The Boundaries of the Planetary Boundary Framework: A Critical Appraisal of Approaches to Define a “Safe Operating Space” for Humanity

Abstract

In 2009, a group of 29 scholars argued that we can identify a set of “planetary boundaries” that humanity must not cross at the cost of its own peril. This planetary boundaries framework has been influential in generating academic debate and in shaping research projects and policy recommendations worldwide. Yet, it has also come under heavy scrutiny and been criticized. What is today's overall significance and impact of the notion of planetary boundaries for earth system science and earth system governance? We review here the development of the concept and address several lines of criticism, from earth system science, development studies, and science and technology studies. We also examine some applications of the framework, discuss broader governance implications, and reflect on actual policy relevance. In concluding, we explore the most recent incarnation of the planetary boundaries framework in its avatar as earth system targets supported by an Earth Commission. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 45 is October 19, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Sustainability Science: Toward a Synthesis

“…For example, relatively comprehensive mapping of relevant regimes has been accomplished for only a very few action situations (e.g., 44,77). Talk about planetary boundaries has gotten far out ahead of what science can justify, often confusing normative issues of risk tolerance with the scientific (but poorly understood) mapping of thresholds separating alternative regimes (191)(192)(193). Promising theoretical work on the prospect that appropriate monitoring could detect early warning signs when dynamics are approaching boundaries has proven feasible at the level of organisms and their health but enormously challenging to implement at the level of nature-society interactions (194).…”

Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet

“…To put any of these ideas into practice requires the involvement of diverse actors across scales from the local to global (Ostrom et al, 1999). While cross-scale translation is necessary to inform decisions by such actors at sub-global scales, translation is complicated by the spatial heterogeneity of pressures and impacts (Biermann & Kim, 2020) and the value-laden (Biermann & Kalfagianni, 2020;Häyhä, Lucas, van Vuuren, Cornell, & Hoff, 2016) and potentially iterative (Pickering & Persson, 2020) judgements involved in allocation of these targets. A synthesis of the challenges associated with translating global-scale Earth system targets to actors at other scales is therefore needed.…”

“…How biophysically "safe" targets can be achieved while also meeting goals for human well-being and justice is difficult to explore in such frameworks, for example, determining a safe and just allocation of land for food production. Furthermore, these prior frameworks explicitly incorporate neither sub-global scales (Dearing et al, 2014), interactions and feedbacks between variables (Lade et al, 2020), nor potential trade-offs between planetary targets and development and equity (Biermann & Kim, 2020;Pickering & Persson, 2020). An integrated framework is needed that aligns safe and just Earth system variables while also accounting for sub-global scales and interactions between Earth system processes.…”

Exploring the Analytical, Normative and Transformative Dimensions of Earth System Law

“…Given its main rationale (already articulated in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment), 31 one might be forgiven for assuming that international environmental law should offer the type of norms that set legal limits that are actually able to prevent humans from exceeding the limits of Earth's life support systems. One useful way to visualize Earth system limits (despite critique), 32 is through the planetary boundaries framework. This framework identifies and quantifies a set of nine planetary boundaries that "define the safe operating space for humanity with respect to the Earth system and [that] are associated with the planet's biophysical subsystems or processes".…”