Living well within the limits of our planet – how can the Planetary Boundaries help operationalize this vision for Europe?
Setting the Planetary Boundaries concept into a policy context helps integrate the global perspective and supports vertical and horizontal policy coherence. The Planetary Boundaries framework proposes quantitative limits for human perturbation of critical Earth system processes. In this regard, the planetary boundaries can be seen as defining a global “safe operating space” for human activity. The framework highlights the globally systemic interactions and impacts of the different Earth system processes. Crossing any of the boundaries at the global scale increases the risk of large-scale, possibly abrupt or irreversible environmental change.
This study has made an initial disaggregation, allocation and benchmarking analysis to the EU-28 level, for the planetary boundaries for climate change, biosphere integrity, land systems change, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus), and novel entities (chemical pollution).
The following overarching insights relate to all Planetary Boundaries:
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