Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet

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.

Authors

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

Specifications

Publication title
Identifying a Safe and Just Corridor for People and the Planet
Publication date
14 March 2021
Publication type
Article
Publication language
English
Magazine
Earth's Future
Issue
Volume 9, Issue4 April 2021
Product number
4648