rockstrom
What the Latest Health Check Tells Us About the State of Our Planet | TIMEhttps://time.com/collection/time100-voices/6315766/planetary-health-check-johan-rockstrom/We are so close to failing on avoiding climate disaster that we do not only need speed and scale. We also need concerted efforts on all fronts. It is a major mistake in the current climate action debates, when big actors with interests in the oil, gas, and coal industry, use investments in nature based solutions or technologies for carbon dioxide removal (CDR), as “offsets” for the inability to phase out fossil-fuels. This will not work. Science is clear on this point – we need to phase out fossil-fuels AND restore nature to secure carbon sinks in soils and forests, AND to invest in CDR technologies. Additionality is the word of the day, not substitution.
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We are losing Earth resilience. Terrestrial ecosystems on land are increasingly shifting from sink to source, due to water scarcity, deforestation, disease, land degradation and fires. The Ocean continues to absorb 90 % of heat and 25 % of CO2 from human emissions, but there are increasingly signs of massive stress on marine systems. When we need a strong planet more than ever – to buffer the stress caused by fossil-fuel burning and land use change, we are in an all-time-low in terms of Earth’s capacity to buffer our climate debt.
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The first global stocktake has now been delivered for climate, but must be carried out for all Planetary Boundaries. We have budgets for safe levels of freshwater, natural land, biosphere integrity, pollutants. They are finite and equally important for the outcome of human development. In short, the world needs to measure and manage the entire planet, a true “planetary stewardship” to have a chance of positive human development, anywhere in the world.
3. A global reform in governance is required, where all nations develop and adopt principles of how to collectively manage all the global commons that regulate the stability of the climate system and the Earth system as a whole. Today only four global commons are considered in the legal or institutional framing, namely, the high-seas, Antarctica, outer Space and to some extent the atmosphere. These are considered global commons, primarily because they are located outside of national jurisdiction, i.e., they are owned by nobody, and thereby by everybody. This premise, based on how to deal with collective use of common pool resources, must now be widened, to include the biophysical systems that we all depend on for the stability of the planet. My suggestion is to start with the climate tipping elements, e.g., the heat circulation in the ocean, the large rainforest systems, and the Greenland ice sheet.
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In the midst of all the Earth risks, and the need to comply with science aligned targets, we have ample and rising evidence that sustainability is the only window still open, to achieve prosperity and equity for all now and in the future. In many economic sectors, sustainable innovations and solutions provide more competitive and cost-efficient offers to people. We are at the beginning of the end of the fossil-fuel driven global economy. In fact, our challenge is not whether we will be phasing out fossil-fuels, it is whether we are going to be too late. Sustainability is no longer an environmental issue only. And it is certainly not about sacrifice and trade-offs. It is the path towards a modernity2.0. Time to put in a high-gear and start delivering.