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Rockstrom explains why we call our era the Athropocene" and why the world development is only possible on a stable and resilient planet. The presentation was delivered during the Our Commons: An International Dialogue organized by the GEF in October, 2016

United Nations • El cambio climático se refiere a los cambios a largo plazo de las temperaturas y los patrones climáticos. Las actividades humanas han sido el principal motor del cambio climático, debido principalmente a la quema de combustibles fósiles como el carbón, el petróleo y el gas.
Transcripción
00:00The key message is really that we have the dramatic evidence that science is now stepping
00:12out of its comfort zone, reacting on its own evidence, because we have now ample observational
00:17proof that we've gone very recently, just over the past 30 years, from being a relatively
00:23small world on a big planet, where we've been able to build up an economic logic and a model
00:28in society that has allowed itself, essentially, to exploit the commons without invoices being
00:34sent back from the planetary Earth system.
00:37And since the last 30 years, we've flipped over to now be a relatively large world on
00:42a small planet.
00:44And this journey actually starts very significantly with Jane Watts and the invention of the coal-fired
00:51steam engine in 1750.
00:54And this little film here gives you the journey of humanity over the last 150 years.
00:59On the y-axis, you have the planetary boundaries, the different pressures of humanity.
01:04And it starts off 1771 with the steam engine.
01:07The United Kingdom starts off its mechanical industrial revolution, starts also the infrastructure
01:12expansion around the world.
01:14And very rapidly, we are connected through railway and different trading schemes around
01:18the planet.
01:19And we're coming in the late 19th century to the point where Fleming invents antibiotics,
01:23and we start really longing life expectancies.
01:27We invent the Haber-Bosch process in 1920, allowing us for modern nitrogen fertilizer
01:33and the rapid expansion of agriculture.
01:35And then we come 10 years after the Second World War to this famous great acceleration
01:39point, 1955, three and a half billion people.
01:43And suddenly, we veer off from the linear incremental pressures on planet Earth to the
01:48exponential rise on every Earth system parameter that regulates human well-being, from carbon
01:54dioxide, biodiversity loss, nitrous oxide.
01:57And then we start off in a point, and we come to 1968.
02:00And as you all know, Rachel Carson warns us with Silent Spring that, dear friends, if
02:04we continue, we might undermine the life support systems on Earth.
02:07And Club of Rome comes right after and says that by 2020, GDP will fall down because we
02:12might be moving in the wrong direction.
02:14But they had very little evidence, as you see.
02:16It was just a speculation, an early warning from insightful people who really warned humanity.
02:22And then we come to the mid-1980s, and science, for the first time, sees the depletion of
02:26the stratospheric ozone layer.
02:28Policy listens.
02:29Nobody has ever seen an ozone hole, but we trust science, and innovations in industry
02:34are in place.
02:35And we implement the Montreal Protocol, veering away from one of the boundaries back to safe
02:39operating space.
02:40But look at the graph.
02:41We continue on the hockey stick patterns, and now we are in 2007, 2009.
02:46We are recognizing the need for sustainable development goals.
02:49We published the planetary boundary science, but we continue on this unsustainable journey
02:54right up to the top of exponential curves, and we are, science is really clear, at a
03:00saturation point.
03:02We have filled up the entire small planet with world pressures, and for the first time,
03:07we're starting to really, really map out invoices being sent back from a remarkably resilient
03:13Earth system, which actually, on balance, only applies negative feedbacks, meaning it's
03:18dampening our abuse.
03:19It's like standing there in a boxing ring, getting punch after punch, but still standing,
03:23and it's still standing today.
03:25But clearly, it's more vulnerable than ever, and it's our commons that are paying the price,
03:30and this is why science now steps out of its comfort zone and feels it's ready to tip over
03:34into global sustainable journey, where we depend on exactly these functions of the large
03:39commons that regulate the planet.
03:42Welcome to the Anthropocene.
03:44This is the geological epoch where we as anthros, 7.2 billion people, are now the dominant force
03:52of change on planet Earth.
03:53It's not models.
03:54It's not hypothesis.
03:55It's empirical evidence.
03:57Second insight, which now changes, really, our thinking around global commons, and I
04:02just want to remind everyone that this is how global commons has been perceived over
04:06the last 50 years, as being the resource domains that lie outside the political reach of any
04:12one nation state, incorporating the four systems, the high seas, the atmosphere, Antarctica,
04:18and outer space, but importantly, guided by the principle of the common heritage of humankind.
04:23What we scientifically think that now, through the Anthropocene evidence, we need to adapt
04:28to global commons, raising their importance, and actually going beyond the systems outside
04:33of nation borders to incorporate all the systems that regulates the Earth's system stability.
04:40There is also, outside of science, a much, much stronger recognition that we are in the
04:44Anthropocene.
04:44You probably follow that through media and different very important kind of signaling
04:50systems around to business and policy.
04:52I think this is now established that we are a dominant force on small planet Earth.
04:57Even Pope Francis is absolutely clear about the fact that being in the Anthropocene, we
05:02are now threatening the stability of creation, planet Earth, which requires rethinking and
05:08really taking up the global commons to a new level.
05:11Insight two, though, is that if we are now punching planet Earth, still applying its
05:15biogeophysical systems to apply maximum resilience and kind of helping us as a best friend, what's
05:21the risk that Earth turns into a foe?
05:25What are the Earth's system tipping point risks?
05:28Here we have a lot of evidence today, advancing over just the last 20 years, of different
05:35large systems on Earth that are at risk of crossing tipping points and irreversibly and
05:40abruptly changing the state from a desirable, supporting humanity, to an undesirable state.
05:46From the dieback of the Amazon, to the large Ammon Sea glacier system in Antarctica, to
05:51the Arctic sea ice, across biomes, across systems, and this in turn shows us one new
05:58insight that everything we've assumed of efficiency and optimization and linear incremental change
06:04does not apply.
06:06Surprise is rather the universal behavior of the Earth's system, but it has resilience
06:10to take exploitation over long periods of time and can then shift over abruptly to nonlinear
06:17changes.
06:18And that's why we get nervous when we have this kind of evidence of 2,000 years of very
06:22narrow temperature variability on Earth, between plus, minus one degree Celsius, and the fact
06:26that we are now moving very rapidly outside of even the widest range of variability over
06:32the past actually 12,000 years, since the last ice age, and that even if we would implement
06:37the indices in Paris, we know we would reach three degrees Celsius global average temperature
06:43warming, which would be a point we haven't been for the last five, six million years.
06:50Now the drama is though, even more acute than that, because if we load the temperature rise
06:57with nonlinear changes, it looks even more challenging for humanity and the recognition
07:01why global commons are so important.
07:03So here you have the last 20,000 years on the y-axis, temperature variability, average
07:07temperature on Earth, we have the Pleistocene ice age, and we exit the ice age 12,000 years
07:12ago, and we enter the extraordinarily stable Holocene period you see here along the zero
07:18line.
07:19Here you have the Paris Agreement, which is to stay as far under two as possible and aim
07:25for one and a half degrees Celsius.
07:27Here you have the IPCC RCP family, and as you know, we're following a pathway that if
07:33we implement the indices, we're probably veering towards RCP six, but we're actually following
07:38an RCP 8.5 path.
07:40And here you have, for the first time, if you combine this analysis with Earth system
07:44tipping points, and what you then find is a very dramatic message for humanity that
07:49science now indicates that there's a whole family of Earth tipping points that are inside
07:55the Paris framework, meaning that we can no longer exclude that even if we would successfully
08:01deliver on Paris, we would still risk the coral reefs on planet Earth.
08:06We're still at risk of the alpine glaciers.
08:08And the range here, by the way, is the uncertainty range, the standard deviation in science,
08:12which shows that for coral reefs, even within the standard deviation, we're under two degrees
08:16Celsius.
08:17You see the Arctic summer sea ice here, which is at an uncertainty range inside Paris.
08:22Peter Schlosser is here, who led a very important census just for the Arctic Science Minister
08:27at the White House just one week back, showing that if we get two degrees Celsius on planet
08:32Earth, we will get five degrees Celsius in the Arctic, which is just a reminder of the
08:37amplification effects for these large regulating biomes.
08:40Greenland, a drama in itself, seven meters sea level rise inherently, which could be
08:46on an on-push button at two degrees Celsius, irreversibly leading to ice melt.
08:51So this is a reminder of the need to be precautionary, to apply not only universality around the
08:57SDGs and the commons, but also to apply careful, resilient thinking, and to avoid coming too
09:04close to these kind of thresholds.
09:06That's insight two, then.
09:08Tipping points are an integral part of the Earth system.
09:11And finally, the third insight is that can we, as scientists today, define the desired
09:16state of the planet to support humanity in the future?
09:19And the answer is yes.
09:22And the question is posed in a very provocative way, are we actually at risk of leaving the
09:26Garden of Eden, an oasis state that has supported humanity so far?
09:31And ice core data actually supports our ability to be able to convey to humanity what is the
09:38desired state of planet Earth to support the delivery of SDGs and our aspirations as humanity.
09:44This is 100,000 years of evolution.
09:46It's ice core data from the northern hemisphere.
09:49On the y-axis is temperature variability, a good proxy of how it was to live on Earth.
09:53And as you may know, during most of this period, it was a very jumpy ride, indeed, for humanity.
09:58We were just a few million people, we were hunters and gatherers, and we had a very rough
10:02time.
10:03Temperature could actually vary by plus, minus 10 degrees Celsius over a decade.
10:07We were so rough in this period that you see this cold point of 75,000 years.
10:12We were, according to the latest paleoclimatic data, down at less than 15,000 fertile adults
10:18on Earth at that cold point.
10:20We were hiding in the Ethiopian highlands, the only place there was fresh water and biomass
10:25to live off, and that was a point where we basically were extinct.
10:29We exit the last ice age, and we enter the Holocene, and you can just look at this slide
10:34to recognize what Pope Francis points out is essentially a miraculous period.
10:40It is an extraordinarily stable phase of plus, minus one degree Celsius, and even though
10:45the genetic diversity has been around on planet Earth for a hundred million years, everything
10:49we cherish, everything we depend on, everything we love, settles in the Holocene.
10:54And rainy seasons become so predictable that we barely enter the Holocene, and we invent
10:59agriculture.
11:00We go from hunters and gatherers to become domesticating farmers, and we start the modern
11:04societal development as we know it.
11:07And this is why science, third message in my mind, is the most important one, that the
11:11Holocene is the only state of the planet we know for certain can support the modern world
11:17as we know it.
11:18We can live outside of the Holocene, but we cannot think of ethically taking responsibility
11:23for 9.5 billion co-citizens outside of the Holocene.
11:28So this leads to this dramatic equation, so to say, which is the last 20 years of Earth
11:33system scientific advancement, that we are in the Anthropocene, plus the insight that
11:38we depend on the interglacial stable state, the Holocene, plus that tipping points are
11:43real, equals the need to scientifically define a safe operating space within planetary boundaries,
11:49which led to the planetary boundary analysis, which identifies the large Earth regulating
11:55systems that we depend on to regulate the state of the planet, which of course is not
12:01only climate, but also includes biodiversity, land systems, fresh water, and the other two
12:06large cycles from carbon, namely nitrogen and phosphorus.
12:10It also includes oceans, the stratospheric ozone layer, but also we believe from scientific
12:15evidence, aerosols that control, for example, the monsoon systems, but also novel entities,
12:21the risk of us accumulating through cocktail effects, risks of changing our chemical composition
12:27and having genetic impacts.
12:29Quantifying this scientifically is today possible for seven of the nine, which is a good message
12:33for humanity.
12:34We can actually define a biophysical safe operating space in green, but in yellow we
12:38have the uncertainty range, and in red we are in a danger zone we estimate today for
12:43biodiversity, nitrogen, phosphorus, land, and climate.
12:48This allows us also to do something really important in guiding global commons in the
12:51future, because it gives us a kind of a roadmap for the future.
12:55This is where we were in 1750, we were right at the center and not touching the safe operating
13:00space.
13:01We were really a small world on a big planet.
13:031950, the Haber-Bosch process has come so far, so modern agriculture had actually taken
13:07us out into the max extinction of biodiversity already through expansion of agriculture.
13:141970, where Rachel Carson warns us in the Club of Rome, we're still safely inside the
13:18green space of the safe operating space, but look now what happens when we boom out to
13:231990.
13:24This is the point where we hit the saturation point.
13:27We are outside on the stratospheric ozone layer.
13:30The modern agriculture systems has really eutrophied large parts of our waterways, and
13:34this is the point where you could say we flip over from the small world on a big planet
13:39to a big world on a small planet once and for all.
13:42Look at what happens here from then to now.
13:46Science reports the threat to the ozone layer, policy really acts on the Montreal Protocol,
13:51and today we're back inside the safe operating space on depleting the stratospheric ozone
13:56layer.
13:57We have success.
13:58We have at one time been planetary stewards of a common and taken us back into safe operating
14:04space, which can be a good inspirational guide for getting the entire planetary boundary
14:09family inside the safe operating space.
14:12So how does this then redefine or let's say advance our global commons thinking?
14:16Well, to begin with, it does have a journey of change from the Earth system science in
14:20the 70s, our ozone layer in the 80s, the Anthropocene proposed, already 2000 that was introduced,
14:27planetary boundaries in 2009, sustainable development goals 2015, and now we then suggest
14:32that global commons must therefore be a key guiding principle for humanity to be able
14:37to deliver on the SDGs.
14:40We do, as we have proposed, advance the global commons to go beyond just systems outside
14:47of national jurisdictions to also be the large systems that regulates our ability to stay
14:53in a stable interglacial state.
14:55So biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles, critical biomes, cryosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere,
15:01so all that is in the paper.
15:03We define global commons in this way, as all the environmental systems that regulates
15:07the stability and resilience of the Earth system.
15:11So not only the systems that nobody owns and nobody cares for, but the systems that actually
15:16every individual, every household, every business depends on, irrespective of where you are
15:21on our little planet, even though it's on the other side of the planet, but we depend
15:25on it because it regulates the stability of the Earth system.
15:29We have suggested three principles for global commons in the Anthropocene.
15:34Principle one, perhaps the most dramatic, there are no more externalities.
15:38Everything is inclusive today.
15:40We must internalize all the values of natural capital and all our responsibility for the
15:45commons as an integral part of our development.
15:49Principle two, the universality principle, which is written into the SDGs today.
15:53There's no such thing as annex one or annex two.
15:57We are all sitting on the same little planet and we all have the same responsibility as
16:02a global community.
16:04Principle three, the resilience principle, that we have come to the end of the road of
16:08thinking that optimization efficiencies and linearity can hold.
16:12We need to simply back off from thresholds and apply resilience thinking and invest in
16:16diversity to keep redundancy and keep away from tipping points.
16:21Major biomes are therefore critical, and Sylvia Earle is here and others who have been defending
16:26biomes for decades, well now there's more support than ever, that these systems regulate
16:31our ability to be prosperous in the future.
16:34These are not ethical responsibilities only.
16:36These are systems that depend, a finance minister in any country must recognize that these are
16:41internal to create jobs and create growth and create prosperity.
16:45That is a very big shift in the global development paradigm.
16:48It actually means transformations.
16:50This is an effort of summarizing what the Paris Agreement means.
16:54It means bending the curve of emissions, latest 2020 in four years, a roller coaster
17:00down to a fossil fuel free world economy by mid of this century, maintaining in green
17:05and blue the negative sinks in all our natural ecosystems, so being sustainable stewards
17:10of oceans, lands, and forests, and having an agriculture system that goes to negative
17:14emissions by mid-century in brown, and then even having to have biological carbon capture
17:20and storage in orange, and this still just gives us 66% of delivering on Paris.
17:25We're talking of a revolutionary transformation to a sustainable future, just to deliver Paris,
17:31and in doing so we need a mind shift.
17:33This is how we define sustainable development in the Rio Conference.
17:36I love Gro Harlem Brundtland, but this is something we actually must admit didn't work.
17:40It gave us a Mickey Mouse economy, meaning that the economy has been growing very well,
17:47yes indeed, at the expense of human capital and natural capital, and that the Mickey Mouse
17:52economy must now be transformed into an inclusive, integrated earth system approach with planetary
17:58boundaries where the economy serves society and operates within a safe operating space,
18:03and we spent a lot of time yesterday in the scientific group to discuss for the planetary
18:08boundary systems what this really means for the discussion today, and you have the board
18:13right to the left here.
18:14In my mind, I won't go through this one in detail, but the center here is really fundamental.
18:18The scientific message is we need to recognize the interdependence between the biodiversity,
18:23the climate system, the oceans, the nitrogen-phosphorus cycle, all the biogeophysical systems, and
18:29society and economics, and I personally love this arrow from biodiversity to interdependence
18:34that we have so much evidence that even biodiversity today is fundamental to our success as societies.
18:41We went through a whole list of different candidates of work for today.
18:45I will certainly not go through these after having groups on biodiversity, forests, oceans,
18:49novel entities, biogeochemical cycles, water cycles, and climate systems, but I'd like
18:52to highlight three ones.
18:54Global commons are associated with risk, conflict, and security.
18:58This is a key message today that we're not on an environmental journey.
19:03We're on a sustainable development journey outside of only protection, and the second
19:09one is we had discussions in every group on financial innovations, from green bonds
19:14to major carbon pricing to all the efforts of getting to scale on investments and getting
19:20momentum on the economy towards sustainable innovation.
19:25And third, we need a narrative.
19:27We need a narrative for this desired future for humanity, and we don't have it, and this
19:31is a very important, not least to create inspiration for a positive future.
19:35And one narrative is the world in 2050, which connects to this work, which is to attain
19:39the SDGs in 2030, but then have a transformation to a world where we stay within a safe operating
19:44space by 2050 within the global commons.
19:47We need to rethink even these wonderful 17 goals and recognize that we actually have
19:53a hierarchy among them, where four of them, the water goal, the biodiversity goal, the
19:58ocean goal, and the climate goal, are actually non-negotiables.
20:01These form the safe operating space of commons within which we as humanity can deliver on
20:06aspirational societal goals and the economy's methods to achieve this, and that this may
20:11be part of a new narrative, a narrative that can give us a good future for humanity.
20:16So in conclusion, in the Anthropocene, global commons are more important than ever.
20:20It's key for world future on Earth.
20:22Second message, we need to adapt global commons to the Anthropocene.
20:26We now clearly continue to include resources outside of national borders, but also all
20:32the systems that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system.
20:36Global commons therefore include all the planetary boundaries.
20:40It implies there are no more externalities.
20:43Everything we do is internal to our own well-being and prosperity.
20:47This is a big change for economics.
20:49A stable and resilient Earth system is the common heritage of all humanity and every
20:52child's birthright.
20:54We stay with that old, very wise principle of global commons.
20:57Three principles, the inclusivity, universality, and resilience applies.
21:01We need disruptive transformations, and a mind shift is needed.
21:05And someone yesterday suggested the following, that perhaps a part of that mind shift is
21:10this one, that the Mickey Mouse failure plus the wedding cake becomes reconnecting world
21:16development with global commons.
21:17Who knows?
21:18This might be the new story for humanity.