2021, Rockström, Johan, Gupta, Joyeeta, Lenton, Timothy M., Qin, Dahe, Lade, Steven J., Abrams, Jesse F., Jacobson, Lisa, Rocha, Juan C., Zimm, Caroline, Bai, Xuemei, Bala, Govindasamy, Bringezu, Stefan, Broadgate, Wendy, Bunn, Stuart E., DeClerck, Fabrice, Ebi, Kristie L., Gong, Peng, Gordon, Chris, Kanie, Norichika, Liverman, Diana M., Nakicenovic, Nebojsa, Obura, David, Ramanathan, Veerabhadran, Verburg, Peter H., van Vuuren, Detlef P., Winkelmann, Ricarda

Keeping the Earth system in a stable and resilient state, to safeguard Earth's life support systems while ensuring that Earth's benefits, risks, and related responsibilities are equitably shared, constitutes the grand challenge for human development in the Anthropocene. Here, we describe a framework that the recently formed Earth Commission will use to define and quantify target ranges for a “safe and just corridor” that meets these goals. Although “safe” and “just” Earth system targets are interrelated, we see safe as primarily referring to a stable Earth system and just targets as being associated with meeting human needs and reducing exposure to risks. To align safe and just dimensions, we propose to address the equity dimensions of each safe target for Earth system regulating systems and processes. The more stringent of the safe or just target ranges then defines the corridor. Identifying levers of social transformation aimed at meeting the safe and just targets and challenges associated with translating the corridor to actors at multiple scales present scope for future work.

2016, Rockström, Johan, Schellnhuber, Hans Joachim, Hoskins, Brian, Ramanathan, Veerabhadran, Schlosser, Peter, Brasseur, Guy Pierre, Gaffney, Owen, Nobre, Carlos, Meinshausen, Malte, Rogelj, Joeri, Lucht, Wolfgang

The scale of the decarbonisation challenge to meet the Paris Agreement is underplayed in the public arena. It will require precipitous emissions reductions within 40 years and a new carbon sink on the scale of the ocean sink. Even then, the world is extremely likely to overshoot. A catastrophic failure of policy, for example, waiting another decade for transformative policy and full commitments to fossil‐free economies, will have irreversible and deleterious repercussions for humanity's remaining time on Earth. Only a global zero carbon roadmap will put the world on a course to phase‐out greenhouse gas emissions and create the essential carbon sinks for Earth‐system stability, without which, world prosperity is not possible.