Publications

Ben Stewart-Koster, Stuart Bunn, Pamela A Green, Christopher E. Ndehedehe, Lauren Seaby Andersen, David I. Armstrong McKay, Xuemei Bai, Fabrice DeClerck, Kristie Ebi, Christopher Gordon, Joyeeta Gupta, Syezlin Hasan, Lisa Jacobson, Steven J. Lade, Diana Liverman, Sina Loriani, Awaz Mohamed, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, David Obura, Dahe Qin, Crelis Rammelt, Juan Carlos Rocha, Johan Rockström, Peter Verburg, Caroline Zimm. 2023. Living within the safe and just Earth system boundaries for blue water. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01247-w

Safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for surface water and groundwater (blue water) have been defined for sustainable water management in the Anthropocene. Here we assessed whether minimum human needs could be met with surface water from within individual river basins alone and, where this is not possible, quantified how much groundwater would be required. Approximately 2.6 billion people live in river basins where gro...

Michael Sureth, Matthias Kalkuhl, Ottmar Edenhofer, Johan Rockström. 2023. A Welfare Economic Approach to Planetary Boundaries. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik. https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2022-0022

The crises of both the climate and the biosphere are manifestations of the imbalance between human extractive, and polluting activities and the Earth’s regenerative capacity. Planetary boundaries define limits for biophysical systems and processes that regulate the stability and life support capacity of the Earth system, and thereby also define a safe operating space for humanity on Earth. Budgets associated to planetary bound...

Joyeeta Gupta, Diana Liverman, Klaudia Prodani, Paulina Aldunce, Xuemei Bai, Wendy Broadgate, Daniel Ciobanu, Lauren Gifford, Christopher Gordon, Margot Hurlbert, Cristina Y. A. Inoue, Lisa Jacobson, Norichika Kanie, Steven J. Lade, Timothy Lenton, David Obura, Chukwumerije Okereke, Ilona M. Otto, Laura Pereira, Johan Rockström, Joeri Scholtens, Juan Rocha, Ben Stewart-Koster, J. David Tabara, Crelis Rammelt, Peter H. Verburg. 2023. Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries. Nature Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01064-1

Living within planetary limits requires attention to justice as biophysical boundaries are not inherently just. Through collaboration between natural and social scientists, the Earth Commission defines and operationalizes Earth system justice to ensure that boundaries reduce harm, increase well-being, and reflect substantive and procedural justice. Such stringent boundaries may also affect ‘just access’ to food, water, energy ...

Tessa Möller, Annika (Ernest) Högner, Carl-Friedrich Schleussner, Samuel Bien, Niklas Kitzmann, Robin Lamboll, Joeri Rogelj, Jonathan Donges, Johan Rockström, Nico Wunderling. 2023. Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions critical to limit climate tipping risks. Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3253269/v1

Under current emission trajectories, at least temporarily overshooting the Paris global warming limit of 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels is a distinct possibility. Permanently exceeding this limit would substantially increase the risks of triggering several climate tipping elements with associated high-end impacts on human societies and the Earth system. It is essential to assess this risk under emission pathways that tempo...

Peter Schlosser, Johan Rockström, Clea Edwards, Paula Mirazo, Adrian Heilemann, Niklas Henrik Kitzmann, Siri Krobjinski. 2023. Accelerating transformations for a just, sustainable future: 10 ‘Must Haves’. Global Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2023.14

There is increasing evidence of extreme events and irreversible damage occurring faster than expected. Despite inescapable evidence of intersecting crises facing the Earth system and numerous efforts and agreements, global society is not on track to achieve its sustainability objectives. The 10 ‘Must Haves’ initiative aims to identify the pathways of accelerated systemic transformations needed across the globe toward a sustain...

Wiebren Johannes Boonstra, Rakhyun E. Kim, Louis J. Kotzé, Michelle Lim, Paulo Magalhães, Brian J. Preston, Johan Rockström, Prue Taylor. 2023. Earth steward: Will Steffen's contributions to Earth System Science, governance and law. Ambio. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-023-01867-8

In January 2023, the world lost one of its most influential environmental scientists, Will Steffen. Recognised by his peers as the ‘Father of Earth System Science’, Steffen exemplified the ethic of planetary stewardship (Stockholm Resilience Centre 2023). This ethic was especially evident, not only in Steffen’s scholarship, but also in his contributions to creating institutions that respect the reality of a single integrated E...

Carl Folke, Johan Rockström, Katherine Richardson. 2023. Obituary – Will Steffen, the father of Earth System science. Global Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2023.16

This is a tribute to our dear friend and colleague Will Steffen, a remarkable human being and a visionary scientific giant. Will left us in January 2023, at an age of 75. Although he had been ill for some time, he – and we – remained optimistic until the end and his death was unexpected. Will was the true father behind Earth System science. Early, he brought together leading scholars from diverse disciplines and backgrounds f...

Johan Rockström, Louis J. Kotzé, Svetlana Milutinović, Frank Biermann, Victor Brovkin, Jonathan F. Donges, Jonas Ebbesson, Duncan French, Joyeeta Gupta, Rakhyun E. Kim, Tim M. Lenton, Dominic Lenzi, Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Barbara Neumann, Fabian Schuppert, Ricarda Winkelmann, Klaus Bosselmann, Carl Folke, Wolfgang Lucht, David Schlosberg, Katherine Richardson, Will Steffen. 2023. The Planetary Commons: A New Paradigm for Safeguarding Earth Regulating Systems in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2301531121

The Anthropocene signifies the start of a no-analogue trajectory of the Earth system that is fundamentally different from the Holocene. This new trajectory is characterized by rising risks of triggering irreversible and unmanageable shifts in Earth system functioning. We urgently need a new global approach to safeguard critical Earth system regulating functions more effectively and comprehensively. The global commons framework...

Barbara Schröter, Claudia Sattler, Jean Paul Metzger, Jonathan R. Rhodes, Marie-Josée Fortin, Camila Hohlenwerger, L. Román Carrasco, Örjan Bodin. 2023. Exploring the role of boundary work in a social-ecological synthesis initiative. Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13412-022-00811-8

Inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration in environmental studies faces the challenge of communicating across disciplines to reach a common understanding of scientific problems and solutions in a changing world. One way to address current pressing environmental challenges is to employ a boundary work approach that uses activities across borders of separated field of research. But how can this look like in practice? In this r...

Matilda Baraibar Norberg, Lisa Deutsch. 2023. Chapter 6: Historicizing soy Toward a new rupture? The Soybean Through World History. Routledge Studies in Food, Society and the Environment. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367822866-6

This chapter discusses the social-ecological challenges and contradictions of the current soy regime from the vantage point of historical legacies and breaks. As regimes are historical and eventually contradictions and limits trigger their end, we analyze the signs of an approaching rupture phase. We focus on three different types of challenges. The first is a crisis of structure in the longue durée, which involves the idea th...