Planetary Boundaries: A resilience

approach to global sustainability

Världens Eko  1st September

Professor Johan  Rockström

Executive Director  Stockholm Environment 

Institute& Stockholm Resilience 

Centre

A biosphere shaped by humanity

Human growth20/80 dilemma

Ecosystems60 % loss dilemma

Climate550/450/350

dilemma

Surprise99/1 dilemma”Nature Shocks

Normality”

”The QuadrupleSqueeze”

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day

Ecosystem services –The benefits people obtain from ecosystems

Vi behöver naturen

Humanity deteriorated 60 % of key ecosystem services over the past 50 years

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

“The worst case IPCC scenarios or even worse are being realized….not possible anymore to exclude acceleration of climate change beyond these trends due to crossing of tipping points”

Climate Change Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009

Gather 2400 global environmental change scientists

7

Growing Certainty of certain uncertainty

The risk for catastrophic regime shifts must be made part of the official future

Crossing unexpected abrupt tipping pointsA. Sorteberg, University of Bergen, Norway", data from Snow & Ice Data Center, Boulder CO, USA

Rahmstorf 2007 Science 315: 368 - 370

Sea-Level rise faster than we expected

TAR 20-70 cm (9-88 cm) ”high uncertainty”AR4 18-59 cm (18-79 cm) ”larger cannot be excluded”

”Our understanding of these processes is limited. As a result, they are not included in current ice sheet models and there is no consensus as to how quickly they could cause sea level to rise. Note that these uncertainties are essentially one sided. That is, they could lead to substantially more rapid rate of sea-level rise but they could not lead to a significantly slower rate.....”

Church et al., 2008. Sea-level rise A post IPCC

Thermal ExpansionGreenlandArticAntarctica

SOURCES ESTIMATES SOURCE ASSUMPTIONSThermal Expansion

0.4-0.9 in 300 yrs IPCC TAR (2X ppm))

Weakening of thermohaline circulation

Mountain Glaciers 0.4 m (80 % loss) 0.5 m sea level rise held (IPCC TAR)

Greenland 0.9 m – 1.8 m in 300 yrs

IPCC TAR 0.9 m (local warming 5.5 C)

Rapid melting not included in IPCC estimate

Antarctica WAIS 1-2 m (estimate including disintegration)

Stable ice sheet models inadquate

EAIS stable

Total 2.7 – 5.1 m 2300 1-1.7 m/century Now 3 cm/decade for 0.6 C warming. 3 C warming = 1.4 m/centuryS. Rahmstorf and C. Jäger, 2007

‐120‐110‐100‐90‐80‐70‐60‐50‐40‐30‐20‐10010

‐125000 ‐19000 0 2003

SEA LEVEL

+4‐6C warming1‐2 m/century ~0,15 m

1. Greenland and Antarctica now contribute to sea-level rise (< 20 %) but dynamic response (accelerated sliding of ice sheets and outlet glaciers on bedrock) can change this number

2. Total melting of Greenland ~7 m

3. Total melting of Antarctica~60 m, WAIS ~6 m

4. Greenland and WAIS most vulnerable to dynamic ice loss

What’s at stake – Ice Melting

Last Interglacial. Conditions ~as today, recent geological data indicates average sea level rise was 1,6 m/century

Global Mean Temperature Trend

Ocean Acidification

17

Uncertain uncertainty

ref: Baer and Mastrandrea (2006)

(Hansen et al. 2008)Fast feedbacks Climate forcing 3 C for doubling of CO2Slow feedbacks Climate forcing 6 C for doubling of CO2

¾ °C per W/m2

1.5 °C per W/m2

The Baltic Sea

Österblom et al. in review

Terrestrial and Marine Carbon sinks

Adapted from Cana

012345678910

Gt C

arbon

/yr

land

ocean

atmosphere

Agriculture ~35 % of the planets terrestrial land area

Agriculture ~ 30 % of global GHG emissions

The Himalayas have the largest concentration of glaciers outside the polar caps,

and feed seven of Asia’s great rivers: the Ganga, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang Ho.

“…most of the glaciers in the Himalayan region will vanish within 40 years as a result of global warming” Professor Hasnian, Chair ICSI WG on Himalayan Glaciology, 1999

The Water Towers of the Planet

GHG complexity: Net warming and cooling

Already Committed Global Warming

1. Situation dangerous even if we turn off the Planet today

2. Nature going from Friend to Foe?

3. We must keep cities dirty4. We must keep people poor

The cynical reality of what science tells us....

The risk of Catastrophic

Tipping

Points

Permafrost MethaneOutburst

Collapse of Amazonian

Forest

Instability of Greenland Ice Sheet

Coral reefs and bleaching

Steffen et al. 2004. Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure.

1

2

overfishing, coastaleutrophication

phosphorous

accum-ulation

in soil

and mud

fire

prevention

3

state shift

disease,hurricane

flooding, warming,overexploitationof predators

good rains, continu-ous

heavy

grazing

coral dominance

clear

water

grassland

4

algal dominance

turbid

water

shrub-bushland

Ecological Regime Shifts Erosion of ecosystem resilience

Valuable Ecosystem Services Loss of ecosystem servicesDesirable Undesirable

Three features of resilience1. PERSISTENCE in the face of

change, buffer capacity, withstand shocks

2. ADAPTABILITY the capacity of people in a social-ecological system to manage resilience e.g. through collective action

3. TRANSFORMABILITY the capacity of people in a social- ecological system to create a new system when ecological, political, social or economic conditions make the existing system untenable

”We are experiencing a very chaotic time, where humanity determines the outcome for the Planet – sustainability or collapse…?”Professor Will Steffen

The Resilience

of the Earth System

Humanity’s period of grace – the last 10000 years

Aboriginesarrive inAustralia

Beginningof agriculture

Great Europeancivilisations:Greek, Roman

Source: GRIP ice core data (Greenland) and S. Oppenheimer, ”Out of Eden”, 2004

First migration of fully modern humans

out of Africa

Migrations offully modern humans

from South Asiato Europe

(Hansen et al. 2008)Fast feedbacks Climate forcing 3 C for doubling of CO2Slow feedbacks Climate forcing 6 C for doubling of CO2

¾ °C per W/m2

1.5 °C per W/m2

Our

precarious

predicament

Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the  safe operating space for humanity in the  Anthropocene

(submitted)

Control Variable, e.g., Temperature or ppm CO2

Response Variable,  e.g., Extent

of sea

ice

Zone

of  Uncertainty

Safe operating 

space

ThresholdPlanetary

Boundary

From ”Limits to growth””Carrying capacity””Guardrails”, Tipping Elements””Planetary Boundaries”

We sought them here, we sought them there...we sought them everywhere.....

PlanetaryBoundaries

Climate Change

Stratospheric Ozone

Atmospheric Aerosol Loading

Ocean  Acidification

Freshwater use

N and P  cycles

Biodiversity Loss

Land use change

PlanetaryBoundaries

Planetary Inter-connections

Peter Snyder et al.

Nitr

ogen

flo

w

Agriculturalland use

Ocean

acidity

Fres

hwat

er

cons

umpt

ion

Phos

phor

usflo

w

Climate

Change

Atmospheric

aerosol load

Chemical

pollution

Ozonedepletion

Biodiversity

loss ?

?

50-60

70-80

Latestdata

90-00

Pre-Ind.

?

??

?

Global 2ºC pathways and their risks

2008 20502015

GtC/yr

10

8

1

?

?

The regime

shift

that has to occurGlobal transformation towards

a low-carbon

world

450 ppm

350 ppm CO2 eq

CH4, N2O, Land Degradation

Brown Carbon

Aerosols

Implications for SwedenBusiness as usual

GDR allocation

Reductions in imported C-emissions

47

Implications for European Union

48

Domestic reductions (~40% below 1990 by 2020) are only part of total EU obligation. The rest would have to be met internationally.

Implications for European Union

0

2

4

6

8

10

Blue w ater Green and blue w ater

Wat

er s

tres

sed

popu

latio

n(b

illio

n pe

ople

)

2050

2000

Changing the Face of Water Scarcity

The institutional capacities to manage the earth’s ecosystems are evolving more slowly than man’s overuse of the same systems.

Earth System Science(ICSU, IGBP, ESSP, IPCC, MEA....)

Economics, Wellbeing, Equity and development from unlimited to limited Planet(Kenneth Boulding Spaceship Earth, Herman Daly, Club of Rom, Ecological Footprint....)

Shocks and Abrupt change in Social-Ecological systems from local to global scales(Resilience, sustainability, GAIA, tipping elements, guardrails....)

EU Research StrategyTrans-disciplinary Science on cross- scale governance of global change and transformations to Sustainable Development