1m of SLR. The Strait of Malacca ports are also vulnerable – not only to 1m of SLR but could also lose strategic importance as the Arctic Sea route opens up. Surely, Malaysia, the 2025 ASEAN chair should table this discussion at COP30 as well as the ASEAN Business & Investment Summit next month?

Adaptation is the only way to reduce risk. But this can be costly… maybe that’s why Li Ka Shing is desperate to sell his ports – 36 of the 43 CK Hutchison ports are impacted by just 1m of SLR!

Our cryosphere is clearly the biggest climate & nature risk to business & finance, yet cryosphere risks are only mentioned briefly in disclosure frameworks like IFRS-S2 & TNFD. Surely as the cryosphere underpins all chronic physical risks as well as exacerbates extreme weather events, it should be prioritised?

Right now, because it’s not spotlighted, no one is paying attention to what’s happening in our polar regions. Most of us will think “poor penguins & polar bears” when we read about ice losses in the Arctic/Antarctica when we actually should be thinking… s#*t!! ice losses = faster SLR = asset/city underwater = $$$ write down. The fact that ice is not front & centre of policy making or boardroom discourse is very worrying.

Compounding this blindspot is that most of the existing physical risk stress testing tools used by corporates & banks to assess climate risks DO NOT take into account cryosphere risks adequately. This means that this systemic risk continues to remain hidden even as ice losses continue to accelerate. The danger of getting blindsided only grows greater – see our 3 thoughts on this – don’t get caught out.

We stand at an “ice crossroad”. All our previous SLR projections and adaptation plans were built on “slow” melting ice. But Like Zhao said, we are “discovering that processes we once thought were slow are actually shockingly fast”.

We can no longer ignore ice. We are losing glaciers & ice sheets at a rate of 50mn tonnes per hour, every hour for the last 30 years. Ice losses are now the #1 driver of SLR.

If we are not delivering rapid & deep emission cuts to “slow down” ice melt, we have to throw out all our previous adaptation plans and start planning for rapid ice melt. We desperately need a Ice Plan B… not tomorrow, but today. Only, then can we avert systems breakdown.