SYSTEMS, FUTURES, INTELLIGENCE, STRATEGY
Dr Nafeez Ahmed keynoting at the Future of Sustainable Innovation Heads of State plenary panel in the Blue Zone at the 28th United Nations Conference of the Parties Climate Summit in Dubai, UAE
“Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed: an award-winning journalist, academic and prophet for the coming post-carbon age.”
Systems Theorist. Change Strategist. COMMUNICATIONS EXECUTIVE. FILM-MAKER. BESTSELLING AUTHOR. Investigative Journalist. KEYNOTE SPEAKER.
Dr Nafeez Ahmed is the founder of the Age of Transformation, the world’s only newsletter exploring what he calls ‘the planetary phase shift’, and Director of the System Shift Lab, a systems transformation consultancy based in London.
A globally renowned systems change expert and practitioner, he has worked with some of the biggest organisations in the world, including United Nations agencies, national governments, Fortune 500 companies, and the world’s largest philanthropic foundations - helping to build and deliver high-impact change strategies. The Evening Standard has twice named Nafeez in its Power 1,000 list of the top most influential Londoners. His award-winning journalism, praised by the Sunday Times, The Guardian, The Independent and many others, has been read and watched by millions. His new book, to be published imminently, is ALT REICH: THE NETWORK WAR TO DESTROY THE WEST FROM WITHIN (2024) - an investigative history of how the Nazi-aligned Pioneer Fund has given birth to a global far-right network on the cusp of subverting Western democracies.
Nafeez is the author of Failing States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence (Springer Nature); A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it (Pluto); The Clean Energy Transformation: A New Paradigm for Social Progress Within Planetary Boundaries (Club of Rome); lead contributing research editor for Rethinking Climate Change (RethinkX); co-author of Germany’s Path to Energy Freedom (RethinkX); and author of dozens of other books, reports and academic papers.
Nafeez Ahmed uses transdisciplinary scientific research, creative communications, organisational strategy and mindset tools to lead teams and advise leaders, companies and non-profits on how to transform systems for the rapidly emerging post-carbon era. Global civilisation, Nafeez says, is at the most pivotal turning point in human history - key societal choices, system reconfigurations, and technology disruptions could elevate humanity to a new Age of Abundance; but we also face unprecedented risks of crisis and collapse.
“If you still need something to worry about, how about a grand conflagration of climate, financial, energy, food, and civil-liberties crises, which might destroy the world as we know it before the century is out? Such troubles, Ahmed argues, are not blips in our civilisation but ‘integral to the ideology, structure and logic of the global political economy’, which therefore needs to be changed if humanity is to survive.
Ahmed could be charged with a certain ebullience in his delineating of potential catastrophe, which will necessitate ‘the dawn of a post-carbon civilisation’. But his arguments are in the main forceful and well-sourced.”
Dr Nafeez Ahmed keynoting at the 28th United Nations Climate Summit at a Heads of State plenary explaining the risks and opportunities of the inevitable post-carbon transformation
Forecasting
Nafeez has predicted many of the most consequential events in recent history including the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the 2008 banking collapse, the break-up of Europe, the mainstreaming of the far-right in the West, and the 2018 stock market dive.
In 2010, he predicted the total transformation of the global economy and industrial civilisation this century, and most likely before mid-century, due to the inevitable transition to a post-carbon future. His work is dedicated to helping individuals and organisations use systems tools to prepare for and adapt to this emerging reality, to maximise chances of a new age of abundance, while minimising risks of breakdown.
“Nafeez is developing a unique form of what he calls systems journalism, intended to throw light on the true scale of the planetary crisis, how this crisis demonstrates the inevitability of the demise of the prevailing system, and what true systems change inside and out might look like… Much of his writing powerfully conveys this sense of living in momentous, unsettling times, a time when we need independent thinking, and journalism, if we’re to thread the needle of constant breakdown, and renewal”
Keynote speaking
Nafeez Ahmed has spoken at hundreds of organisations and events including Aviva Investors, the Biodiversity Funders Group, Stockholm Climate Week sponsored by UNDP, the Royal Society of Arts, the Secret Garden Party, Green European Foundation, the Elevate Festival, the Centre for Investigative Journalism’s Logan Symposium, the Global Investigative Journalism Conference, the International Security Management Association, Ubisoft, Barclays Wealth, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, to name just a few.
In 2023, he delivered a keynote speech presenting his work on the Planetary Phase Shift to a Heads of State plenary at the 28th United Nations Conference of the Parties Climate Summit. He participated as a delegate working with a range of governments from the Global South, including the Gambia, Malaysia, Kenya and Nigeria.
BOOKS
Nafeez’s consulting and advisory work is based on two decades of transdisciplinary research integrating cutting edge data across the natural and social sciences, including high-impact peer-reviewed research. In 2010, as author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it (Pluto), Nafeez Ahmed created the world’s first social science systems framework encompassing the interconnections of climate, energy, food, money, terrorism, and state-militarisation.
Ahmed’s A User’s Guide was the first major peer-reviewed study integrating analysis of climate, energy, food, and economic systems with conflict, terrorism and state-power. It offered a roadmap to a viable post-carbon future.
In 2017, he advanced this with the introduction of his Global Phase Shift framework in Failing States, Collapsing Systems: Biophysical Triggers of Political Violence (Springer Nature). He continues to evolve, test and apply the Global Phase Shift systems framework through real-world practice, consulting, and academic research.
Ahmed’s Failing States, published by global science publisher Springer Nature, created a new peer-reviewed systems framework connecting Earth System Disruption (ESD) with Human System Destabilisation (HSD)
Nafeez is the author of eight books in total, hundreds of investigations, and over 30 academic and policy papers. He holds a PhD in International Relations and a Masters in War & Peace Studies from the University of Sussex’s School of Global Studies, where he taught undergraduate students. His earlier work applied an investigative systems approach to international security, examining major conflicts and terrorist incidents, including in the Middle East and Central Asia, as well as the September 11th 2011 and July 7th 2005 terrorist attacks in the United States and the United Kingdom. This work was officially used by the 9/11 Commission and the 7/7 Coroner’s Inquest.
Journalism
He is a former investigative journalist for Byline Times, VICE and The Guardian, and his work has been read and watched by millions. His writing is published in dozens of the world’s biggest publications including The Independent on Sunday, The Independent, The Times, Sunday Times, The Scotsman, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, Quartz, New York Observer, Boston Globe, Toronto Star, The New Statesman, Prospect, Le Monde diplomatique, The Correspondent, Yes! Magazine, Raw Story, New Internationalist, Huffington Post UK, Al-Arabiya English, AlterNet, The Ecologist, and Asia Times, among other places.
Consulting and Advisory
Nafeez Ahmed builds, advises and consults for organisations and networks to support system change strategies across both the public and private sectors.
Among the organisations he has advised are the UK Ministry of Defence’s Defence Academy, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the UK Foreign Office, the US State Department, multiple UN agencies, the Government of Malaysia, the Government of the Gambia, Aviva Investors, Ubisoft, and beyond. He is currently Director of The Futures Lab, a new advisory division of Unitas Communications Ltd.
He is winner of multiple awards including the GCP&S Routledge Essay Prize, the Naples Prize created by decree of the Italian President in 1954, and several Project Censored Awards for outstanding investigative journalism.
“International security analyst and consultant who has spent much time looking at how environmental risks and terrorism threaten our eco-security and well-being.”
Policy work
Nafeez Ahmed is lead contributing editor of Rethinking Climate Change: How Humanity Can Choose to Reduce Emissions 90% by 2035 through the Disruption of Energy, Transportation, and Food with Existing Technologies (RethinkX, August 2021)
RethinkX’s flagship climate report, for which Ahmed was research editor and a contributing writer, shows how leveraging key technologies can drive system changes to go beyond net zero by the 2030s.
He is co-author of Germany’s Path to Freedom Energy by 2030 (RethinkX, May 2022) which applied this framework to create a national roadmap for Europe’s largest economy.
Ahmed was the main writer and co-author of this special brief applying RethinkX’s net zero roadmap to Europe. Delivered to German policymakers, it helped influence national energy policy.
He is author of The Clean Energy Transformation: a new paradigm for social progress within planetary boundaries (Club of Rome, August 2022) - a Deep Dive Paper which was part of the Earth4All Transformational Economics Commission project.
Ahmed’s Club of Rome paper explains the core dynamics of the clean energy transformation, how fast it will scale, and how decision-makers should leverage emerging opportunities for clean energy superabundance.
He is the author of an award-winning academic paper, ‘The international relations of crisis and the crisis of international relations’ published in the peer-reviewed journal Global Change, Peace & Security. The paper won the Routledge-GCP&S Essay Prize.
Ahmed’s award-winning academic paper provided an in-depth systems critique of orthodox International Relations theory and its failure to account for fundamental empirical and historical data.
Films and multimedia
He is the co-producer and lead writer of The Crisis of Civilization, a feature documentary film endorsed by BAFTA award winning filmmaker Nick Broomfield, based on Ahmed’s book, A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization. He also co-produced, co-wrote and co-presented The Crisis of Civilization 3-episode podcast series.
He co-produced and wrote Rethinking Humanity, a short documentary film and online video series based on the book Rethinking Humanity: Five Foundational Sector Disruptions, the Lifecycle of Civilizations, and the Coming Age of Freedom (RethinkX, 2020) authored by James Arbib and Tony Seba.
Nafeez Ahmed offers a suite of interconnected strategy, research, foresight, communications, multimedia and business planning services to lead, guide or advise organisations on a journey of whole systems awareness and action.
It’s 2024. While I haven’t used this space to post much in the way of updates that’s because I’m doing more than I’ve ever done before. I try to use this blog to highlight key milestones in my work - but things have moved at such intensity, I’ve barely had a moment to pause to do that. So I’m grateful that in early 2024, I’m finding myself with a bit of space to fill in those gaps. I’ve moved from focusing on deep, complex investigations, into something even more rewarding - applying my understanding of complex systems at every level to how we can rapidly transform our civilisation within decades.