Publications

Wang-Erlandsson, L., Tobian, A., van der Ent, R., Fetzer, I., te Wierik, S., Porkka, M., Staal, A., Jaramillo, F., Dahlmann, H., Singh, C., Greve, P., Gerten, D., Keys, P., Gleeson, T., Cornell, S., Steffen, W., Bai, X., Rockström, J. 2022. A planetary boundary for green water. Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s43017-022-00287-8

Green water — terrestrial precipitation, evaporation and soil moisture — is fundamental to Earth system dynamics and is now extensively perturbed by human pressures at continental to planetary scales. However, green water lacks explicit consideration in the existing planetary boundaries framework that demarcates a global safe operating space for humanity. In this Perspective, we propose a green water planetary boundary and es...

Österblom, H., Folke, C., Rocha, J. et al. Scientific mobilization of keystone actors for biosphere stewardship. Sci Rep 12, 3802 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-07023-8

The biosphere crisis requires changes to existing business practices. We ask how corporations can become sustainability leaders, when constrained by multiple barriers to collaboration for biosphere stewardship. We describe how scientists motivated, inspired and engaged with ten of the world’s largest seafood companies, in a collaborative process aimed to enable science-based and systemic transformations (2015–2021). CEOs face...

van Vuuren, D.P., Zimm, C., Busch, S., Kriegler, E., et.al. 2022. Defining a sustainable development target space for 2030 and 2050. One Earth, Volume 5, Issue 2, 18 February 2022, Pages 142-156, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2022.01.003

With the establishment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs), countries worldwide agreed to a prosperous, socially inclusive, and environmentally sustainable future for all. This ambition, however, exposes a critical gap in science-based insights, namely on how to achieve the 17 SDGs simultaneously. Quantitative goal-seeking scenario studies could help explore the needed systems' transformations. This requires a clear de...

Collste, D., Cornell, S.E., Randers, J., Rockström, J. & Stoknes, P.E. 2021. Human well-being in the Anthropocene: Limits to growth. Global Sustainability 4 e30, 1–9.

Transformation of the world towards sustainability in line with the 2030 Agenda requires progress on multiple dimensions of human well-being. We track development of relevant indicators for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1–7 against gross domestic product (GDP) per person in seven world regions and the world as a whole. Across the regions, we find uniform development patterns where SDGs 1–7 – and therefore main human nee...

Armstrong McKay, D.I., Cornell, S.E., Richardson, K. & Rockström, J. 2021. Resolving ecological feedbacks on the ocean carbon sink in Earth system models. Earth System Dynamics 12(3), 797–818.

The Earth's oceans are one of the largest sinks in the Earth system for anthropogenic CO2 emissions, acting as a negative feedback on climate change. Earth system models project that climate change will lead to a weakening ocean carbon uptake rate as warm water holds less dissolved CO2 and as biological productivity declines. However, most Earth system models do not incorporate the impact of warming on bacterial remineralisati...

Andersen, I., Ishii, N., Brooks, T., Cummis, C., Fonseca, G., Hillers, A., Macfarlane, N., Nakicenovic, N., Moss, K., Rockström, J., Steer, A., Waughray, D. & Zimm, C. 2021. Defining `science-based targets’. National Science Review 8(7), nwaa186.

The 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and aim towards limiting warming to 1.5°C marked a watershed in planetary governance, for two reasons. First, of course, it set an explicit, quantitative target for sustainability with strong support from science, in a clearer way than had ever been done before. Second, perhaps even more important, this target is structured in a way th...

Rockström, J., Beringer, T., Hole, D., Griscom, B., Mascia, M.B., Folke, C. & Creutzig, F. 2021. We need biosphere stewardship that protects carbon sinks and builds resilience. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(38), e2115218118.

Earth’s biosphere, its extraordinary and complex web of species and ecosystems on land and in the oceans, drives the life-sustaining cycles of water and other materials that enable all life on Earth to thrive. The biosphere is also a principal driver of immense negative feedback loops in the Earth system that stabilize atmospheric CO 2 concentrations and thereby global climate—including carbon sequestration by vegetation, so...

Queiroz, C., Norstrom, A.V., Downing, A., Harmackova, Z.V., De Coning, C., Adams, V., Bakarr, M., Baedeker, T., Chitate, A., Gaffney, O., Gordon, L., Hainzelin, E., Howlett, D., Krampe, F., Loboguerrero, A.M., Nel, D., Okollet, C., Rebermark, M., Rockström, J., Smith, M., Wabbes-Candotti, S. & Matthews, N. 2021. Investment in resilient food systems in the most vulnerable and fragile regions is critical. Nature Food 2(8), 546–551.

Reversing the alarming trend of rising food insecurity requires transformations towards just, sustainable and healthy food systems with an explicit focus on the most vulnerable and fragile regions. Global food insecurity fell for decades, but it is steadily rising again 1 . A primary driver of this alarming trend is the double burden of climate shocks and violent conflict in areas that are already food insecure. The recent ...

Warszawski, L., Kriegler, E., Lenton, T.M., Gaffney, O., Jacob, D., Klingenfeld, D., Koide, R., Costa, M.M., Messner, D., Nakicenovic, N., Schellnhuber, H.J., Schlosser, P., Takeuchi, K., Van Der Leeuw, S., Whiteman, G. & Rockström, J. 2021. All options, not silver bullets, needed to limit global warming to 1.5 °C: A scenario appraisal. Environmental Research Letters 16(6), 064037.

Climate science provides strong evidence of the necessity of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, in line with the Paris Climate Agreement. The IPCC 1.5 °C special report (SR1.5) presents 414 emissions scenarios modelled for the report, of which around 50 are classified as '1.5 °C scenarios', with no or low temperature overshoot. These emission scenarios differ in their reliance on individual mitigation levers, including reducti...

Herrero, M., Thornton, P., Mason-D'Croz, D., Palmer, J., Bodirsky, B., Pradhan, P., Barrett, C., Benton, T., Hall, A., Pikaar, I., Bogard, J., Bonnett, G., Bryan, B., Campbell, B., Christensen, S., Clark, M., Fanzo, J., Godde, C., Jarvis, A., Loboguerrero, A., Mathys, A., McIntyre, C., Naylor, R., Nelson, R., Obersteiner, M., Parodi, A., Popp, A., Ricketts, K., Smith, P., Valin, H., Vermeulen, S., Vervoort, J., van Wijk, M., van Zanten, H., West, P., Wood, S., Rockström, J.. 2021. Articulating the effect of food systems innovation on the Sustainable Development Goals. The Lancet Planetary Health Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2021, Pages e50-e62, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/s2542-5196(20)30277-1

Food system innovations will be instrumental to achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, major innovation breakthroughs can trigger profound and disruptive changes, leading to simultaneous and interlinked reconfigurations of multiple parts of the global food system. The emergence of new technologies or social solutions, therefore, have very different impact profiles, with favourable consequences for s...