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The Earth Commission is a scientific commission synthesizing the latest research to define the conditions for a healthy planet, informing the setting of science-based targets to help maintain Earth’s life support systems: climate, land, biodiversity, freshwater and oceans. The scientists are also identifying just distribution of these global commons resources and levers of transformation including new governance […]

“The fundamental departure point of this working group is that there are missing links between the planetary level targets and local actors such as business and cities. There is a need to conduct a systematic review on some of the challenges and methodologies of cross-scale translation,” explained Xuemei Bai, who is an expert on cities […]

A ‘safety net’ made up of multiple, interlinked and ambitious goals is needed to tackle nature’s alarming decline. No single goal can capture the broad range of characteristics that need to be sustained, concludes a large international team of researchers analysing the new goals for nature being drafted by the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity. […]

The mission of the Earth Commission is to define a “safe and just corridor” that ensures a future where people can thrive in harmony with nature. This includes identifying thresholds for protecting Earth’s life support systems such as biodiversity, freshwater, oceans and land, but equally crucial are aspects of human wellbeing, socio-economic factors and justice. […]

By Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Director of The World In 2050 and Emeritus Research Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) While the future of humanity has always been unpredictable, major challenges⁠ — like the current pandemic — have been an inevitable part of our shared history. What is different now, however, is that […]

Ten more years or less to stop climate change and devastating environmental degradation. We have all heard these unsettling words and they are now being echoed with increased urgency. With an ever-increasing amount of scientific data showing that serious action needs to be taken at all societal levels, why are we still falling short on […]

As the ongoing COVID-19 crisis has made clear, the state of our planet is a result of dynamic interactions between human and natural systems. In the Anthropocene, a new era in which humans are the driving force of change on Earth, the setting of actionable targets to guide our interactions with nature is an important […]

Climate change has its well-known target of limiting global warming to below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. Is it time to create similar goals for biodiversity – the world’s diminishing community of animals, plants, and other organisms – or is nature just too complex? With the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity […]

Some of the world’s leading scientists gathered for the first historic meeting of the Future Earth-hosted Earth Commission outside Washington DC, pushing forward their plans to develop scientific targets to protect Earth’s life-support systems, like land, freshwater, biodiversity and oceans. Over three days at the Potomac Science Centre in Virginia, the commissioners discussed the process […]

Johan Rockström, Joyeeta Gupta, and Dahe Qin will co-chair the Earth Commission, comprising an initial 19 members, announced today by the international research organization Future Earth. The group will begin immediately – and complete by 2021 – a high-level synthesis of scientific knowledge on the biophysical processes that regulate Earth’s stability and targets to ensure this […]