Johan Rockström on the Planetary Boundaries Conference 2017.
What are the implications of the Planetary Boundaries concept for society, economy and politics? On 24 and 25 April 2017, representatives from academia, politics, civil society, media and the private sector will discuss this central question in Berlin.
Transcript:
"What I would like to see of the conference builds on what the scientific community now overwhelmingly shows, we’re facing in the Anthropocene, the real risk of humanity destabilizing the resilience and stability of the whole earth system. That is why the advancements of the planetary boundary framework, which has gone through so much scrutiny, which is today well-founded robustly in the international earth systems science community, defines science-based quantified boundaries that gives us a safe operating space which are fundamental to deliver on the sustainable development goals, which are fundamental to succeed with the Paris climate agreement, fundamental to the transformation of what I would today redefine as sustainable development of having a prosperous and fair world within planetary boundaries. So that is the reality of the world that we are facing today. Now, the challenge is that these are global science-based targets for the future of humanity on planet earth. The only way to really make it happen and support the transformation to sustainability is to operationalize it across scales – in nations, in businesses, among communities. And this conference plays a fundamental role, can even be a tipping point towards finding real, concrete pathways of how to operationalize the science-based planetary boundaries into a pathway that can really enable us to evolve and prosper within a safe operating space."
