All humanity could share in a prosperous and equitable future, but the space for development is shrinking rapidly due to pressure from a minority of wealthy super-consumers. Groundbreaking Research It shows:
The Earth Commission authors say that while environmental degradation and climate instability have taken Earth beyond a series of safe planetary limits, it is still possible to carve out a “safe and just space” in which all people can thrive.
This utopian outcome depends on fundamental transformation of global politics, economies and societies to ensure a more equitable distribution of resources, a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, and the widespread adoption of low-carbon, sustainable technologies and lifestyles, the report says.
This will likely mean needing to put limits on excess consumption, address inequality, and use taxes to raise revenues for investment in technology and infrastructure.
The scale of the changes required will alarm many governments, one of the lead authors acknowledged. “It will not be immediately welcomed, and to some extent it is frightening, but it shows that there is still room for humans and other species to survive,” said Joyeeta Gupta, a former co-chair of the Earth Commission and professor of environment and development in the Southern Hemisphere at the University of Amsterdam.
The paper, a 62-page “thought experiment” by an international team of 65 natural and social scientists, seeks to determine how the world's 7.9 billion people can access the necessary levels of food, water, energy, shelter and transport while remaining within safe planetary limits. It then predicts how this might change by 2050, when the population is expected to reach 9.7 billion.
The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Planetary Health, first establishes a fair “floor” for basic daily living standards, defined as 2,500 calories of food, 100 liters of water, 0.7 kWh of electricity, 15 square meters of living space, and 4,500 km (2,800 miles) of travel per year. It then calculates how much room there is between this “floor” and the safe “upper limit” defined by Planetary Boundaries, which estimate how far humanity can push the climate, ecosystems, nutrients, phosphorus, and water sources without destabilizing Earth's systems.
The results show that, under the current highly unequal and fossil fuel-intensive social and environmental circumstances, it is not possible for all humanity to live healthy lives within this “safe and just corridor”, a finding underscored by previous research showing that seven of the eight planetary limits have already been breached.
The poor are disproportionately affected. The report identifies parts of the world where populations are most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution and water scarcity. These include India, where almost one billion people live on degraded land; Indonesia, where 194 million people are exposed to dangerous levels of nitrogen; and Brazil, where 79 million people are exposed to dangerous and unjustified levels of air pollution. In China, India and Pakistan, more than 200 million people are exposed to dangerously high wet bulb temperatures, which are contributing to global warming of 1-2°C above pre-industrial levels.
This is avoidable: research shows that safe and fair spaces are theoretically possible today by reducing resource use in the top 15% of emitters and rapidly adopting renewable energy and other sustainable technologies.
The longer we delay change, the more difficult the challenges will be in the coming years, especially when it comes to climate. “Without significant changes now, there will be no safe and just spaces left by 2050. That is, even if everyone on Earth in 2050 had access to only the resources necessary for a basic standard of living, the Earth would still be outside its climate limits,” the report warns.
“The ceilings are low and the floors are high, so you can't even crawl through the space,” said Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Earth Commission and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who said the “shocking” results should spur urgent remedial action.
A more equitable response is a key element of the solution proposed by the paper. “By limiting what is possible for some, we can expand possibilities for others,” the report states. It notes that in economic systems that prioritize public health, equality, and democracy, individuals tend to have lower consumption levels. It estimates that limiting demand could reduce emissions by 40-80%, with a large positive impact on human well-being.
How to achieve these goals will be addressed through measures such as progressive and enforceable taxation, graduated resource pricing, land use planning, green technology and subsidies for sustainable products.
The paper highlights that in the short term, the opportunities for change are greatest at the city and corporate levels, as these tend to be more agile and less bound by vested interests than national governments, but in the longer term, it notes that the UN Secretary-General has called for a global solidarity compact to reform the UN into a more effective global governance regulatory body, quantifying minimum rights of access to resources and developing safe and fair guidelines.
The authors say that while the current global climate, with growing inequality and the rise of nationalist politics, may not seem conducive to achieving the fair and secure plan they set out, governments can change and so can public opinion, especially in times of increasing climatic stress.
“That's why this science is important to remind everyone that we must take justice seriously, because if we don't, we will face retaliation in the form of social unrest, migration and conflict. If you're a patriot who wants to reduce the flow of migration, you'd better take global justice seriously,” Rockstrom said. “Justice is an essential part of security, and security is an essential part of justice.”
