A stable Earth system is vital for a safe and just future
We are pushing the planet beyond the limits of a safe operating space with more than three-quarters of the Earth’s support systems outside the safe zone. The latest scientific assessment shows that seven of the nine planetary boundaries have now been breached, with the ocean acidification boundary most recently breached.
From the Arctic sea ice to the Amazon rainforest, from ocean circulation patterns to freshwater systems, these interconnected processes form the foundation of life, economies and societies.
The Earth system is a single, dynamic web of physical, chemical and biological processes that regulate carbon, water and nutrient cycles across land, oceans, atmosphere and ice. All life on Earth, including human societies, depends on this delicate balance and feedback loops between these inseparable subsystems.
However, human actions have pushed these global commons out of balance and the Earth is on the brink of irreversible tipping points. The health of planet Earth and its people is at risk. The deterioration of the natural systems is already amplifying risks to energy, food and water security, while increasing the likelihood of disease, displacement and conflict.
The past 12,000 years — the epoch known as the Holocene — is the only state of the Earth system we have evidence of being able to support human development. Today, this system is out of balance. We are well into the Anthropocene, the proposed new geological epoch where human pressures have put the Earth on a trajectory moving rapidly away from the stable Holocene. For the first time in human history, we are forced to consider the real risk of destabilising our only home, planet Earth.
How can scientists and policy-makers collaborate to re-establish nature’s own ability to uphold a stable Earth system, and better navigate and govern towards a safe and just future in the Anthropocene?
For the first time in human history, we are forced to consider the real risk of destabilising our only home, planet Earth.
Defining the boundaries for a stable Earth system
Tipping points are thresholds beyond which parts of the Earth system, such as ice sheets, rainforests or coral reefs, abruptly shift into new and often irreversible states. Because these processes reinforce one another, one tipping point can trigger others, setting off cascading effects across the climate, oceans and biosphere.
To prevent such self-reinforcing changes, scientists have developed complementary tools to determine what is required to maintain a stable and resilient Earth system. For example, the Planetary Boundaries framework identifies nine critical Earth system processes within which humanity can safely operate: climate, biodiversity, land use, freshwater, ozone, aerosols, biogeochemical flows, ocean acidification and novel entities.
Expanding this scientific foundation, the Earth Commission’s Earth System Boundaries integrate justice within and across generations.They define both safe boundaries that avoid undermining the resilience of the Earth system and thereby secure life-support and stay away from crossing tipping points, and just bound-aries that prevent harm to people and eco-systems. Together, these upper ceiling limits and the social foundation of minimum access to resources define a safe and just space for humanity, where environmental stability and human well-being can coexist. This framing provides a science-based compass for policy and governance, guiding equitable resource distribution and systemic transformation to-ward a stable Earth system.
A projection to 2050 shows that the safe and just space will shrink, unless we urgently trans-form. For example, providing even basic living standards for everyone, without decarbonising technologies and adjusting for high energy consumption by some, would take global warming far outside the safe boundary and into a high-risk scenario of crossing dangerous tipping points.
On a more hopeful note, scientific evidence shows that despite the multiple pressures of the Anthropocene, from biodiversity loss and land degradation to disrupted nutrient cycles and ocean change, the Earth system continues to demonstrate significant resilience. It still buffers many of the impacts of unsustainable human activity, maintaining a degree of stabili-ty that can be strengthened through deliberate action. The most credible pathway to recov-ery involves navigating a temporary period
of overshoot, not only in global temperature but across several Earth system boundaries, before returning to a safe and just operating space by mid-century and beyond. Achiev-ing this will require coordinated governance that restores balance across the whole Earth system: halving global emissions each decade to 2050, regenerating degraded ecosystems, reducing pollution and nutrient overload, and rebuilding the resilience of terrestrial and ocean systems. The coming decades must therefore be governed as a period of managed planetary recovery aligning policy, finance and innovation to secure the biophysical founda-tions of a liveable planet.
Transformation & Earth System Governance
Just and systemic transformations are now urgently required. Decarbonising the global energy system, while essential, is only one part of the solution. Pushing beyond boundaries related to land, biodiversity, nutrients, water and pollution can independently destabilise the planet, even if climate targets, through reducing emissions from fossil-fuel burning and other greenhouse gases are met. Respecting the deep interconnections of the Earth system is therefore key to lasting stability and requires a new way of organising global co-operation. It means governing for the planet as a whole, rather than managing environmental issues in isolation.
To strengthen Earth system governance in the Anthropocene, scientists and legal experts are calling for a new approach to the global com-mons. Existing legal frameworks mainly cover areas beyond national jurisdiction, such as the high seas. The emerging planetary commons concept expands this to include the critical biophysical systems — atmosphere, cryosphere, land and biosphere, that regulate the planet’s state and liveability. Building on this, proposals for a new global framework grounded in Earth system boundaries and justice aim to align international law, institutions, and finance with the realities of a finite planet.
The Earth Commission outlines a portfolio of transformations capable of reducing pressure on the Earth system while ensuring fair access to essential resources. These transformations must operate across scales, from local innovation to global coordination, and address
the root causes of degradation: unsustainable consumption, inequitable resource use and short-term economic incentives. Transforming governance also means transforming norms — embedding stewardship, justice and long-term responsibility into the way decisions are made. We cannot realign into a safe and just operating space without the governance levers that create alignment and synchrony across systems and scales. Justice and governance are not passive backdrops to transformation; they are active levers of stabilisation or destabilisa-tion depending on how they are exercised and resourced.
At every level, governing for a safe and just future requires shared accountability.
Globally, through frameworks like the Paris Agreement, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and emerging initiatives such as the European Union’s (EU) Fit for 55 and the High Seas Treaty. Strengthening the implementation of these and integrating science-based Earth system boundaries into international law can help define new plane-tary commons that safeguard the biophysical systems underpinning life on Earth.
Nationally, governments can embed science-based targets (SBTs) into economic planning, energy and land-use policy, and climate legislation, ensuring that national actions contribute to global stability.
Locally, cities, regions and companies can set measurable goals aligned with planetary boundaries, from circular economies and regenerative agriculture to restoring biodiversity and reducing pollution.
Justice and governance are not passive backdrops to transformation; they are active levers of stabilisation or destabilisation depending on how they are exercised and resourced.
Together, these actions mark a shift from managing crises to regenerating resilience, shaping a future where both people and planet can thrive within the limits that make life on Earth possible. We are in a moment of both crisis and choice. We cannot opt out of either. This generation bears both the burden and the privilege of responsibility — to realign our systems, reconnecting our world within the confines of a stable Earth system and transform peril into purpose, providing prosperity and equity for all peoples, today and tomorrow.
Fatima Denton is Director of the United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA) and the co-chair of the Earth Commission.
Johan Rockström is co-chair of the Earth Commission and the Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
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