Safeguarding Earth Resilience for a Manageable Climate Future
Abstract
Climate science is clear that to have a chance of keeping global warming "well below 2°C and aiming at 1.5°C", in line with the Paris Climate Agreement, will require nothing less than a world transformation to global sustainability.
Entailing, (1) decarbonising the world energy system by 2050/60, (2) transforming the world food system from carbon source to carbon sink, (3) investing in negative emission technologies, and (4) maintaining carbon sinks in the natural ecosystems on land and in the ocean.
The implications of this Earth trajectory agenda, is that the final battle ground whether we will be able to stay below 2°C [and have a good chance of avoiding a self-amplifying "HotHouse Earth" trajectory], is shifting away from decarbonising the world's energy system to safeguarding the resilience of the Earth system. In this presentation I share the Earth system science based agenda for global sustainability, integrating the research frameworks on planetary boundaries and on global commons, which together evolve into an agenda on planetary stewardship.
About the speaker
Johan Rockström is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor at the Institute of Earth and Environmental Science at Potsdam University.
Rockström is an internationally recognised scientist on global sustainability issues, where he led the development of the new Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change. He is a leading scientist on global water resources, with about 25 years of experience from applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 100 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability.
Aside from his research helping to guide policy, Rockström consults several governments and business networks. He also acts as an advisor for sustainable development issues at noteworthy international meetings, such as the World Economic Forum, the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences (UNFCCC). Supplementary, he chairs the advisory board for the EAT Foundation and the Earth League.
