A safe operating space for New Zealand/Aotearoa: Translating the planetary boundaries framework. 2020. Report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Stockholm Resilience Centre and the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change. Commissioned by New Zealand Ministry for the Environment.

The purpose of the report is to translate the planetary boundaries framework for New Zealand to inform government approaches to environmental stewardship, well-being and economic development. • The planetary boundaries framework provides an international and long-term context for national policy setting. It can be used as a benchmark for measuring progress towards environmental goals. • The framework provides a systems view ...

Luers, A., Garard, J., Clair, A.L.S., Gaffney, O., Hassenboehler, T., Langlois, L., Mougeot, M. and Luccioni, S., 2020. Leveraging Digital Disruptions for a Climate-Safe and Equitable World: The Dˆ2S Agenda:[Commentary]. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 39(2), pp.18-31.

A new report, Digital Disruptions for Sustainability Agenda (the DA2S Agenda), developed by Future Earth's Sustainability in the Digital Age initiative is discussed in this paper. The DA2S Agenda was developed over the course of a year, engaging over 250 experts from around the world through workshops, online consultations, and desktop research. This article provides an overview of the analysis and findings outlined in the DA2...

Bhowmik, A.K., McCaffrey, M.S., Ruskey, A.M., Frischmann, C. and Gaffney, O., 2020. Powers of 10: seeking ‘sweet spots’ for rapid climate and sustainability actions between individual and global scales. Environmental Research Letters, 15(9), p.094011.

Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of global greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformations and novel governance solution...

Lenton, T.M., Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rahmstorf, S. et.al. 2019. Climate tipping points - too risky to bet against. Nature Comment, Vol. 575

Politicians, economists and even some natural scientists have tended to assume that tipping points1 in the Earth system — such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the West Antarctic ice sheet — are of low probability and little understood. Yet evidence is mounting that these events could be more likely than was thought, have high impacts and are interconnected across different biophysical systems, potentially committing th...