Making Peacewith Nature
A scientific blueprint to tackle
the climate, biodiversity andpollution emergencies© 2021 United Nations Environment ProgrammeISBN:
Job No:978-92-807-3837-7
DEW/2335/NA

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Suggested citation
United Nations Environment Programme (2021). Making Peace with Nature: A scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies.
Nairobi. https://www.unep.org/resources/making-peace-nature

Co-funded by:

UNEP promotes
environmentally soundpractices globally andin its own activities. Our
distribution policy aims to reduce
UNEP‘s carbon footprintAcknowledgements(recent assessments; affiliation(s))
Report Leads: Ivar A. Baste (GEO, IPBES; Norwegian Environment Agency, Norway) and Robert T. Watson (IPCC, IPBES; UEA, UK)
Section Leads: Kate A. Brauman (IPBES; University of Minnesota, USA), Kai M. A. Chan (IPBES; University of British Columbia, Canada), Nebojsa Nakicenovic (TheWorld in 2050, IPCC; International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria), Paul L. Lucas (GEO, GBO; PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency,
the Netherlands), Stephen Polasky (IPBES; University of Minnesota, USA) and Robert J. Scholes (IPBES, IPCC; University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa)
Authors: Ricardo Barra (GEO, GCO; University of Concepción, Chile), Eduardo S. Brondizio (IPBES, GEO-6; Nepam-Unicamp, Brazil, Indiana University, USA), Shobhakar Dhakal (IPCC, GEO-6; Asian Institute of Technology, Nepal), Rebecca M. Garland (IPCC; Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, South Africa), Yacob
Mulugetta (IPCC; University College London, UK), Paul A. Newman (Montreal Protocol’s Scientific Assessment Panel; NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA),
Belinda Reyers (IPBES; Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden), Cristián Samper (Wildlife Conservation Society, USA), Sonia I. Seneviratne (IPCC; ETH Zürich,
Switzerland), Detlef van Vuuren (IPBES, IPCC, GEO-6; PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, the Netherlands), Chris Walzer (Wildlife Conservation
Society, USA), Rachel Warren (IPCC; University of East Anglia, UK), Bianca Wernecke (South African Medical Research Council, South Africa) and Caradee Y.
Wright (IPCC, GEO-6; South African Medical Research Council, South Africa)
Scientific Advisory Group: Hesiquio Benitez-Diaz (CONABIO, Mexico), Julia Carabias (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico), John M. Christensen (IPCC; UNEP-DTU, Denmark), H. David Cooper (GBO; CBD, UK), Paul Ekins (IPCC, GEO-6; University College London, UK), David W. Fahey (IPCC; NOAA, USA),
Joyeeta Gupta (IPCC, GEO-6; University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Madhav Karki (IPBES; Centre for Green Economy Development, Nepal), Nicholas King
(IPBES, IPCC, GEO-6; North West University, South Africa), Thomas Lovejoy (Amazon Biodiversity Center, USA), Jock Martin (European Environment Agency,
Denmark), Valérie Masson-Delmotte (IPCC; French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, France), Peter Messerli (GSDR; University of Bern,
Switzerland) Shantanu Mukherjee (UNDESA, India), Endah Murniningtyas (GSDR; Indonesia Agriculture Economist Association, Indonesia), Bruno Oberle (Swiss
Agency for the Environment, Forests and Landscape, Switzerland), Janez Potočnik (GRO; SYSTEMIQ, Slovenia), Debra Roberts (IPCC; eThekwini Municipality,
Durban, South Africa), Johan Rockström (GEO-6; Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany), Cyrie Sendashonga (IUCN, Canada), Sonali Senaratna Sellamuttu (IPBES; International Water Management Institute, Sri Lanka), Jim Skea (IPCC; Imperial College London, UK) and Youba Sokona (IPCC; African
Climate Policy Centre, Mali)
Research Fellows: Maria Jesus Iraola (GEO-6; Asesoramiento Ambiental Estratégico, Uruguay), Akshay Jain (GEO-6; Mesotope Pte Ltd, India), Tooba Masood(GEO-6; Asian Institute of Technology, Pakistan), Jaee Nikam (GEO-6; Stockholm Environment Institute, India), Amit Patel (GEO-6; Cadmus Group LLC, USA), Priti
Patel (GEO-6; NU Borders LLC, USA), Semie Sama (GEO-6; McGill University, Canada), Samanta Villegas Espinosa (GEO-6; Fundación de Conservación Jocotoco,
Ecuador), Leila Zamani (GEO-6; Department of Environment of Islamic Republic of Iran, Iran) and Emily Zhang (The George Washington University, USA)
Reviewers: Sandy Sheard (The Dasgupta Review), Valentin Foltescu and Pushpam Kumar (UNEP Economy Division), Linxiu Zhang, Tim Christopherson, Michele
Poletto, Riccardo Zennaro and Doreen Robinson (UNEP Ecosystems Division), Arnold Kreilhuber (UNEP Law Division), Susan Mutebi-Richards and Marieta Sakalian (UNEP Policy and Programme Division), Sandra Averous-Monnery (UNEP Chemicals and Health Branch), Daniel Cooney (UNEP Communications Division),
Jian Liu and Ludgarde Coppens (UNEP Science Division), Jinhua Zhang (UNEP Asia-Pacific Office), Tomas Marques (UNEP Europe Office), Simi Thambi andDivya Datt (UNEP India Office), Jason Jabbour, Jane Eisenhardt and Logan Ende (UNEP North America Office), Neville Ash and Hilary Allison (UNEP-WCMC),
Katarina Magulova (Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions), Alexander Shestakov, Jillian Campbell, Kieran Noonan-Mooney, Christopher Pereira, Julie
Botzas-Coluni, Caridad Canales and Joseph Appiott (Convention on Biological Diversity), Tom De Meulenaer (Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), Christina Bodouroglou (International Resource Panel), Eisaku Toda (Minamata Convention on Mercury), Tina Birmpili, Meg Sekiand Sophia Mylona (Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer)

Report Production TeamUNEP Secretariat
Core team: Rachel Kosse, Brigitte Ohanga, Adele Roccato and Edoardo Zandri
Extended team: Pierre Boileau, Caroline Kaimuru, Maarten Kappelle, Jian Liu, Caroline Mureithi, Josephine Mule, Franklin Odhiambo, Pinya Sarasas and Sharif Shawky
Communications Team: David Cole, Daniel Cooney, Florian Fußstetter, Maria Vittoria Galassi, Stephen Graham, Nancy Groves, Duncan Moore, Pooja Munshi,
Stephanie Pascale Foote, Keishamaza Rukikaire, Reagan Sirengo and Neha Sud
Design and layout: Sebastian Obermeyer and Joseph Schmidt-Klingenberg
Science Communications Editor: Stephen Graham
Maps: Magda Biesiada, Jane Muriithi and Emily Zhang

3

UN Secretary-General’s
Foreword
Humanity is waging war on nature. This is senseless andsuicidal. The consequences of our recklessness are alreadyapparent in human suffering, towering economic losses andthe accelerating erosion of life on Earth.
Ending our war does not mean surrendering hard-won development gains. Nor does it cancel the rightful aspiration of poorer
nations and people to enjoy better living standards. On thecontrary, making peace with nature, securing its health andbuilding on the critical and undervalued benefits that it provides are key to a prosperous and sustainable future for all.
The urgent need to transform our relationship with naturerisks being overlooked amid the huge suffering inflicted by the
COVID-19 pandemic. Saving precious lives and livelihoods is
our top priority. But by exposing humanity’s vulnerability, thepandemic can also help make 2021 a turning point towards amore sustainable and inclusive world.
This report provides the bedrock for hope. By bringing together
the latest scientific evidence showing the impacts and threatsof the climate emergency, the biodiversity crisis and the pollution that kills millions of people every year, it makes clear that
our war on nature has left the planet broken. But it also guides
us to a safer place by providing a peace plan and a post-war
rebuilding programme. By transforming how we view nature,
we can recognize its true value. By reflecting this value inpolicies, plans and economic systems, we can channel investments into activities that restore nature and are rewarded for it.
By recognizing nature as an indispensable ally, we can unleash
human ingenuity in the service of sustainability and secure ourown health and well-being alongside that of the planet.

our water, land and oceans. Developing countries need moreassistance to redress environmental decline. Only then can
we get back on track to achieve the Sustainable Development
Goals by 2030.
This report shows that we have the ability to transform ourimpact on the world. A sustainable economy driven by renewable energy and nature-based solutions will create new jobs,
cleaner infrastructure and a resilient future. An inclusive world
at peace with nature can ensure that people enjoy better healthand the full respect of their human rights so they can live with
dignity on a healthy planet.

Making peace with nature is the defining task of the coming
decades. We must seize the opportunity presented by the
COVID-19 crisis to accelerate change. This year, several majorinternational conferences, including on climate change, biodiversity and desertification, provide an opportunity to increase ambition and action on recovering better and addressing
climate disruption. Our central objective is to build a global
coalition for carbon neutrality. If adopted by every country, city,
financial institution and company around the world, the drive
to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 can still avert the worst
impacts of climate change.
Similar urgency and ambition are needed to transform othersystems, including how we produce our food and manage

4

António Guterres
Secretary-General of the United Nations,February 2021

UNEP Executive Director’s
Foreword
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was emerging as a
moment of truth for our commitment to steer Earth and its
people toward sustainability. Momentum was building andglobal meetings were set to discuss bold action on the threeinterconnected planetary crises facing humanity, namely theclimate crisis, the nature crisis and the pollution crisis. These
crises, driven by decades of relentless and unsustainableconsumption and production, are amplifying deep inequalities and threatening our collective future.
This report makes the strongest scientific case yet for why
and how that collective determination must be urgently
applied to protecting and restoring our planet. Drawing on aunique and comprehensive synthesis of global environmental assessments, it details the self-defeating and dangerous
consequences of our overconsumption of resources andoverproduction of waste.
The science is clear that we are putting extreme pressureson the planet. According to the 2020 UNEP Emissions Gap
Report, while the pandemic resulted in a temporary decline
in greenhouse gas emissions, we are heading for at least
a 3°C temperature rise this century. Our colleagues at theIntergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) have sounded the alarm on
the rapid decline of nature and what this means for Agenda
2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).
Loss of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, together withclimate change and pollution will undermine our efforts on
80 per cent of assessed SDG Targets, making it even moredifficult to report progress on poverty reduction, hunger,
health, water, cities and climate. We need to look no further
than the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, a zoonotic
disease, i.e. transmitted from animal to human, to knowthat the finely-tuned system of the natural world has been
disrupted. And finally, the “toxic trail” of economic growth –pollution and waste which results every year in the premature deaths of millions of people across the world.
While the response to the medical emergency of COVID-19
rightly preoccupies government budgets and political action,
the response to this pandemic must ultimately accelerate
the economic and social transformations needed to address
the planetary emergency. As the UN Secretary-General noted in his State of Planet speech, “COVID recovery and ourplanet’s repair must be two sides of the same coin.”

The report outlines what the “repair” of our planet entails, thetransformative actions that can unleash human ingenuity andcooperation to secure livelihoods and well-being for all. Repair
means solutions that recognize how our environmental, socialand development challenges are interconnected. Repair means
shifting our values and worldviews as well as our financial andeconomic systems. Repair means taking a whole-of-society
approach. And repair means being fair and just.
With science as our guiding light, UNEP’s Medium-Term
Strategy (2022-2025) seeks to ensure the link between science, policy and decision-making remains stronger than ever,sustained by strong environmental governance and supported
by economic policies that can be the foundation of a catalytic
response to the challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss
and pollution. In doing so, we support member states, working
with partners, scientists, civil society and business to tackle thethree interconnected crises so that we stabilize climate; live inharmony with nature and secure a pollution free planet.
2021 must be remembered as the year we took it upon ourselves to ensure that the pandemic is remembered not only as ahuman tragedy, but as the moment when people reconsidered
their priorities as individuals and societies and took to heartthat safeguarding the health and well-being of current and future generations means safeguarding the health of our planet.

Inger Andersen
Executive Director
United Nations Environment Programme,
February 2021

5

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

PrefaceThis report presents a scientific blueprint for how climatechange, biodiversity loss and pollution can be tackled jointly within the framework of the Sustainable Development
Goals. The report is a synthesis based on evidence fromglobal environmental assessments. It has been a privilege
to oversee the production and peer review of the report by
the eminent group of experts and advisors appointed byInger Andersen, the Executive Director of UNEP, for theirleading contributions to and intimate understanding of theinterface between science and policy in addressing theenvironmental challenges of today.
The expert analysis rests on the synthesis of key findings
from a range of recent intergovernmental global environmental assessments and assessments prepared under the
auspices of Multilateral Environmental Agreements, UNbodies and others (see annex 1). The report makes reference
to the assessments, not the original literature referred therein. The presentation of the findings from the assessments
is the responsibility of the authors of the current report. Ina limited number of cases, additional high-impact peer-reviewed literature and grey literature have been assessed
and referenced in order to present a complete and updated
picture of the knowledge base.
The results of this synthesis are presented for decision
makers in the form of clear, digestible and facts-based key
messages and an executive summary substantiated and referenced in the main report. Part I of the report shows how thefindings of the assessments are interlinked and add up to an
unparalleled planetary emergency. While most of the underlying assessments are relevant for policy formulation, Part II
goes a step further in recommending how the accumulatedscientific evidence can be turned into concrete and far-reaching actions by a broad range of actors across society inorder to transform humankind’s relationship with nature.
This report was prepared amid the challenges of the
COVID-19 pandemic, which meant that the authors, scientific advisory group and secretariat had to work without
ever meeting face to face. All work was carried out throughdozens of virtual conference calls.
This synthesis would not have been possible without thework undertaken for the international assessments usedas the evidence base in this report and the contribution byexperts from these assessments. We also highly appreciate
the outstanding contributions by the group of experts who
have joined us in authoring this report and the valuable gui-Ivar A. Baste

Robert T. Watson

dance by the members of the scientific advisory group who
peer-reviewed the report multiple times. We would particularly like to acknowledge the sustained enthusiasm for thisendeavour by authors and advisors given their many othercommitments. We are also indebted to the strong support
received from the UNEP secretariat, research fellows, designers and the science communications editor, in particular
the visionary guidance and inspiration provided by Inger
Andersen and the unwavering commitment of the core teamof the secretariat.

Ivar A. Baste
Report Lead
February 2021

Robert T. Watson
Report Lead
February 2021

7

Table of contents

Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................ 3
Forewords....................................................................................................................................... 4
Preface............................................................................................................................................ 7
Key Messages............................................................................................................................... 13
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................... 21
Main report
1

Tackling the planetary emergency and lighting apath to a sustainable future with new opportunities.............................................................. 47

Part I: Transforming nature puts human well-being at risk
2

The current mode of development degrades
the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being ........................................................ 51

2.1 Human well-being is critically dependent on the Earth’s natural systems...................................... 51
2.2 Economic and financial systems fail to account for nature................................................................ 52
2.3 Rapidly expanding human activities are driving environmental change..........................................53
3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments
to limit environmental damage............................................................................................... 67
3.1 Society is not on course to fulfil the Paris Agreement
to limit global warming............................................................................................................................... 67
3.2 None of the goals for the protection of life on Earth have been fully met........................................ 69
3.3 The world is not on course to halt land degradation............................................................................ 71
3.4 Air pollution is not sufficiently reduced to protect human well-being.............................................. 74
3.5 Chemicals and waste are not always managed safely........................................................................ 75
3.6 Strong international coordinated action is restoring
Earth‘s protective ozone layer................................................................................................................... 76
3.7 The different forms of environmental change are intertwined ......................................................... 78
4

The achievement of the Sustainable Development
Goals is threatened by environmental risks........................................................................... 89

4.1 Environmental decline impedes progress on economic
development and ending poverty (SDGs 1 and 8)................................................................................898

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

4.2 The Earth’s capacity to supply food and water
weakens in the face of environmental decline (SDGs 2 and 6)..........................................................90
4.3 The deteriorating environmental health of the planet
undermines human health (SDG 3)..........................................................................................................92
4.4 Environmental change accentuates inequalities (SDGs 5 and 10).................................................... 95
4.5 Environmental degradation impedes efforts to promote peace (SDG 16).......................................96
4.6 Environmental degradation hampers efforts to makecities and communities sustainable (SDG 11).......................................................................................96
Part II: Transforming humankind’s relationship with nature is the key to a sustainable future5

Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation
can transform societies and economies and secure a sustainable future.......................... 101

5.1 Transformative systemic change is a prerequisite for a sustainable future..................................101
5.2 The levers and leverage points for transformative change...............................................................102
5.3 Implementing transformations and overcoming barriers
from inertia and vested interests...........................................................................................................104
6

Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed
together to achieve sustainability......................................................................................... 107

6.1 Scaled-up and accelerated actions to address climate change
in this decade are essential.....................................................................................................................107
6.2 Scaling up and accelerating the conservation, sustainable
use and restoration of biodiversity is critical.......................................................................................109
6.3 Transforming land management can meet human needs,
while helping biodiversity and the climate............................................................................................ 111
6.4 Science-based management can reduce the adverse effects
of chemicals on human health and the environment......................................................................... 113
6.5 Aligning objectives and actions can deliver transformativechange for both the environment and human development ........................................................... 114
7Transforming economic, financial and productive systems
can lead and power the shift to sustainability .......................................................................119

7.1 Transforming economic and financial systems to becomesustainable and just.................................................................................................................................. 119
7.2 Transforming food and water systems to become equitable and resilient....................................120

9

Table of contents

7.3 Transforming to low-carbon energy systems with access to clean
energy for all is possible..........................................................................................................................1238

Keeping the planet healthy is key to providing health and well-being for all........................ 127

8.1 Reversing environmental decline reduces threats to human health and well-being....................127
8.2 Promoting peaceful societies is key to reducing environmental degradation..............................129
8.3 Making cities and communities sustainable is critical......................................................................129
9

All actors have a part play in transforming humankind’s relationship with nature.............. 133

Annex I: Assessment Reports Used in this Synthesis Report.................................................... 145
Glossary...................................................................................................................................... 147
Acronyms list.............................................................................................................................. 154
References.................................................................................................................................. 156

List of Tables, Boxes and Figures
Figure KM.1: Making Peace with Nature....................................................................................................... 18
Box ES.1: COVID-19 and One Health...............................................................................................................26
Figure ES.1: Environmental degradation threatens the achievement of the SDGs............................... 27
Box ES.2: Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic...............................................................................29
Figure ES.2: The emissions gap.....................................................................................................................31
Table ES.1: Actors and actions to transform humankind’s relationship with nature............................ 37
Figure 1.1: Comparison of risk thresholds across Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments...........................................................................................48
Figure 1.2: Milestones in the history of stratospheric ozone depletion.................................................. 49
Box 2.1: The role of scenario analysis and the shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)..................54
Figure 2.1: Shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs)................................................................................55
Figure 2.2: Development pathways in human relationship with nature..................................................56
Figure 2.3: Development pathways by country income.............................................................................57
Figure 2.4: Domestic material consumption and footprint by country income, 2017..........................58

10

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Figure 2.5: Global primary energy consumption by source......................................................................59
Figure 2.6: Ratio of biomass of mammals...................................................................................................60
Figure 2.7: Global use of ice-free land around year 2015.......................................................................... 61
Figure 2.8: Global greenhouse gas emissions from all source from 1990 to 2020............................. 62
Figure 3.1: Relative global impact of direct drivers on major ecosystems............................................. 69
Figure 3.2: Assessment of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets........................................ 70
Figure 3.3: Loss of biodiversity between 2015 and 2050..........................................................................72
Box 3.1: Teasing apart land degradation and land transformation.......................................................... 72
Figure 3.4: Land degradation world maps....................................................................................................73
Figure 3.5: Chemical intensification 1955 – 2015....................................................................................... 76
Figure 3.6: Milestones in the history of stratospheric ozone depletion..................................................77
Figure 3.7: Species projected to lose over 50 per cent of theirclimatically determined geographic range....................................................................................................79
Figure 3.8: Impacts and Risks to Humans and Ecosystems from Climate Change.............................80
Figure 3.9: The interactions between climate change, land use and biodiversity................................82
Figure 4.1: Environmental degradation threatens the achievement of the SDGs.................................88
Figure 4.2: Different socioeconomic pathways affect levels of climate-related risks.........................89
Figure 4.3: Environmental risks and human health.....................................................................................92
Box 4.1: The risk of pandemics: the case of COVID-19...............................................................................94
Table 5.1: The action of the levers and leverage points in fostering
the six key system transformations..............................................................................................................105
Figure 6.1: The emissions gap......................................................................................................................109
Figure 6.2: Bending the curve of biodiversity loss.................................................................................... 110
Figure 6.3: Aligned actions for protecting and restoring life on Earth................................................... 115
Box 8.1: Avoiding pandemics and the transition to a sustainable world...............................................128
Figure 8.1: Pathogen spillover events..........................................................................................................129
Table 9.1: Actors and actions to transform humankind’s relationship with nature.............................134

11

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Key Messages
Humanity’s environmental challenges have grown in number and severity ever since
the Stockholm Conference in 1972 and now represent a planetary emergency. While tackling
the emergency is demanding, this report, Making Peace with Nature, lights a path to asustainable future with new possibilities and opportunities (figure KM.1).

The top five
• Environmental changes are undermining hard-won development gains by causing economic costs
and millions of premature deaths annually. They are impeding progress towards ending poverty andhunger, reducing inequalities and promoting sustainable economic growth, work for all and peacefuland inclusive societies.
• The well-being of today‘s youth and future generations depends on an urgent and clear break withcurrent trends of environmental decline. The coming decade is crucial. Society needs to reduce carbon
dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and reach net-zero emissions by
2050 to limit warming to 1.5 °C as aspired to in the Paris Agreement, while at the same time conserving
and restoring biodiversity and minimizing pollution and waste.
• Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being need to be addressed together to achievesustainability. The development of the goals, targets, commitments and mechanisms under the key
environmental conventions and their implementation need to be aligned to become more synergistic
and effective.
• The economic, financial and productive systems can and should be transformed to lead and power
the shift to sustainability. Society needs to include natural capital in decision-making, eliminate environmentally harmful subsidies and invest in the transition to a sustainable future.
• Everyone has a role to play in ensuring that human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation are redeployed from transforming nature to transforming humankind‘s relationship with nature.
Polycentric governance is key to empowering people to express themselves and act environmentally
responsibly without undue difficulty or self-sacrifice.

13

Key Messages

Transforming nature puts human well-being at risk
The current mode of development degrades the Earth’s
finite capacity to sustain human well-being• Human well-being critically depends on the Earth’s natural
systems. Yet the economic, technological and social advances have also led to a reduction of the Earth’s capacity
to sustain current and future human well-being. Humanprosperity relies on the wise use of the planet’s finite spaceand remaining resources, as well as on the protection andrestoration of its life-supporting processes and capacity toabsorb waste.
• Over the last 50 years, the global economy has grown nearly fivefold, due largely to a tripling in extraction of natural
resources and energy that has fuelled growth in production
and consumption. The world population has increased bya factor of two, to 7.8 billion people, and though on average prosperity has also doubled, about 1.3 billion people
remain poor and some 700 million are hungry.
• The increasingly unequal and resource-intensive model ofdevelopment drives environmental decline through climatechange, biodiversity loss and other forms of pollution andresource degradation.
• Social, economic and financial systems fail to account for
the essential benefits society gets from nature and to provide incentives to manage it wisely and maintain its value.
The majority of the essential benefits of nature currently
have no financial market value despite being the underpinning of current and future prosperity.
Society is failing to meet most of its commitments tolimit environmental damage• Society is not on course to fulfil the Paris Agreement tolimit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to further limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C. At the current rate, warming willreach 1.5°C by around 2040 and possibly earlier. Taken
together, current national policies to reduce greenhousegas emissions put the world on a pathway to warming ofat least 3°C by 2100. Human-induced current warmingof more than 1°C has already led to shifts in climate
zones, changes in precipitation patterns, melting of ice
sheets and glaciers, accelerating sea level rise and more
frequent and more intense extreme events, threatening
people and nature.

14• None of the agreed global goals for the protection oflife on Earth and for halting the degradation of land andoceans have been fully met. Three quarters of the land andtwo thirds of the oceans are now impacted by humans.
One million of the world’s estimated 8 million species ofplants and animals are threatened with extinction, andmany of the ecosystem services essential for human wellbeing are eroding.
• Society is on course to restore the Earth’s protective
stratospheric ozone layer. However, there is a lot more to
be done to reduce air and water pollution, safely manage
chemicals, and reduce and safely manage waste.
The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals
is threatened by an array of escalating and mutually
reinforcing environmental risks• Current and projected changes in climate, biodiversity
loss and pollution makes achieving the SDGs even morechallenging. For example, even small increases in temperature, along with associated changes such as in weather,
precipitation, heavier rainfall events, extreme heat, drought
and fire, increase risks to health, food security, watersupply and human security, and these risks increase alongwith warming. In 2018 alone, damages from climate-related natural disasters cost about US$155 billion.
• The burden of environmental decline is felt by everyone,
but disproportionally by the poor and vulnerable andlooms even larger over today’s youth and future generations. Producers and consumers in wealthy countries often
export their environmental footprint to poorer countries
through trade and the disposal of waste.
• Environmental changes are already undermining hardwon development gains and impeding progress towards
ending poverty and hunger, reducing inequalities andpromoting sustainable economic growth, work for all andpeaceful and inclusive societies. Land degradation, forinstance, adversely affects more than 3 billion people.
• Earth’s capacity to sustain growing needs for nutritious
food, water and sanitation will continue to weaken in theface of ongoing environmental declines, as vulnerable
and marginalized people are currently experiencing.
For example, food security is threatened by the loss ofpollinators and fertile soil. Loss of pollinators, threatens
annual global crop output worth between US$235 billion
and US$577 billion.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies• The deteriorating state of the planet undermines efforts
to achieve healthy lives and well-being for all. Around one
quarter of the global burden of disease stems from environment-related risks, including those from animal-borne
diseases (such as COVID-19), climate change, and exposure to pollution and toxic chemicals. Pollution causes some
9 million premature deaths annually and millions more dieevery year from other environment-related health risks.
• Environmental risks in cities and urban areas, including
those from heatwaves, flash floods, drought, wildfires andpollution, hamper efforts to make human settlements (including informal settlements) inclusive, safe, resilient andsustainable.
There is an urgent need for a clear break with current
trends of environmental decline and the coming decadeis crucial• The risks to human well-being and the achievement of the
Sustainable Development Goals will continue to escalate unless environmental degradation is halted. Global
warming of more than 2°C combined with continued lossof biodiversity and increasing pollution will likely have direconsequences for humanity.
• The costs of inaction on limiting environmental change far
outweigh the costs of action. Global aggregate impacts
from climate change are estimated to be very high by theend of the century unless cost-effective mitigations strategies are undertaken.

Transforming humankind’s relationship with nature is
the key to a sustainable future
Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation
can transform societies and economies and secure a sustainable future• Decades of incremental efforts have not stemmed the environmental decline resulting from an expansive development
model because vested and short-term interests often prevail.
• Only a system-wide transformation will achieve well-being
for all within the Earth’s capacity to support life, provide resources and absorb waste. This transformation will involvea fundamental change in the technological, economic
and social organization of society, including world views,
norms, values and governance.
• Major shifts in investment and regulation are key to justand informed transformations that overcome inertia andopposition from vested interests. Regulatory processes
should embody transparent decision-making and good
governance involving all relevant stakeholders. Opposition
to change can be defused by redirecting subsidies toward
alternative livelihoods and new business models.
• The COVID-19 crisis provides an impetus to acceleratetransformative change. The pandemic and the ensuingeconomic upheaval have shown the dangers of ecosystemdegradation, as well as the need for international cooperation and greater social and economic resilience. The crisis
has had major economic costs and is triggering significant
investments. Ensuring that these investments support
transformative change is key to attaining sustainability.
Earth’s environmental emergencies should be addressed
together to achieve sustainability• Given the interconnected nature of climate change, loss of
biodiversity, land degradation, and air and water pollution,
it is essential that these problems are tackled together.
Response options that address multiple issues can mitigate
multidimensional vulnerability, minimize trade-offs andmaximize synergies.
• Limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to further limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C requires rapid implementation
and a significant strengthening of pledges under the Paris
Agreement. Globally, net carbon dioxide emissions need to
decline by 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels

15Key Messages

and reach net zero by 2050 to put the world on a pathway to
1.5°C with a probability of about 50 per cent, whereas more
ambitious targets would be necessary for higher certainty.
A pathway to 2°C would require global emissions to be reduced by 25 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels andreach net zero by around 2070. Both pathways entail rapidtransformations in areas including energy systems, landuse, agriculture, forest protection, urban development, infrastructure and lifestyles. Mitigating climate change is vital,
urgent and cost saving: the lower the degree of warming,the easier and cheaper it will be to adapt.
• The loss of biodiversity can only be halted and reversed byproviding space dedicated for nature while also addressing
drivers such as changing land and sea use, overexploitation, climate change, pollution and invasive alien species. To
prevent extinctions and maintain nature’s life-supporting
contributions, biodiversity conservation and restorationmust be integral to the many uses of terrestrial, freshwaterand marine ecosystems, and coupled with an expanded
and better-managed global network of interconnected protected areas designed to be resilient to climate change.
• The adverse effects of chemicals and waste on the environment and human health can be substantially reduced by
implementing existing international chemicals conventions.
Further progress will require strengthening the science-policy interface as the basis for evidence-based policymaking
and improved management systems, along with legal andregulatory reform.
The economic and financial systems can and should betransformed to lead and power the shift to sustainability• Governments should incorporate full natural capital accounting into their decision-making and use policies andregulatory frameworks to provide incentives for businesses
to do the same. Yardsticks such as inclusive wealth (thesum of produced, natural, human and social capital) provide
a better basis for investment decisions than gross domestic
product, as they reflect the capacity of current and future
generations to achieve and sustain higher living standards.
• Governments should shift away from environmentally
harmful subsidies, invest in low-carbon and nature-friendly
solutions and technologies, and systematically internalize
environmental and social costs.
• Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals will requiremassive shifts and increases in public and private financial
flows and investment patterns, including in the water, food16

and energy sectors. Incentives must be shifted so thatinvestments in sustainable development are financiallyattractive.
• The Global South needs increased access to low-interest finance in order to build its capacity and overhaul
accounting systems and policy frameworks in pursuit of
the Sustainable Development Goals. The Global North has
exacerbated the finance gap by failing to meet its commitments on international environmental and development
assistance.
• Shifting taxation from production and labour to resource
use and waste promotes a circular economy. Potential
inequalities resulting from this shift can be offset throughsocial safety nets.
• Reducing inequalities and the risk of social conflict requires
the minimization and reversal of environmental degradation and declines in natural resources. It also requires
structural changes to the economy, including steps to promote equity and address individual and community rights
to property, resources and education.
The food, water and energy systems can and should betransformed to meet growing human needs in an equitable,
resilient and environmentally-friendly manner• Feeding humanity, ensuring water and energy security, andenhancing the conservation, restoration and sustainable
use of nature are complementary and closely interdependent goals. Achieving these goals requires food systems
that work with nature, reduce waste, and are adaptive tochange and resilient to shocks. Small-scale farmers, especially women farmers, are central to the challenge of foodand nutrition security and must be empowered.
• Changes in global patterns of consumption are critical totransforming food, water and energy systems, and to challenging social norms and business practices. Improving
access to safe, nutritious and affordable food for all, while
reducing food waste and changing dietary choices andconsumer behaviour in high-income countries and groups,
is central for the achievement of hunger, biodiversity, waste and climate goals.
• Ensuring sustainable food production from the oceans
while protecting marine biodiversity requires policy action
to apply sustainable harvesting approaches to fisheries
management, improve spatial planning and address threatssuch as climate change, ocean acidification and pollution.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies• Sustaining freshwater in the context of climate change,
rising demand, and increased pollution involves cross-sectoral and sector-specific interventions at the watershed orriver basin scale. This can be achieved by simultaneously
increasing water-use efficiency, wisely expanding storage,
reducing pollution, improving water quality, minimizing
disruption and fostering the restoration of natural habitats
and flow regimes.
• Universal access to clean and affordable energy requires atransformation of both the production and use of energy.
Increasing the supply of clean energy coupled with innovation and efficiency gains is vital to achieving equitable
and sustainable economic growth while limiting global
warming. Clean energy will also reduce poverty and indoor
and outdoor air pollution and provide critical services suchas communications, lighting and water pumping.
Keeping the planet healthy is key to providing healthand well-being for all• Policies, good practices and appropriate technologies tolimit climate change, ecosystem degradation and pollution
can significantly reduce associated human health risks,
including from respiratory diseases, water-borne, vectorborne and animal-borne diseases, malnutrition, extreme
weather events and chemical exposure. Technologicalchange and diffusion are important mechanisms to drive
transformation.

Everyone has a part to play in transforming socialand economic systems for a sustainable future• All actors have individual, complementary and nested roles
to play in bringing about cross-sectoral and economy-wide
transformative change with immediate and long-term impact. This can be enhanced through capacity-building andeducation. Governments initiate and lead in intergovernmental cooperation, policies and legislation that transformsociety and the economy. Such transformations enable
the private sector, financial institutions, labour organizations, scientific and educational bodies and media as well
as households and civil society groups to initiate and leadtransformations in their domains.
• Individuals can facilitate transformation by, for instance,
exercising their voting and civic rights, changing their dietsand travel habits, avoiding waste of food and resources,
and reducing their consumption of water and energy. They
can also promote behavioural change by raising awarenessin their communities. Human cooperation, innovation andknowledge-sharing will create new social and economic
possibilities and opportunities in the transformation to asustainable future.

• A One Health approach integrates action across sectors
and disciplines to protect the health of people, animals andthe environment. Such an approach is key to minimize future human health risks from climate change, ecosystemdegradation and deteriorating food, air and water quality.
It is also essential in preventing and limiting the impact of
future health emergencies, including pandemic outbreaksof animal-borne diseases such as COVID-19.
• Cities and other settlements, especially rapidly expanding
urban areas and informal settlements, must be mademore sustainable. Improvements in urban planning,governance, infrastructure and the use of nature-based solutions can be cost-effective ways to reduce pollution andmake settlements more environment friendly and resilient
to climate change impacts such as increased urban heatisland effects and flooding. Blue and green infrastructurein urban areas have significant benefits for mental health.

17

MAKING PEACE WITH NATURE
Transforming natureputs human well-being at risk

Transforming humankind’s
relationship with nature is the
key to a sustainable future

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (1970–2020):

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT (from 2020):

The economy has grown nearly
fivefold and trade tenfold

Sustainable economic andfinancial systems

Human population has doubled to
7.8 billion

Healthy, nutritious food and cleanwater and energy

Still, 1.3 billion people are poor and
700 million hungry

Healthy lives and well-being for
all in safe cities and settlements

DISPOSALS OF WASTE MATTER:DISPOSALS OF WASTE MATTER:

Greenhouse gas emissions
have doubled

Net-zero carbon dioxide
emissions by 2050

Chemical production,
waste and pollution
have increased
USE OF SPACE ANDRESOURCES:
Resource use has
tripledHumans impact 3/4 ofice-free land and 2/3 ofoceansManagement ofchemicals, waste andpollution
USE OF SPACE ANDRESOURCES:
Recycling of resources
Protection andsustainable use of landand oceans

Earth‘s capacities toEarth‘s capacities tosupport life
provide resources
absorb waste matter

support life
provide resources
absorb waste matter

ARE DEGRADEDAND SURPASSEDARE RESTORED
AND ADAPTEDRIS K to:S U PPO R T fo r:

Livelihoods, equity, health,economic development, peace,
food, water, sanitation, safe
cities and settlements

Poverty elimination, equity,
health, economic development,
peace, food, water, sanitation,safe cities and settlements

Figure KM.1: The well-being of today’s youth and future generations depends on an urgent and clear break with the current trends of environmental decline. Human
knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation need to be redeployed from transforming nature to transforming humankind’s relationship with nature. Time isof the essence. Society needs to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to limit
warming to 1.5 °C as aspired to in the Paris Agreement, while at the same time conserving and restoring biodiversity and minimizing pollution and waste.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

19

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Executive Summary

Humanity has been grappling with environmental challenges that have grown in number and severity ever since theStockholm Conference in 1972. The scientific assessments
synthesized in this report show that those challenges now
represent a planetary emergency. While tackling the emergency is demanding, the report lights a path to a sustainable future marked with new possibilities and opportunities.

I. Transforming nature puts humanwell-being at risk
Part I of the report addresses how the current expansivemode of development degrades and exceeds the Earth’s finite
capacity to sustain human well-being. The world is failing tomeet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage and this increasingly threatens the achievement of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A. The current mode of development degrades the
Earth’s finite capacity to sustain human well-being
Human well-being is critically dependent on Earth’s natural
systems. Economic, social and technological advances
have come at the expense of the Earth’s capacity to sustain
current and future human well-being. Human prosperity restson the wise use of the finite space and resources available to
all life on Earth, as well as on the restoration of its life-supporting processes and capacity to absorb human waste.
Every person benefits from clean air and water, a protective
stratospheric ozone layer, a hospitable climate and the many
additional benefits that land and oceans provide, including
food, medicines, energy, materials, inspiration and a sense ofplace. The rich web of life, of which humanity is a part, modulates and maintains Earth’s systems in ways critical to people,
for example by reducing the severity of natural disasters andby providing soil, pollination and pest control that help people
harness the planet’s fertility. Over the past 50 years, humansocieties have dramatically increased the production and extraction of food, energy and materials, resulting in economic,
technological and social advances and increased prosperity
for many. However, the exploitation of nature has reachedunsustainable levels and is undermining the Earth’s capacity
to sustain human well-being, now and in the future.
Human prosperity is strained by widening inequalities,
whereby the burden of environmental decline weighsheaviest on the poor and vulnerable and looms even larger
over today’s youth and future generations. Across the world,
people are living longer, are more educated and have greater
opportunities on average than previous generations, but thewealth gap is growing between rich and poor, both among
and within countries. Economic growth and poverty reduction
occurred across the developing world prior to the COVID-19
pandemic. However, little of the economic progress seen in
high- and middle-income countries has benefitted the least
developed countries. About 1.3 billion people remain poor,and some 700 million are going hungry, and both numbers
are expected to increase significantly because of the economic impact of the pandemic. Environmental decline affects
and concerns everyone, rich and poor. However, the burden
weighs most heavily on the poor and vulnerable, where women are often overrepresented. Future generations in many
localities risk a situation where more people must struggle to
make a living from diminished natural resources in a changing environment.
Economic and financial systems fail to account for the
essential benefits that humanity gets from nature and toprovide incentives to manage nature wisely and maintainits value. Nature provides the foundation for human existence and prosperity. From an economic perspective, nature isa vital capital asset that provides many essential goods andservices. Conventional metrics like gross domestic product(GDP) overstate progress because they fail to adequately
capture the costs of environmental degradation or reflect
declines in natural capital. Conventional economic measu-

21

Executive Summary

res also fail to reflect indicators of health, education andother dimensions of human well-being. Most of the essential
benefits of nature currently have no financial or market value
despite providing the underpinnings of current and future
prosperity. Inclusive wealth, which sums the value of natural,
human, manufactured and social capital, is a better measureof sustainable progress. The current practice of excluding thevalue of nature and the costs of its degradation from economic accounting and market prices, along with the impact ofenvironmentally harmful subsidies such as those for agricultural output and fossil fuel energy, pose an increasing risk toeconomies and societies. Excluding the value of nature skews
investment away from economic solutions that conserve andrestore nature, reduce pollution, expand renewable energy
and make more sustainable use of resources while also
increasing prosperity and well-being.

of genetic material in domesticated species. Many of the
impacts of human activities are felt over large distances, suchas through transboundary pollution or when wealthy countries export their environmental footprint by meeting theirdemands through trade.

The resource-intensive and increasingly unequal model ofhuman development indirectly drives global environmental
change. Over the last 50 years, the human population has
more than doubled, while the extraction of materials and the
production of primary energy and food have all more thantripled. The global economy has grown nearly fivefold, andtrade has grown tenfold. Resource use is driven by growing
supply resulting from innovation and efficiency gains in
production of goods and services as well as from marketing, governance and increasing consumer demands from awealthier and expanding population. People in high-income
countries generally consume far more than people in low- andmiddle-income countries. The world population, the economy
and resource use are expected to continue growing, though
at a slower rate. By 2050, the global population is projected tohave increased from 7.8 billion people today to nearly 9 billion
and become wealthier and more urban. The production ofenergy is projected to increase by about 50 per cent and foodby 70 per cent. Projections depend on the implementation ofpolicies in areas ranging from reproductive health and tenurerights to the economy.

The world is not on course to fulfil the Paris Agreement tolimit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial
levels, let alone meet the 1.5°C aspiration. The Earth’s mean
near-surface temperature has already risen by more than 1°C
compared to the period from 1850 to 1900. At the current
rate, warming will reach 1.5°C by around 2040 and possibly
earlier. Taken together, current national policies to reducegreenhouse gas emissions put the world on a pathway towarming of at least 3°C by 2100, though this may change as
countries update their pledges.1 Current warming, which isgreater over land than over the ocean and is highest in thepolar regions, has already led to melting of ice sheets andglaciers, accelerating increases in sea level, more frequentand more intense extreme events, changes in precipitation
patterns, as well as shifts in climate zones, including expansion of arid zones and contraction of polar zones. Emissionsof heat-trapping greenhouse gases are still increasing, withcurrent atmospheric concentrations much higher than at any
time in the past 800,000 years. The accumulation of heat in
the oceans will persist for centuries and affect many future
generations. About two thirds of the warming caused byanthropogenic greenhouse gases is due to carbon dioxide,
mostly originating from the use of fossil fuels and some industrial processes. About one quarter of the warming resultsfrom activities related to the land – agriculture, pastoralism,
forestry and especially changing natural land covers tohuman-dominated ones. Natural sinks today are only able toabsorb around half of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, split between terrestrial ecosystems and the ocean. The
increased uptake of carbon dioxide by the oceans is causing
harmful ocean acidification. To fulfil the Paris Agreement
to limit warming to well below 2°C or meet the agreement’s
aspiration of restricting the increase to 1.5°C, net global
emissions from human activities need to reach zero or even

Increases in resource use and waste generation drive global environmental change in ways that transcend borders
and continents. To satisfy growing demands, humans use
an ever-increasing fraction of the Earth’s land, freshwaterand oceans for the production and extraction of food, fibre,
energy and minerals as well as for industrial facilities, infrastructure and settlements. In doing so, society also releases
greenhouse gases and pollutants, including nutrients andtoxic chemicals as well as household, industrial and humanwaste. Humans modify life and move organisms around theworld in pursuit of increased production or through accidental
introductions. These practices also narrow down the range

B. Society is failing to meet most of its
commitments to limit environmental damage
The Earth’s climate is changing and its web of life is unravelling as land and oceans degrade and chemicals andwaste accumulate beyond agreed limits. The international
community has set targets, informed by science, in multilateral agreements for protecting natural assets and limiting
harmful environmental change. Despite some progress,
efforts to date have failed to meet any of the agreed targets.

1

22

At the Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December 2020, 45 countries
pledged significant emissions reductions by 2030, and 24 countries
committed to reach net-zero by the middle of the century.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

become negative by the middle of the century. While meeting
the Paris Agreement is technically feasible, political commitment to do so is currently lacking.
None of the global goals for the protection of life on Earthhave been fully met, including those in the strategic plan forbiodiversity 2011–2020 and its Aichi biodiversity targets.
At the global level, only six of the 20 Aichi targets have been
partially achieved, including increases in the proportion ofland and oceans designated as protected areas and improved
international financial flows to developing countries. Little orno progress has been made on others, such as eliminating
harmful subsidies. Species are currently going extinct tens
to hundreds of times faster than the natural backgroundrate. One million of the world’s estimated 8 million speciesof plants and animals are threatened with extinction. The
population sizes of wild vertebrates have dropped by an average of 68 per cent in the last 50 years, and the abundanceof many wild insect species has fallen by more than half. The
number of local varieties of domesticated plants and animal
breeds and their wild relatives has been reduced sharply.
For example, over 9 per cent of animal breeds have become
extinct and at least another 17 per cent are threatened withextinction. Ecosystems are degrading at an unprecedented
rate, driven by land-use change, exploitation, climate change,pollution and invasive alien species. Climate change exacerbates other threats to biodiversity, and many plant and animal
species have already experienced changes in their range, abundance and seasonal activity. Degradation of ecosystems is
impacting their functions and harming their ability to support
human well-being. Loss of biodiversity is anticipated to accelerate in coming decades, unless actions to halt and reverse
human transformation and degradation of ecosystems and tolimit climate change are urgently implemented.
Society is not on course to achieve land degradation
neutrality, where degradation is minimized and offset byrestoration. Land degradation objectives are embeddedin the SDGs and land degradation neutrality is a focus of
the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
International targets on aspects such as combatting desertification, soil degradation, or wetland loss as well as nationaltargets on preventing or reversing land degradation have notbeen sufficient to achieve land degradation neutrality. Natural
ecosystems have been transformed by humans at an accelerating rate since the middle of the twentieth century. Only aquarter of the original habitat on ice-free land is still functioning in a nearly natural way. Much of this habitat is located indry, cold, or mountainous areas with low human population
densities and also includes the protected areas that currently
cover 15 per cent of the total land area. A quarter of land has

been radically transformed to cropland, plantations and otherhuman uses. Half of the land area functions in an increasingly human-dominated and semi-natural way. It includes
the rangelands grazed by livestock, the semi-natural forests
harvested for wood and the freshwater systems altered bywater use. The world’s forests constitute nearly a third of theland area, and about 10 per cent of their area has been lost
through conversions to other land uses since 1990, though
the deforestation rate is decreasing. Of the combined area ofsemi-natural and highly transformed landscapes, around one
sixth is degraded to the degree that ecological capacities tosupport human well-being are reduced. Of particular concern is degradation where ecological processes have been
impaired to the point that the ecosystem is no longer able torecover. Wetlands are the most transformed and degradedecosystem type. Only 15 per cent of wetlands remain. Landdegradation and transformation contributed around a quarterof greenhouse gas emissions in the decade 2010–2019.
Over half of these emissions derive from land transformation(particularly deforestation) and most of the remainder fromthe loss of soil carbon in cultivated land. Notwithstanding
the agreed goal of halting land degradation, all development
scenarios explored in the relevant assessments project thatland degradation will continue to increase in the twenty-first
century. The fraction of remaining near-natural land is projected to be only 10 per cent by mid-century, while degraded land
will reach over 20 per cent.
Many of the targets for conservation, restoration and sustainable use of oceans, coasts and marine resources will likely not be fully met as marine and coastal ecosystems are
declining. Targets for oceans and coasts have been agreed
as part of the SDGs. Detrimental human activities including
overfishing, coastal and offshore infrastructure and shipping,climate change, ocean acidification and waste and nutrient
runoff combine to affect two thirds of ocean area. One thirdof wild marine fish stocks were overharvested in 2015, a portion that has increased from 10 per cent in 1974. Sixty per centof stocks are fished at maximum sustainable yield and only 7
per cent are underexploited. Fertilizers entering coastal ecosystems have produced more than 400 “dead zones” totalling more than 245,000 km2 – an area bigger than the United
Kingdom or Ecuador. Marine plastics pollution has increased
tenfold since 1980, constituting 60–80 per cent of marine debris, and is found in all oceans at all depths and concentrates
in the ocean currents. Marine plastic litter causes ecologicalimpacts including entanglement and ingestion and can act asa vector for invasive species and other pollutants. The risk ofirreversible loss of marine and coastal ecosystems including
seagrass meadows and kelp forests increases with global
warming. Warming of 2ºC is projected to result in a decrea-

23

Executive Summary

se in the biomass of marine animal communities and theirproductivity. Coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to climatechange and are projected to decline to 10–30 per cent of theirformer cover at 1.5°C of warming and to less than 1 per centat 2°C of warming, compromising food provision, tourism
and coastal protection. Depending on the amount of sea levelrise, 20–90 per cent of current coastal wetlands may be lostby the end of the century. Climate change is increasing thechances of the Arctic Ocean being ice-free in summer, further
disrupting ocean circulation and Arctic ecosystems.
The world is on course to restore Earth’s protective stratospheric ozone layer, but there is much more to be done
to reduce air and water pollution and to safely manage
chemicals and waste. Large quantities of hazardous chemicals and pollutants continue to leak or be dumped into
the environment. Up to 400 million tons of heavy metals,
solvents, toxic sludge and other industrial wastes enter theworld’s waters annually. The global chemical industry’s
production capacity almost doubled between 2000 and 2017.
Chemicals of particular concern include those that are carcinogens, mutagens, bioaccumulative and toxic, as well as those with endocrine-disrupting or neurodevelopmental effects.
The synergies between multilateral agreements related tochemicals and waste have been instrumental in addressing
the life cycle of chemicals, but many developing countries
still lack the capacity to manage chemicals safely. In recent
decades, outdoor air pollution – for example, sulphur dioxideand particulate matter in the troposphere (i.e. lower atmosphere) – has improved in high-income countries but continues to worsen in most low-income countries. Urban areas
typically have high levels of pollution. Of 45 megacities withmeasurements, only four satisfied World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for air quality. Currently, more than 90
per cent of the world’s population lives in places breaching
WHO guidelines for particulate matter. The stratosphericozone layer that protects life from ultraviolet radiation has
started to recover and should return to its pre-1980 levels by
mid-century as long as countries continue to eliminate theproduction and consumption of ozone-depleting chemicals
as agreed under the Montreal Protocol. Some of these gases
are also potent greenhouse gases. The success in phasingout these gases demonstrates the role that multilateral treaties can play in achieving joint action based on the scientificfindings in international assessments.
Climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, andaccumulating chemicals and waste reinforce each otherand are caused by the same indirect drivers. Environmental changes are projected to increase and accelerate in the
coming decades due to further expansion in human activities

24

and time lags in the Earth’s systems. Climate change drives
changes in wildfires and water stress and combines withbiodiversity loss to degrade land and enhance drought insome regions. Globally, risks from dryland water scarcity andwildfire damage are projected to be high with global warmingof 1.5°C, and very high for warming of 3°C. The combination of climate, land-use and land-cover changes has overthe last few decades already resulted in more frequent andintense dust storms in many dryland areas. Climate change
and land degradation combine to drive loss of biodiversity
and increase extinction risks. Geographic range losses ofover 50 per cent are expected for between a quarter and ahalf of terrestrial species at 3°C warming. Climate change,
land degradation and pollution of land, water and oceans
can degrade ecosystems in ways which exacerbate air andwater pollution, reduce water availability and diminish nature’s
uptake of carbon dioxide, which in turn can further increase
climate change. Efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
from the use of fossil fuels also reduces local air pollution(as fossil fuels are also responsible for a very large share ofpollutant emissions). Efforts to reduce local air pollution, suchas from black carbon (soot), and ground-level ozone and its
precursors, can also contribute to mitigating climate change.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

C. An array of escalating and mutually reinforcing
environmental risks threatens human well-being
and the achievement of the Sustainable
Development Goals
Current and projected future environmental degradation
will seriously undermine society’s chances of achieving the
Sustainable Development Goals (figure ES.1). Recent dataand projected trends show that society prior to the COVID-19
pandemic was reducing hunger, increasing access to safe
drinking water and adequate sanitation and increasing accessto clean modern energy services, but not enough to meet thetargets in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Current and projected changes in climate, biodiversity loss andpollution make achieving the SDGs even more challenging.
For example, even small increases in temperature, along withassociated changes such as in weather, precipitation, heavier
rainfall events, extreme heat, drought and fire, increase risks
to health, food security, water supply and human security, andthese risks increase along with warming. Combined environmental changes increase the risks of crossing thresholds
beyond which ecological and climatic shifts accelerate andbecome very hard to reverse. Socioeconomic development
patterns strongly determine the vulnerability and exposureof people, and thus related impacts, as well as the groups
in society that would bear the brunt of these impacts. The
COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted already uneven progress
towards achieving many of the SDGs and caused the first increase in global poverty in decades by pushing an estimated70 million more people into extreme poverty in 2020.
Damaging and long-lasting environmental change impedes
progress towards ending poverty, reducing inequalities andpromoting sustainable economic growth, decent work for
all and peaceful and inclusive societies. Progress towards
ending poverty in all its forms (SDG 1) is countered by the
impacts of climate change, which are expected to exacerbate
poverty in most developing countries and, in combination
with increasing inequalities, create new pockets of poverty
everywhere. Worldwide, 3.2 billion people (around 40 per centof global population) are adversely affected by land degradation, and the number is growing. Environmental change
impedes the achievement of gender equality (SDG 5) especially in rural, agricultural and resource-based economies andlivelihood systems, where women’s adaptive capacities arehampered by poorer access than men to financial resources,
land, education, health and other basic rights. Inequalities
in environmental opportunities and burdens along ethnicity,
gender, race and income levels hamper efforts to reduce
inequalities within and among countries (SDG 10). Countries
with high average temperatures, low levels of development

and high dependence on climate-sensitive sectors such as
agriculture, are expected to bear the largest burdens of climate change. Efforts to promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth and decent work for all (SDG 8) arehampered by loss of natural capital and climate change. In
2018 alone, damages from climate-related natural disasters
cost about US$155 billion. Poorer workers in industry, agriculture or the informal sector are more likely than higher-wage
workers to be employed in dangerous, unregulated settings
with high exposures to heat stress and hazardous chemicals.
Environmental change also hampers the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies (SDG 16). Climate change canamplify migration, environmental degradation and intensify
competition for natural resources, which in turn can spark
conflicts, including between actors with power asymmetries
where indigenous peoples or local communities are often
vulnerable. Since the mid-twentieth century, at least 40 per
cent of all intrastate conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources. More than 2,500 conflicts over such
resources are currently occurring across the planet, and at
least 1,000 environmental activists and journalists were killed
between 2002 and 2013.
Earth’s capacity to meet growing human needs fornutritious food, water and sanitation for all will weakenin the face of continued environmental decline. Environmental degradation makes ending hunger, achieving foodsecurity and improved nutrition and promoting sustainableagriculture (SDG 2) more demanding. Agricultural yields
are projected to be negatively impacted by climate change
due to warming, changing precipitation patterns, greater
frequency of extreme events such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation in several regions, and droughts in some regions,and changes in the incidence of pests and diseases. Whilesustainability choices influence food security at the local
scale, climate change risks to food security could become very high at 2°C, whilst 4°C of warming is consideredcatastrophic. Air pollution such as ground-level ozone also
negatively impacts agricultural yields and will be impacted
by climate change. Species and genetic diversity in agriculture, which are critical to resilient food systems, is lower
than ever. Future agricultural expansion is projected to takeplace on more marginal lands with lower yields. Biodiversity loss poses risks to food production. The loss of animal
pollinators, critical to more than 75 per cent of food crops,
including many fruit and vegetables and cash crops suchas coffee, cocoa and almonds, threatens annual global crop
output worth between US$235 billion and US$577 billion.
Soil erosion from agricultural fields is estimated to be 10
to more than 100 times higher than the soil formation rate,affecting agricultural yields through reduced water-holding

25

Executive Summary

capacity and loss of nutrients. An estimated 176 gigatonnes of soil organic carbon has been lost historically, mostly
from land-use change, and another 27 gigatonnes is projected to be lost between 2010 and 2050. Wild fish catch,which has already declined due to overfishing, is under
additional threat due to changing climatic conditions, ocean
acidification and pollution. Efforts to ensure the availability
and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all(SDG 6) are also impeded by environmental change. Climatechange will exacerbate water stress risks, especially inareas of decreased precipitation and where groundwater isalready being depleted, affecting both agriculture and morethan 2 billion people who already experience water stress.
Water pollution has continued to worsen over the last two
decades, increasing the threats to freshwater ecosystems
and human health.
The deteriorating health of the planet undermines efforts tosecure healthy lives and well-being for all (SDG 3). Pollution
is estimated to cause some 9 million premature deaths annually and millions more die every year from other environment
related health risks. Around one quarter of the global burdenof disease stems from environment-related risks, including
climate change, air and water pollution, and exposure to toxic
chemicals. Climate-related health risks, which become greater with rising temperatures, include undernutrition, vectorborne diseases (including dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever
and zika virus), animal-borne (zoonotic) diseases (see box
below), heat-related morbidity and mortality, and food- andwater-borne diseases. Indoor air pollution from cooking withbiomass on traditional stoves, and outdoor air pollution, muchfrom the combustion of fossil fuels, currently cause around
6.5 million premature deaths per year related to respiratory
diseases and are projected to continue to represent a serious
human health risk. Other major environmental health risks
include lack of access to clean drinking water and sanitation
services, causing 1.7 million deaths per year from diarrheal
diseases, many of which are deaths of children under the ageof five. Pollution-related health risks also stem from exposure
to heavy metals and chemicals. The stratospheric ozone layer– which is slowly recovering – reduces the risk of excessive
solar ultraviolet radiation exposure that leads to skin cancer,
cataracts and other health problems in humans. As a resultof the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, nature’s
ability to support human health through regulation of air andwater quality is in decline in many places, as well as its ability
to provide opportunities for recreation and relaxation, which
support physical and mental health and well-being. Biodiversity loss is also negatively affecting nature’s ability to supply
medicines. An estimated 4 billion people – more than half
the global population – rely primarily on natural medicines

26

for their health care, and some 70 per cent of drugs used fortreating cancer are natural or are synthetic products inspiredby nature. Antimicrobial resistance, industrial chemicals, multi-exposures and newly emerging diseases are increasingly
threatening human health and well-being.
Box ES.1 COVID-19 and One Health
Diseases that originate in wild and domestic animals(zoonotic diseases) pose threats to human health andthe economy, as the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates.
Addressing the pandemic has upended people‘s lives,brought sectors such as travel and tourism to a standstill, and caused major health, economic and social
impacts around the world. The crisis, which was still
unfolding as this report was completed, shows thatmodern society is susceptible to the risks that zoonotic
diseases have presented throughout human history.
It has been estimated that, of the 1.6 million potential
viruses in mammals and birds, 700,000 could pose afuture risk to human health. Risks depend partly on how
human interaction with nature is managed. Ecologicaldegradation increases the risk of zoonotic diseases
through increased human contact with pathogens andchanges in pathogen ecology. Human impacts that
may increase the risk include climate change, land-use
change and fragmentation, agricultural intensification,
deforestation, and the legal and illegal wildlife trade. The
creation of new habitat edges provides more opportunities for spillover events from wildlife hosts into humans
and livestock. A One Health approach recognizing
how human health is interconnected with the health ofanimals, plants and the shared environment and applied
at all levels of decision-making – from the global to the
local – can reduce the risk of zoonotic pandemics andepidemics into the future.
Environmental degradation hampers efforts to make cities
and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (SDG 11). Climate change and loss of biodiversity
and ecosystem services can negatively impact the provisionof basic services and accentuate natural disasters, while air
pollution and waste management remain challenging in many
cities. Coastal communities are exposed to multiple climaterelated hazards, including tropical cyclones, sea level riseand flooding, marine heatwaves, sea-ice loss and permafrost thaw. Global warming exacerbates the urban heat islandeffect in cities and their surroundings, especially during heatwaves, increasing people’s exposure to heat stress. At 1.5°C
of warming, twice as many megacities than at present arelikely to become heat-stressed, possibly exposing more thanEnvironmental degradation threatens the achievement of the SDGs
Impeding poverty elimination,
inequity reduction, economic
development and peace
Exacerbated multidimensional poverty
Accentuated inequality,
including gender inequality
Lost income opportunities
Increased risk of conflictover resources
Increased risk of displacement and outmigration

Hampering efforts tomake cities and communities sustainable
Increased vulnerability
to natural disasters
Stresses on urban
infrastructure
Rising air and waterpollution
Rising waste disposal
problems

Changing climate
Highertemperatures
More extreme
weather events,
e.g. flooding,droughts, storm
surges andheatwaves
Rising sea level
Changing
precipitation
patterns
Ocean
acidification

Threatening human health
Increased undernutrition,
heat stress and air
pollution-related diseases
Exacerbated food- andwater-borne infections andzoonotic diseases
Reduced ability of nature
to provide medicines andsupport physical andmental well-being

Weakening food andwater security
Increased foodsystem vulnerability
Reduced agricultural
productivity
Reduced nutritional
value of crops
Lower catch in fisheries
Increased water
scarcity

Biodiversity loss
and ecosystemdegradation
Loss of species
richness and accelerated species
extinction
Loss of genetic
resources in domestic and wild
species
Loss of ecosystem
functions, such aspollination, seeddispersal, soil formation and biological productivity

Figure ES.1: Selected environmental changes and related impacts on the SDGs. The clustering of SDGs provides an integrated perspective with the environment as thefoundation for the economy, human development and, ultimately, human well-being. Human-induced environmental degradation adversely impacts human well-being.

Executive Summary

350 million more people to potentially deadly heat stress by
2050. Urbanization can amplify the effects of extreme rainfall
and wind. Large-scale urbanization is also impacting on biodiversity hotspots and agricultural land, which in turn will haveconsequences for human settlements in terms of declining
ecosystem services and food security. Urban populations are
particularly exposed to air pollution. Solid waste per capita
has doubled in the last decade to 1.3 billion tons a year, mostof which is generated and disposed of in cities. At least 2 billion people lack access to collection services for solid waste
and 3 billion people lack access to adequate waste disposal
facilities. Many low-income cities still have waste collection
coverage in the range of 30–60 per cent.
The risks to human well-being and to the achievementof the Sustainable Development Goals will continue toescalate unless current rates of environmental degradation are halted. Global warming of more than 2°C combinedwith continued loss of biodiversity and increasing pollution
will likely have dire consequences for humanity. If warming
exceeds 2ºC, both marine and terrestrial animals and plants
are projected to decline, including the decline of warm-watercoral reefs by 99 per cent, the decline of Arctic summer sea
ice, large declines in marine fishery catches and the placingof 20–30 per cent of terrestrial species at increased risk ofextinction. Substantial increases in heatwaves, heavy precipitation in several regions and drought in some regions areassociated with global warming, and in turn increase risks tofood security. Crop yields are already declining in some regions due to global warming. The fraction of remaining near-natural land is projected to be only 10 per cent by mid-century,
while degraded land will reach over 20 per cent.
The costs of inaction on limiting environmental changes far
outweighs the costs of action. By 2100, negative impacts
from climate change exceeding 2.5°C of warming are likely
to be substantial, far in excess of impacts with limiting
warming to 1.5°C or well below 2°C. Furthermore, limiting
greenhouse gas emissions would also generate considerable benefits, including for human health. Cost estimates for
reducing emissions, though substantial, are far less than the
avoided economic damage. There is an urgent need for aclear break with current trends of environmental decline, andthe coming decade is crucial.

28

II. Transforming humankind’s
relationship with nature is the key
to a sustainable futurePart II of the report addresses the transformational changes
required to achieve a sustainable world. It also assesses theroles and responsibilities of different actors and presents options for action in the interconnected sectors of environment,
economics, finance, energy, food, water, health and cities.

D. Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology andcooperation can transform societies andeconomies and secure a sustainable future
Decades of growing efforts have not stemmed the environmental decline resulting from the current development
model because vested and short-term interests often
prevail. While progress has been made in addressing climatechange, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and air and waterpollution, the types of transformational change needed haveoften been thwarted by vested interests that benefit frompreserving the status quo.
Only system-wide transformation will enable humanity toachieve well-being for all within the Earth’s finite capacity
to provide resources and absorb human waste. Society
continues to exceed and degrade the Earth’s capacities
despite clear evidence of the risk that this development
path poses to humanity and growing efforts to reduce its
environmental impacts. Continuing along this path constitutes an ongoing and increasing risk to current and future
prosperity and well-being. Human skills need to be redeployed from transforming nature to transforming the socialand economic fabric of society. This effort needs to put
human well-being centre stage, and speed progress towards
achieving the opportunities set out in the indivisible andinterdependent SDGs, whose target date is fast approaching.
Transformation involves a fundamental, system-wide shift inworld views and values and in the technological, economic
and social organization of society. Transformations requires,amongst other things, innovation, learning, collaboration,
multilateralism and adaptation of governance structures,
policies, business models, technologies, education andknowledge systems. In particular, cross-sectoral planningand integrated policy mixes are essential to find synergies,
address trade-offs, and manage the interactions between
areas including water, food, energy, climate change and human health. Beyond policy, initiatives from actors in societythat challenge current social norms or the status quo canspark organizational and societal deliberation, which may
substantially speed up transformations.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Transformation towards sustainability involves significant
and mutually reinforcing changes in behaviour, culture,material flows and systems of management and knowledge transmission. With successful transformative change,
the consumption of resources would decrease in wealthy
contexts and increase sustainably elsewhere. People would
be empowered to express and act in accordance with valuesof environmental responsibility without undue difficulty or
self-sacrifice. Human opportunities and outcomes would
be more equitable across dimensions of social difference including gender, ethnicity, race and region. Trade andother economic activities including resource extraction
and production of goods and services would yield net-positive effects, resulting in a substantial reduction in negative
consequences. Systems of innovation and investment would
yield technologies that enable net-positive environmental effects. Education and knowledge transmission would enable
everyone to participate in well-functioning societies and newpractices of stewardship and sustainability. Human ambitions for a good life would no longer be centred around highlevels of material consumption, but around rich relationships
involving people and nature, in keeping with diverse traditions throughout the world. Behaviour change can be achieved by enabling the strong underlying values of responsibility that are already present via subtle or structural changes
in institutions and infrastructure, but paradigms, goals andvalues would further change as systems and human action
transform. The above components of transformative change
have been called the “leverage points” to reflect the potentially synergistic nature of change.
Achieving sustainability will entail interventions acrossscales and sectors and changes to incentive structures,
management systems, decision-making processes, rules
and regulations. Transformed incentive structures would
encourage conservation and discourage actions that resultin environmental degradation. Systems for policymaking,planning and managing natural resources and the use oflands and waters would be coordinated across sectors andjurisdictions; pre-emptive in addressing emerging threats
via effective environmental monitoring and evaluation;
include meaningful participation, especially of stakeholders
and rightsholders such as indigenous peoples and local
communities; and be designed for resilience and adapted to
uncertainties. Strong environmental laws would protect ecosystems and the human enjoyment of a healthy environment,
bolstered by consistent enforcement of laws and independent
judiciaries. These three sets of governance interventions
have been called the “levers” of transformation to reflect theirpower to effect change at the specified leverage points andalso more broadly.

Opposition from vested interests to transformations
aiming to secure a sustainable and prosperous future is
to be expected but can be addressed. Existing infrastructure and built capital provide system inertia that can makechange difficult and incurs short-term costs, especially ifchange involves the premature retirement of capital stock.
Also, individuals and organizations have habits, procedures
and ways of doing business that can yield a reluctance andresistance to change. Individuals and organizations can also
oppose change that disrupts their livelihoods, market shareand revenues, or that otherwise appear unfair. Transparent
regulatory action and consistent enforcement, coupled with
political leadership, media vigilance and civil society engagement, can shift the status quo and help level the playing fieldso that firms cannot gain competitive advantages by externalizing costs that are then borne by society. Some opposition can be addressed proactively by redirecting subsidies
to steer workers and firms toward opportunities associatedwith transformative change. Programmes fostering a justtransition can include, for instance, retraining workers fromunsustainable industries and helping them relocate in order totake up new jobs.
Box ES.2 Recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 crisis provides the impetus to rethink howsociety can accelerate the transformation to a sustainable future. Governments and other actors are rollingout significant policy measures and investments to help
societies and economies recover from the COVID-19
crisis. These initiatives are an opportunity to move awayfrom unsustainable practices and accelerate transformation towards implementation of the SDGs. Economic
support can be channelled into, for example, sustainableinfrastructure and programmes that reduce the risks andimpacts of future pandemics. A post-COVID world needs
to address the issues of habitat destruction, wildlife
trade and other human-nature interactions that increase
exposure to zoonotic diseases. It also needs stronger
international governance structures that can help takecoordinated actions quickly and transparently.

29

Executive Summary

E. Earth’s environmental emergencies must be
addressed together to achieve sustainability
Given the interconnected nature of climate change,loss of biodiversity, land degradation, and air and waterpollution, it is essential that these problems are tackled
together now. Immediate action is required to mitigate
climate change, conserve and restore biodiversity, improve
air and water quality, make more efficient use of resources
and reduce the adverse effects of chemicals. Actions alsoneed to be taken now even where the benefits may not berealized for years due to the long-lasting nature of environmental effects or to inertia in the socio-economic system.
Essential actions with delayed effects include reforestation
and restoration of degraded lands. Response options that
can address multiple environmental issues, mitigate multidimensional vulnerability and help minimize trade-offs andmaximize synergies, need to be implemented. Numerous
response options that can preserve and restore the environment and contribute to achieving some of the other
SDGs have already been identified. For example, large-scale
reforestation with native vegetation can simultaneously help
address climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation
and water security. A key challenge is to avoid unintended
consequences. For instance, large scale afforestation schemes and replacing native vegetation with monoculture crops
to supply bioenergy can be detrimental to biodiversity andwater resources.
The further development and implementation of thegoals, targets, commitments, and mechanisms under the
key multilateral agreements on climate change, biodiversity, land-degradation, oceans and pollution need to
be aligned and become more synergistic and mutually
supportive. There needs to be enhanced harmonization in
the implementation, monitoring and financing of the multilateral agreements. Sustainable policies, technologies andmanagement practices need to be implemented within theinterconnected agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy
systems given their impact on climate, biodiversity and landdegradation.
Governments must scale up and accelerate action tomeet the Paris Agreement goals and limit dangerous
climate change. Evidence shows that the risks associatedwith climate change, including the risks of extreme weather
events, impacts on unique and threatened systems, andlarge-scale discontinuities such as the disintegration of theGreenland and Antarctic ice sheets (Figure 1.1), are generally
higher than previously understood. Limiting the global mean
temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts

30

to hold it to 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement, require
immediate significant strengthening and rapid implementation of existing national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. To limit global warming to 1.5°C, with a probability of about 50 per cent, net emissions of carbon dioxide
will need to be reduced by 45 per cent by 2030 compared to2010 levels and reach zero by 2050. To limit global warming
to 2°C, emissions need to decline by about 25 per cent by
2030 compared to 2010 levels and reach net zero by around2070. The emissions of other greenhouse gases must also
be reduced. More ambitious reductions would be necessary
for higher certainty in limiting dangerous climate change.
The emission gaps presented in figure ES.2 show pathways
with about 66 per cent chance of limiting global warming to
1.5°C and 2°C. Delaying action exacerbates difficulties andincurs greater costs. Scenarios in which warming temporarily exceeds the Paris Agreement around mid-century before
falling rapidly depend heavily on the development of carbon
dioxide removal technologies, whose ability to capture andstore carbon dioxide at scale is so far unproven and could
lead to unintended negative impacts on biodiversity andfood production.
Emissions reductions entail rapid and far-reachingtransformations in the energy, land, industrial production,
urban and infrastructure sectors. Such transformations
are unprecedented in scale, implying deep emissions
reductions in all sectors and in all countries, as well as new
lifestyles, norms and values. Developing countries will needfinancial and technical assistance. Nature-based solutions,such as reforestation with native trees, restoration of degraded lands, improved soil management and agroforestry
can contribute significantly to reducing the atmosphericabundance of carbon dioxide. Such solutions have been

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

ES . 2The Emissions Gap

70
Conditional
NDC case2010 – policies scenario

60

Unconditional
NDC case

Current policies scenario
Unconditional NDC scenario

Median estimate of levelconsistent with 2°C:
41 GtCO2e (range 39–46)

30

Median estimate of levelconsistent with 1.5°C:
25 GtCO2e (range 22–31)A

2°C scenario

20

10

0
2010

32 GtCO2e40

29 GtCO2e

Remaining gap
to stay within
2°C limit

15 GtCO2e50

12 GtCO2e

Gigatonnes of CO2 emissions (GtCO2e)

Conditional NDC scenario

A

B

Blue areashows pathways
limiting global
temperature increase
to below 2°C with
about 66% chance.

Green area shows pathways limiting global
temperature increase to
below 1.5°C by 2100 andpeak below 1.7°C (bothwith 66% chance).

2020

1.8°C scenario

B

2030

1.5°C scenario

2040

2050

Figure ES.2: Global greenhouse gas emissions under different scenarios and the emissions gap in 2030 for unconditional and conditional nationally determined
contributions (NDCs) scenarios (median and 10th to 90th percentile range; based on the pre-COVID-19 current policies scenario).
Source: Figure adapted from UNEP 2020a, EGR, ES, Figure ES.5

estimated to be able to provide between 35 and 40 per centof the mitigation effort needed until 2030 to limit warming
to 2°C. Bioenergy (often in combination with carbon captureand storage) and afforestation can contribute to mitigation
but must be designed to avoid or minimize adverse effects
on biodiversity, food and water security, and air quality.
Reducing short-lived climate forcers is a key part of the
global climate response and must be pursued with highpriority. Reducing short-lived climate forcers such as black
carbon, ground-level ozone and methane is one of the mosteffective options for slowing the rate of global warming in
the near term. It also delivers ancillary benefits by improving public health from lowering air pollution, improving
food security from increasing crop yields, and reducing
poverty and inequality.

Adaptation to the impacts of climate change is criticaland involves both preparations for and responses to theimpacts, with nature-based solutions playing a vital role.
Mitigating climate change is vital, urgent and cost saving:
the lower the degree of warming the easier and cheaper
it will be to adapt. Societies, economies and ecosystems
must adapt to changing temperature and precipitation
patterns, including more heatwaves, heavy precipitationin several regions, droughts in some regions and higher
sea levels. There has been significant progress in planningfor climate change preparedness over the last two decades. Adaptation options, if well designed and managed
in a participatory manner, can reduce the vulnerability ofhuman and natural systems, and have many synergies withmost of the SDGs, such as food and water security, thoughpotential trade-offs must be recognized. Adaptation is31

Executive Summary

place- and context-specific and can be enhanced throughcomplementary actions across all levels from individuals to governments. Increasing investment in social andphysical infrastructure is vital to enhance the resilience andadaptive capacity of societies. Specific interventions can
include climate-resilient agriculture, nature-based solutions
such as conserving and restoring ecosystems, land-use
planning, coastal defence systems and social safety nets.
Nature-based solutions have gained prominence, given theprominence, given the many interlinkages between climatechange and biodiversity loss, and the potential to deliver
co-benefits for livelihoods and human well-being. Adaptation actions include restoration or protection of coral reefs,
seagrass meadows, coastal wetlands, mangroves, andbeaches to reduce coastal flooding and erosion; green andblue spaces to reduce urban flooding and heat-related risks;
protecting and restoring floodplains, peatlands and riparianvegetation to reduce river flooding.
The unravelling of the web of life on Earth can only behalted and ultimately reversed by addressing the indirect and direct human drivers of its decline. The causesof biodiversity decline are many and deeply embedded insociety, so the future of life on land, in freshwater and in
the oceans fundamentally depends on society embracing
transformative pathways. Halting and reversing biodiversity
loss means addressing the direct drivers such as land andsea use, overexploitation, climate change, air and waterpollution and invasive species. That in turn is contingent
on incentive structures, improved management systems
and the rule of law that promotes conservation, restorationand sustainable use of biodiversity. Such efforts need tobe embedded in system-wide reforms addressing poverty, sustainable livelihoods, food, energy and resource-use
systems. They also need to encompass combatting theillegal wildlife trade and avoiding human development inbiodiversity hotspots. Systemic shifts will mean changing
lifestyles and economic systems, including measures ofprogress. Alleviating these existing and growing pressures
will permit populations of many wild organisms to remain
viable as they shift their ranges under the influence ofclimate change. Measures to protect biodiversity from theimpacts of trade and corporate supply chains are important to slow and reverse biodiversity loss. This includes theremoval of implicit or explicit harmful subsidies for farming,fishing, mining and industries that export commodities.
Production standards, moratorium agreements, consumer
pressure and education, product traceability to source andcertification are all important complementary interventions.
Well-designed, legitimate offsets could facilitate market
transformation.

32

Biodiversity conservation and restoration must be
integral to the many uses of terrestrial, freshwater andmarine ecosystems. Reduction of pressure on biodiversity and ecosystem services in populated, productive andhuman-transformed landscapes and freshwater systems
is a key conservation strategy, especially in large-scale intense and highly transformed agricultural lands. The
use of transparent participatory approaches to landscapeplanning and resource management is key to success.
Recognition of the custodial traditions and knowledge ofindigenous peoples and local communities is also important. Pastoral, cropping and forestry practices can sustain
biodiversity while supporting local livelihoods, avoiding
land degradation and embracing restoration of degradedlands. Community gardens and parks can be designed andimplemented to enhance biodiversity in cities. Equally, there need to be reduced pressures on coastal ecosystems
and the open ocean.
A more extensive, better managed and more representative
global network of interconnected terrestrial, freshwaterand marine protected areas, designed to adapt to climatechange, can contribute to the conservation of biodiversity.
A more extensive network of protected areas is needed inorder to include key biodiversity currently not protected. Many
protected areas are currently too small or isolated to be effective in the long term, given that climate change is shifting thegeographic ranges of animal and plant species. Increasing
connectivity between protected areas makes them more
resilient to climate change and more able to sustain viable
populations of threatened species. Some ostensibly protected areas have weak management and governance and needincreased investment for surveillance, law enforcement andrestoration. A number of governments and NGOs are committing to or promoting the protection of 30 per cent of the landand oceans by 2030.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Fisheries reform, integrated spatial planning, conservation, climate mitigation and reduced pollution are all key torestoring marine life. Sustainable fish quotas are essential toreform fisheries, end overfishing and restore marine biodiversity. Trade negotiations are ongoing to craft new rules on theelimination of harmful fisheries subsidies. Expanded protected areas in both territorial waters and the open ocean canconserve and rebuild stocks of commercial and non-commercial species. Achieving the Paris Agreement aspiration ofholding global warming to 1.5°C would limit harmful ocean
acidification. Protecting marine life also means countering
ocean contamination from chemicals, plastics, sewage andexcess sediment resulting from land degradation. Integrated
spatial planning covering multiple uses of marine resources
can help advance sustainable development in oceans andcoastal areas.
The impact of chemicals and waste on human health andthe environment can be substantially reduced by implementing existing international chemicals conventions,strengthening the science-policy interface, and further
legal and regulatory reform. A strengthened scientificassessment process is needed to provide a stronger basis
for evidence-based policymaking aimed at improving themanagement of chemicals and waste and minimizing theiradverse impacts. Successful implementation of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development can accelerate progressin achieving sound whole cycle management and minimizing
adverse impacts. This will require more ambitious, urgent andworldwide collaborative action by all stakeholders in all countries. Policies and procedures need to be enacted to reduce
the pollution loads of these chemicals and human exposure
by reducing their release to the air, water and soils. A well-defined set of indicators for chemicals management needs tobe developed for global and national accounting.

F. Economic and financial systems can andmust be transformed to lead and power
the shift toward sustainability
Economic and financial systems need to be significantly
transformed to attain a vibrant and sustainable world. Thesesystems need to help align production, consumption, infrastructure and human settlement with the SDGs. Governments
should incorporate full natural capital accounting into theirdecision-making and use policies and regulatory frameworks
to provide incentives for businesses to do the same. Incentives can favour sustainability and penalize environmental
degradation, for instance by taxing unsustainable resource
use and pollution rather than production and labour, measuresthat also promote a circular economy. Governments phasingout harmful subsidies can redirect that support to low-carbon
and nature-friendly solutions and technologies. Governments
and businesses need to systematically internalize environmental costs and benefits throughout their management
systems and supply chains. Using full natural capital accounting and providing economic incentives will also shift financeaway from investing in environmentally harmful activities andtowards sustainable investments. Some nations may needdevelopment assistance to help finance shifts towards a moresustainable economy. Transforming the nexus of energy,
human settlements, agriculture, forestry and water systems isamong the highest priorities.
Measures of economic performance must include the valueof nature’s contributions to human well-being. Conventional
measures of economic activity such as GDP are commonlyused as indicators of national prosperity and to guide economic planning. But GDP fails to properly account for gains orlosses in the natural capital that underpin many vital economic activities or for environmental quality and other non-monetary factors that contribute to human well-being. Moreinclusive economic yardsticks such as changes in inclusive
wealth – the sum of produced, human, social and natural
capital – provide a better measure of the capacity of current
and future generations to achieve and sustain higher living
standards and quality of life without eroding natural capitaland causing environmental harm, as well as a better basis forinvestment decisions. Some natural capital cannot be fully
substituted by other forms of capital and may require special
protection. Another approach is to use a Genuine Progress
Indicator to correct GDP for social and environmental factors
such as inequality, costs of underemployment and costs ofpollution. Quality-added GDP is a further alternative to conventional GDP.
Progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development
Goals requires increased financing and massive shifts inpublic and private financial flows and investment patterns.
To meet the SDGs, large increases and shifts in investments
will be needed in the water, food, energy and other sectors. The
investments required exceed the capacity of public financing,
therefore substantial private sector financing is essential. Socially and environmentally oriented investment funds that provide low-cost financing to sustainable initiatives can partly close
the gap but achieving large-scale financial flows will require
shifting incentives such that only investments in sustainable
development are financially attractive. New tools and approaches that can leverage and incentivize private sector funding
include the use of capital markets to unlock private sector investment in sustainable infrastructure. The Global South needs
increased access to low-interest finance in order to achieve the33

Executive Summary

SDGs. The Global North has exacerbated the shortfall by failingto meet its commitments under environmental conventions
and on international development assistance.
Reducing inequalities and the risk of social conflict requires the minimization and reversal of environmental degradation and declines in natural resources, as well as structural changes to the economy. Removing inequality requires
steps to address individual and community property rights,
persistent poverty, hunger, education, equity and inclusion
in resource management. Actions include reforming trade
agreements, eliminating perverse subsidies and taxes that
promote wasteful and harmful use of natural resources, andinvesting in urban areas, public services, education and healthcare facilities. Investments should be targeted at indigenous
peoples and local communities, as well as underrepresented
and marginalized social groups.

G. Food, water and energy systems can and mustbe transformed to meet growing human needsin an equitable, resilient and environmentallyfriendly manner
Feeding humanity, ensuring water security, and enhancing
the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of natureare complementary and closely interdependent goals. Irrigated agriculture is the largest human use of water, currently
accounting for about 70 per cent of freshwater withdrawals
worldwide and projected to increase. The impacts of land
and water use on nature, and therefore on long-term foodand water security, must be addressed together. Practices
and policies that affect the demand for food, as well as its
production, will have strong feedbacks on water and nature.
Sustainable solutions will be context-specific. Reducing foodand water waste is critical, requiring changes in areas ranging
from production and extraction systems to storage and distribution infrastructure to individual consumption patterns.
Agricultural systems that work with nature, are adaptive
to change, resilient to shocks and minimize environmental
impacts, are critical to eliminate hunger and malnutritionand contribute to human health. Sustainable agricultural
systems and practices include integrated pest and nutrient
management, organic agriculture, agroecological practices,soil and water conservation, conservation aquaculture andlivestock systems, agroforestry, silvopastoralism, integrated
farming systems, improved water management and practices
to improve animal welfare. Sustainable agriculture conserves
and restores soils and ecosystems, rather than degradingthem. Sustainable agricultural systems must be resilient toclimate change, addressing issues of temperature, drought,

34

pests and salinity through the development of new traits, andthe conservation of genetic and species diversity will help
facilitate this. Multifunctional landscapes and waterscapes
can be the basis for a shift towards ecological intensificationor biodiversity-based agriculture, which aims to enhance ecosystem services generated by agro-diversity, some of which
boost production.
Changes in patterns of consumption are critical to transforming food, water and energy systems and can be achieved
through altered norms in business and cultural practices.
Strategic use of economic instruments, new forms of polycentric governance involving all key stakeholders, and changes in purchasing patterns will all be necessary to transformfood, water and energy systems. Sustainable agricultural
practices are often disincentivized by current systems of industrial-scale agricultural production, inappropriate subsidies,crop insurance and capital investments. Changing the dietary
habits of consumers, particularly in developed countries,
where consumption of energy- and water-intensive meat anddairy products is high, would reduce pressure on biodiversity
and the climate system. These habits are a function of individual choices but are also influenced by advertising, food andagricultural subsidies and excess availability of cheap foodthat provides poor nutrition.
Small-scale farmers, particularly women farmers, are central to the challenge of achieving sustainable food security
and need to be empowered. Women farmers need access to
education and training, information and technology, gendersensitive extension services, financial and legal services, markets, crop insurance and social safety nets. They also needaccess to and control over land and production inputs suchas high-yielding, water efficient, and pest-and disease-resistant crops, fertilizers and other inputs, as well as groundwaterand irrigation services.
Maintaining aquatic food production requires sustainablefisheries management, the implementation and expansion of marine protected areas, including no-take zones,
and action on climate change and pollution. Pathways tosustainable fisheries entail conserving, restoring and sustainably using marine and freshwater ecosystems, rebuilding
overfished stocks (including through targeted limits oncatches or moratoria), reducing pollution from chemicals andplastics, managing destructive extractive activities, eliminating harmful subsidies and illegal, unreported and unregulated
fishing, adapting fisheries management to climate change
impacts and reducing the environmental impact of aquaculture. Marine protected areas, including no-take zones andlocally managed marine areas, have demonstrated successMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

in biodiversity conservation and rebuilding fish stocks whenmanaged effectively; they can be further expanded throughlarger or more interconnected protected areas or new protected areas in currently underrepresented regions and key
biodiversity areas.
Sustaining adequate and high-quality freshwater in thecontext of climate change, rising demand and increased
pollution requires improving efficiency, wisely increasingstorage and fostering the restoration of natural habitats andflow regimes. Cross-sectoral and sector-specific interventions
may require actions to reduce pollution, improve water quality,
sustainably manage groundwater extraction and minimize
disruption. Achieving sustainability will require increased water use productivity in agriculture, improved management ofurban water and other water users, redirected investments inwater distribution infrastructure and in wastewater treatmentsthat recover resources, and climate- and biodiversity-sensitive
increases in water storage. Policy instruments include water
reallocation at the basin scale, shifting incentives to increase water-use efficiency, drought resilience and appropriate
pricing. Transboundary agreements and regional frameworks
provide a strong foundation for regional coordination and cooperation for the equitable sharing of water.
Universal access to clean energy requires a rapid transition
to low-carbon systems in both the production and use ofenergy. Improving access to affordable and modern energy(SDG 7) coupled with innovation and efficiency gains are vitalto achieving equitable and sustainable economic growth while
limiting global warming. Clean energy will also reduce poverty
and indoor and outdoor air pollution and provide critical services such as communications, lighting and water pumping.
Achieving this goal while combating climate change involves a
rapid transition to low-carbon energy systems encompassing
both production and consumption. Investments in the energy
transition need to grow five- or sixfold between now and 2050
to achieve the Paris Agreement aspiration of limiting warming
to 1.5°C. Renewable energy technologies such as wind andsolar, along with improved energy efficiency in buildings andelsewhere, will be key. Governments must develop laws andpolicies that enable greater public and private investments
in generation and distribution, while also encouraging more
responsible energy consumption. Government policy andincentives can speed the phase-out of fossil fuels in power generation and transportation, including by supporting
the development of renewable energy storage and electricvehicles. Large-scale renewable energy installations on land,
watercourses and in the ocean require careful planning to
avoid or minimize adverse effects on nature and on food andwater security.

H. Keeping the planet healthy is key to providing
health and well-being for all
Reversing environmental decline reduces threats tohuman health and well-being. Human health and thehealth of the planet are closely interlinked, underlining how
policies aimed at protecting human and planetary healthshould also be integrated. For example, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions will limit the health risks and impacts
from climate change. These include vector- and water-borne diseases such as malaria and cholera, heat stress, extreme weather events, loss of nutrients in foods, air pollution
leading to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Halting
and reversing ecosystem degradation will help safeguard food and water security, secure medicinal plants andgenetic resources valuable to medical research and reduce
the risk of zoonotic disease pandemics. The reduction of air
and water pollution and safe management of chemicals are
key to safeguarding human health.
Future human health risks from environmental decline
can be minimized with a One Health approach. One Healthis an approach that seeks to simultaneously secure optimal
outcomes for human health, animal health and the health ofthe environment. A healthy society relies on a multifactorial
foundation of physical, mental and social well-being, which
can only be maintained and fostered if cross-sectoral andinterdisciplinary approaches are pursued. Collaborative
efforts under a One Health approach can prevent humanhealth disasters such as zoonotic pandemics. The need forsuch an approach is widely recognized as a critical component in creating a healthier world. The COVID-19 pandemic
has underlined the need for bold and creative actions andagendas that facilitate cooperation across institutional,
geographical, and socioeconomic boundaries and help remove current constraints. Health is increasingly influenced
by geopolitical developments that are affected by environmental factors, such as climate change-induced massmigration. It is key to target the social determinants of themany aspects of human health.
Cities and communities, including informal settlements,
can and must be made much more sustainable, including with nature-based solutions. Urban populations face
immense risks from environmental degradation, including
extreme heat and flooding, air and water pollution, infectious diseases and growing inequality. The opportunities
for promoting sustainability are also huge, including thetransition to a low-carbon economy, reduced pollution andenergy demand, sustainable consumption and production,and the restoration of biodiversity. Improved urban plan-

35

Executive Summaryning and nature-based solutions offer cost-effective ways
to address the SDGs in cities and make urban areas more
resilient to climate change. Options include protecting or
expanding green spaces that can reduce the heat islandeffect and absorb rainwater, retrofitting infrastructure,and promoting urban and peri-urban agriculture. Cities are
expected to expand significantly in the next two decades,
making the application of sustainable urban planning anddevelopment to existing and new residential and commercial areas extremely urgent. Cities must also address theissue of informal settlements, which contribute to environmental degradation and bear the brunt of its consequences. City planners must deliver or facilitate high-density,
mixed-use and resource-efficient settlements, connectedby multimodal and low-carbon transport and other infrastructural systems, with access to safe and abundant green
space. Coastal cities need to be designed or retrofitted to
face the threat of flooding due to sea level rise and salt
water intrusion into freshwater systems, including, in somecases, planned retreat.

I.

All actors have a part to play in transforming
social and economic systems for asustainable future

Transformations can be just, informed and effective if thefull range of actors in the public, private and civil society
sectors collaborate. At the heart of the various transformational changes needed for a sustainable future areinformed, fair and participatory governance systems, where
all relevant stakeholders have a voice. Polycentric systemsof governance allow for improved information flow as wellas collaborative planning, participation and coordination.
Because governance systems are not merely the productof governments but rather of all societal actors, realizing
governance systems suited for sustainability will require
coordination amongst many different actors, including
those who may not cooperate at present. This will meantranscending formal boundaries between individuals, andbetween and within organizations, agencies, and sectors toachieve vibrant, sustainable futures.
All actors have individual, complementary and nested
roles to play in bringing about cross-sectoral and economy-wide transformative change with immediate and longterm impact (Table ES.1). Governments initiate and lead inintergovernmental cooperation, policies and legislation thattransform society and the economy. Such transformations
enable the private sector, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations, scientific and educational institutions
and media, as well as households and civil society groups,

36

to initiate and lead transformations in their domains. Multiple actors will need to cooperate within each transformation,for example in developing frameworks to use inclusive
wealth in decision-making, or policies and strategies tointegrate biodiversity conservation and restoration into themany uses of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Human innovation and knowledge-sharing will create
new social and economic possibilities and opportunities inthe transformation to a sustainable future.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Table ES.1 Actors and actions to transform humankind‘s relationship with nature
ActorsExamples of key actions to be taken

Governments –legislature, judicial
and executive
branches at national,
subnational andlocal level

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Establish mechanisms and approaches for cross-sectoral coordinationof assessments, policies, legislation, enforcement and financing, including throughintegrated approaches such as a One Health policy for human and animal health andthe environment.
b) Climate change Adopt plans and goals consistent with the Paris Agreement fortransitioning to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, cutting emissions by 45 percent by 2030 compared with 2010. Put a price on carbon, phase out fossil fuel finance andend fossil fuel subsidies, stop building new coal power plants and advance adaptation andresilience to climate change.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop policies and strategies to integratebiodiversity conservation and restoration into the many uses of terrestrial, freshwaterand marine ecosystems, as well as expanding and improving protected areas. Drasticallyreduce deforestation and systematically restore forests and other ecosystems as the
single largest nature-based opportunity for climate mitigation.
d) Health and well-being Recognize a healthy environment as a basic human right and provide
health and well-being for all. Comply with obligations under the chemicals conventions.
Implement and enforce chemicals and waste policies, adopt reuse and recycling standards
and develop strategies to meet WHO guidelines for air pollutants. Invest in communitybased family planning and assist women to access financing and education.
e) Cities and settlements Design and develop socially and environmentally sustainable cities
and settlements by embracing nature-based solutions, promoting enhanced access toservices such as clean water and energy and public transport, and making infrastructure
and buildings sustainable.
2.
a)

b)

c)

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift
toward sustainability
Accounting for nature Reform national economic, financial, planning and tax systems
to include natural capital (using inclusive wealth as a measure of sustainable economic
performance) and environmental costs (by internalizing externalities) in decision-making.
Integrate the goals of carbon neutrality, land degradation neutrality and conservation of
biodiversity into all economic and fiscal policies and decisions.
Subsidies and markets Reform subsidies to eliminate harmful environmental and social
effects including by ending fossil fuel subsidies. Establish carbon taxes, carbon pricing,markets for carbon trading, and schemes for offsetting of nature and payments for ecosystemservices. Regulate to establish a level playing field in national and international markets.
Investments Invest in economic activities, research and development – nationally andthrough international development assistance and transfer of technology – that enhance
the stock of natural assets and advance the shift towards sustainability and a low-carbon
economy. Provide funding for developing countries to meet their obligations under themultilateral environmental agreements and SDGs.

37

Executive Summary

Governments –legislature, judicial
and executive
branches at national,
subnational and local
level(continued)

3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Develop and implement policies to provide sustainable access to affordable andnutritious food, clean energy and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Integrate sustainable production and management of food and water
within terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Make agriculture, forestry, fisheries,
aquaculture and resource extraction biodiversity-positive. Promote sustainable agriculturalintensification, agroecological practices and conservation of genetic resources. Stop
overfishing. Promote healthy diets and reductions in food and water waste. Restrict
groundwater extraction and advance appropriate water pricing and the use of agricultural,
forestry and fisheries certification standards.
c) Energy Develop energy efficiency regulations, renewable energy targets, sustainablebioenergy strategies and infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Intergovernmentalorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Facilitate international cooperation in science-policy interfaces and advanceUN system-wide efforts including by promoting synergies among scientific assessments
and multilateral environmental agreements through norms, implementation, financing,
capacity-building and technological cooperation.
b) Climate change Build a global coalition for carbon neutrality consistent with the Paris
Agreement for transitioning to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and cutting
emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010. Advance adaptation, especially inleast developed countries.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Advance international cooperation on
addressing the biodiversity emergency, including through relevant multilateral environmental
agreements. Promote ambitious post-2020 targets and actions for biodiversity and land
neutrality. Support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration focused on preventing,halting and reversing the degradation of forests, land and other ecosystems worldwide.
Make own international activities and operations sustainable.
d) Health and well-being Facilitate international cooperation on protecting the health of theplanet in order to provide health and well-being for all. Advance a One Health approach andstrategies to meet WHO guidelines for air pollutants. Continue to promote the coordination andimplementation of existing chemicals conventions and strengthen the science-policy interface
for chemicals and waste. Implement monitoring and surveillance and early warning systems.
e) Cities and settlements Promote sustainable urban planning, nature-based solutions forclimate and biodiversity in urban areas, retrofitting of blue and green infrastructure, andaccess to urban services including clean energy and water.
2.
a)

38

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift
toward sustainability
Accounting for nature Facilitate international cooperation on frameworks for natural
capital accounting, reform of measures and models of economic growth including throughthe use of natural capital and inclusive wealth in decision-making, and reform of tradesystems to make them more fair and environmentally sustainable.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Intergovernmentalorganizations(continued)b) Subsidies and markets Promote a circular economy, elimination of environmentally
damaging fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies, harmonization of environmental taxes
such as carbon taxes, cooperation on carbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature andpayments for ecosystem services. Support private sector initiatives to create sustainableglobal supply chains.
c) Investments Facilitate cooperation on international development assistance, capacitybuilding and transfer of technology that help enhance the stock of natural assets in recipient
countries and advance their shift towards sustainability and a low-carbon economy.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Facilitate international research and cooperation on improving access to affordable
and nutritious food, clean energy and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Promote and facilitate sustainable policies, technologies and management
within agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy systems, including through sustainablefisheries, agricultural intensification, agroecological practices and multifunctionallandscapes. Advance the use of agricultural, forestry, aquaculture and fisheriescertification standards and labelling. Encourage healthy diets, and reductions in food andwater waste. Support cooperation on water management including through freshwater
treaties and assist the development of agreements for the protection of genetic resources
for agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use.
c) Energy Support the transition to a low-carbon economy, both in the production anduse of energy.

39

Executive Summary

Financialorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Finance international and cross-sectoral cooperation, capacity-building andtechnological cooperation that address environmental challenges and human well-being.
Disclose climate-related financial risk, and the use of natural resources and the impact of these
activities on the environment. Align operations with the net-zero carbon emissions objective
and sustainability principles.
b) Climate change Multilateral, regional and national development institutions as well as privatebanks should commit to align their lending to the global net-zero carbon emissions objective.
Asset owners and managers should decarbonize their portfolios and join initiatives including
the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance and the Net-Zero Asset Owners
Alliance. Multilateral and national development banks should commit to increase the shareof adaptation and resilience finance to at least 50 per cent of their climate finance to support
activities such as early warning systems, and climate-resilient infrastructure and agriculture.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop and promote innovative financing
mechanisms for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, including through payments
for ecosystem services. Support the expansion and better management of protected areas
and other effective area-based conservation measures and activities aligned with the UN
Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
d) Health and well-being Support One Health and disease prevention initiatives and strategies
to meet WHO guidelines for air pollutants. Support health research, especially in developing
countries. Provide financing for improved waste management.
e) Cities and settlements Develop and promote innovative financing for sustainable infrastructure.
Support sustainable urban planning and investments in low-carbon infrastructure, including
mass transportation, congestion charges, nature-based solutions and green and blue spaces.
2.

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Promote and use natural capital accounting and inclusive wealth indecision-making, including lending and grant-making policies. Promote the internalization of
externalities in prices and a circular economy.
b) Subsidies and markets Promote the elimination of environmentally harmful subsidies. Facilitatecarbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature and payments for ecosystem services. Develop
environmental and social risk registers for all financial transactions.
c) Investments Facilitate a major shift away from investments in environmentally unsustainable
activities and toward economic activities that enhance the stock of natural assets. Fund thetransition to a circular, green and low-carbon economy. Funding should flow to resilience,
adaptation and just transition programmes. Fund research and development nationally andthrough international development assistance.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Fund programmes that improve access to affordable and nutritious food, clean energy
and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Finance sustainable intensification and ecological intensification of agriculture,and sustainable fisheries, and stop supporting unsustainable activities such as deforestation.
Advance the use of agricultural, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries certification standards andlabelling and encourage healthy diets, and reductions in food, water and energy waste. Support
the development and use of certification standards for agriculture, fishing, aquaculture, forestry
and water use.
c) Energy Finance low-carbon energy production and use, and stop supporting unsustainable
activities, such as fossil fuel energy.

40Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Private sector

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Help develop and comply with strong environmental legislation that levels theplaying field so that firms cannot gain competitive advantage by externalizing costs thatare then borne by society. Implement certified and traceable sustainable practices along
the complete supply chain. Disclose climate-related financial risk, use of natural resources
and the impact of activities on the environment. Practise corporate social responsibility.
b) Climate change Adjust business models and align them with the global net-zero carbon
emissions objective and sustainability practices in all sectors, including in shipping andaviation. Investors should demand information from companies on the resilience of thosemodels.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop and promote innovative publicprivate partnerships for financing and engaging in the conservation and restoration of
biodiversity, including through the use of payments for ecosystem services. Implement
sustainable land management practices for agriculture and forestry. Engage intransformative landscape governance networks. Develop sustainable global supply chainsfor deforestation-free agricultural commodities.
d) Health and well-being Comply with environmental standards to protect human health.
Move industries to a sustainable and circular business model by reducing waste andresource use and encouraging sharing, reuse and recycling. Promote and support plastic
free/environmentally friendly packaging. Conduct transparent risk assessments of the
impact of chemicals on the environment and human health. Increase the use of green
chemistry, invest in waste recycling and set high standards for waste disposal.
e) Cities and settlements Engage with and support government in sustainable urban
planning, public transport, energy-efficient buildings and partnerships to enhance accessto urban services.
2.

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Use natural capital in decision-making and develop environmental
and social risk registers for all projects and investments.
b) Subsidies and markets Engage in carbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature, andpayments for ecosystem services. Promote behaviour change in customers. Further
develop and implement social and environmental standards for corporate operations.
c) Investments Shift investments and operations away from unsustainable industries, suchas fossil fuels. Invest in innovation, environmentally sound technologies and move towards
a circular economy.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Develop and invest in systems to produce, store and distribute affordable andclean power and water and healthy food to all.
b) Food and water Provide modern food storage and distribution services that minimize
waste. Promote the development and use of food certification standards and productlabelling. Invest in sustainable intensification in agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture.
Develop climate-resilient crops and livestock breeds as well as alternatives to harmful
agricultural inputs, including to fertilizers and pesticides.
c) Energy Develop, invest in and use low-carbon energy technologies and distribution
networks.

41

Executive Summary

Non-governmentalorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Support education, promote youth movements and engage communities
in citizen science. Participate in community-led initiatives to promote sustainableconsumption and production. Help hold societal actors accountable for their environmental
promises, commitments and responsibilities. Support the training of the next generationof leaders.
b) Climate change Promote and align activities and operations with the net-zero carbon
emissions objective. Implement mitigation, adaptation and resilience programmes andprojects, including through nature-based solutions.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Support and implement efforts forthe conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity. Develop localregional-national conservation programmes. Participate in community-led initiatives toconserve nature. Engage in transformative landscape governance networks. Support
the development and management of protected areas and other effective area-based
conservation measures.
d) Health and well-being Raise awareness on chemical safety and take a greater rolein the SAICM chemicals management processes. Work with communities and local
municipalities for the safe disposal of waste.
e) Cities and settlements Campaign for and support sustainable urban planning andimproved access to urban services and community initiatives, especially for the urban
poor.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Promote the use of natural capital accounting, and initiatives for thetransformation to a sustainable and circular economy.
b) Subsidies and markets Engage in carbon trading, schemes for offsetting of natureand payment for ecosystem services Promote behavioural change in consumption andproduction, including among their own members and wider society.
c) Investments Advocate for policies and regulations that promote investment in sustainable
development.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Advocate for and implement programmes and projects for improved access toaffordable and nutritious food, clean energy and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Develop and implement initiatives for the ecological intensification andsustainable use of multifunctional landscapes. Promote dietary transitions and reductions
in food, water and energy waste. Assist in improving certification standards.
c) Energy Participate in community-led initiatives to shift toward cleaner fuels, increaseenergy-efficiency, conserve energy and develop sustainable bioenergy strategies.

42

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Individuals,
households,
civil society andyouth groups, andindigenous peoples
and local communities

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Foster social norms and behaviours that embody sustainability principles
by exercising voting and civic rights and holding governments and the private sector
accountable for their actions. Review and comment on local and national policies. Engage
in initiatives that promote sustainable consumption. Engage in education and citizenscience initiatives.
b) Climate change Make climate-friendly everyday choices on travel and consumption that
contribute to the net-zero carbon emissions objective. Engage in local adaptation andresilience initiatives, including through nature-based solutions.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Engage in local and national conservation
and restoration efforts, transformative landscape governance networks and awarenesscampaigns to influence consumer behaviour.
d) Health and well-being Understand and promote the links between environment andhuman health. Participate in community-led clean-ups of waste in public spaces. Ensurematerials are recycled and waste is properly disposed of.
e) Cities and settlements Engage in participatory processes to advance sustainable urban
planning and initiatives to increase access to urban services, and promote nature-based
solutions and green and blue infrastructure.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Foster economic and financial transformations by supporting
initiatives to include environmental costs in the prices of goods and services.
b) Subsidies and markets Engage in carbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature, andpayments for ecosystem services. Support fair trade and companies with sustainableproduction models that provide services and products that foster societal well-being.
c) Investments Support shifts in investment towards those needed to achieve the SDGs, andaway from unsustainable industries, such as fossil fuels.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Support and engage in local production and distribution systems for healthy food,safe water and clean energy.
b) Food and water Consider what constitutes a healthy diet and also reduces environmental
damage. Adopt sustainable practices in community-based and small-scale foodproduction. Purchase sustainably produced food and reduce waste. Reduce wastingwater, and collect rainwater and use grey water.
c) Energy Support community-based energy production. Reduce energy consumption andchose clean energy when possible.

43

Executive Summary

Scientific andeducationalorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Develop analytical tools, including plausible futures models, using exploratory,target-seeking and policy-screening scenarios that account for the complex interlinkages
between environment and development. Further develop observational programs. Engage
in national and international scientific assessments. Develop environmental education
programs for all age groups. Raise public awareness through public engagements,
editorials, social media.
b) Climate change Assess the impact of climate change on socio-economic sectors, natureand human health at all scales. Assess the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of different
mitigation and adaptation policies and technologies.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Assess the impact of multiple drivers
on biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, and the efficacy and cost-effectiveness ofconservation and restoration activities, including nature-based solutions.
d) Health and well-being Promote education, information and awareness of One Healthapproaches. Assess interactions among environmental issues and their impacts on socioeconomic sectors and human health. Assess the implications of chemicals for humanhealth and the environment, and develop health surveillance and monitoring systems, andapproaches to prevent disease outbreaks, including pandemics. Assess the mental health
implications of green and blue infrastructure in urban environments.
e) Cities and settlements Support sustainable urban planning and development, including
the use of nature-based solutions. Promote education, information and awareness on
sustainable cities and settlements and their importance for human health.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Further develop the framework for natural capital accounting andthe relevant databases. Assess the costs and benefits of mitigating and adapting to climatechange, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, land degradation, and air andwater pollution at a range of spatial scales. Assess the implications of reforming measuresand models of economic growth. Promote education, information and awareness on
sustainable economic and financial systems.
b) Subsidies and markets Assess the environmental and distributional social impactsof reductions in harmful subsidies, and the reallocation of these resources to support
sustainable consumption and production.
c) Investments Assess the environmental and social impacts of switching investments fromunsustainable activities such as fossil fuels to sustainable activities.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Help develop and monitor systems and networks to produce and distribute cleanwater and energy and nutritional food. Support the development of certification processes.
b) Food and water Promote education, information and awareness on sustainability
within agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy systems. Assess the implications ofenvironmental degradation on agriculture and water resources. Develop temperature,
drought, pest and salinity resistant crops. Assess how to reduce the environmental
footprint of agriculture. Facilitate the conservation and sustainable use of genetic
resources. Develop water purification and desalination technologies.
c) Energy Develop low-carbon production and use technologies, and assess how to overcome
the barriers to market penetration of these technologies.

44

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Media andsocial networks

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Inform all actors about the relationships between environment and development
issues. Help hold societal actors accountable for their environmental promises,
commitments and responsibilities. Support campaigns for meaningful actions to addressenvironmental degradation. Counter disinformation and promote environmentally
responsible social norms.
b) Climate change Highlight the implications of climate change for people and nature, andthe opportunities for adaptation and mitigation.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Highlight the importance of biodiversity
for human prosperity and well-being and the options for its conservation and restoration.
d) Health and well-being Spread understanding and awareness of One Health approaches.
Support campaigns for meaningful transformations in the health sector.
e) Cities and settlements Document the impact on people and nature of unsustainablesystems in urban areas and support campaigns for transformations in how cities andsettlements are planned and designed, including the supply of essential services.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Raise awareness of how current economic models and performancemeasures as well as the price of some goods and services fail to fully account for natural
capital and environmental costs, and how this skews investment toward unsustainable
activities. Support campaigns for meaningful transformations in economic and financial
systems.
b) Subsidies and markets Inform the public and other actors of the adverse consequencesof fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies that lead to environmental damage, and explore theimpact of redirecting the financing of subsidies to sustainable activities.
c) Investments Highlight government spending and private sector investments that are
unsustainable and those which are sustainable.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Highlight the inequitable access to safe and affordable food, clean water andclean energy, and ways to improve access.
b) Food and water Provide information and raise awareness of the need for more sustainable
practices in the agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy systems. Support campaigns
for meaningful transformations in the agricultural, water and energy sectors. Provide
information on the health and environmental effects of different diets.
c) Energy Raise awareness of the benefits from and pathways for meaningful transformations in the energy sector.

45

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

1
Tackling the planetary emergency and lighting
a path to a sustainable future with new opportunities

Humanity has been grappling with a growing number ofenvironmental challenges of increasing severity ever since
the Stockholm Conference in 1972. The decision to holdwhat became the first in a series of decadal conferences onsustainable development was taken by the General Assemblyof the United Nations (UN) in 1969.1 The Stockholm Conference identified the environment as a challenge needinga UN system-wide response and resulted in the establishment of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) to help
spearhead and coordinate the effort.2 Governments havesince put in place a number of specific multilateral environmental agreements and instruments, some of which address
issues largely unknown in 1972, such as the depletion of theozone layer and climate change.3 Environmental challenges
such as climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution havebecome increasingly severe. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has compared key
impacts and risks of global warming across sectors andregions to people, economies and ecosystems for selectednatural, managed and human systems through a sequenceof science-based assessments (figure 1.1). The more recent
assessments find that the risks kick in at lower temperature
increases than the earlier ones did, and that the reasons forconcern about climate change have increased over time.
Science in interaction with policy has played a key role inidentifying emerging environmental issues and providing
the evidence base needed to address them. International
environmental cooperation has developed an elaborate
science-policy interface, including intergovernmental assessments co-designed and co-produced by independent
experts interacting with government representatives andstakeholders. International assessments have established afoundation of shared knowledge that has often gone hand inhand with the development of international actions to curb
environmental decline. A prominent example is the international effort to restore the life-protecting ozone layer inthe upper atmosphere. Stratospheric ozone depletion was
first hypothesized in 1974 and prompted a series of disco-veries showing that human-produced substances were toblame (figure 1.2). An elaborate interplay between scienceand policy resulted in the Montreal Protocol, which initiatedthe phasing out of ozone-depleting substances so that theozone layer could start to recover, as detected in 2014. How
science and policy interacted on this issue is detailed in
Section 3. Advanced science-policy processes are key to generating actions needed to address more complex problems
such as climate change and biodiversity loss.
Current environmental challenges together represent aplanetary emergency that demands transformative change
to secure a sustainable future. Humanity can make peacewith nature and tackle the combined environmental crisis byredeploying human skills from transforming nature to transforming the social and economic fabric of society. Such aneffort needs to put human well-being centre stage and speed
up progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs). The 17 indivisible SDGs frame the transformations
required as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015. The
Agenda sets out a partnership for people, planet, prosperity
and peace under what the General Assembly refers to as “asupremely ambitious transformational vision.”4 The Agenda
and its integrated and indivisible goals link to a number ofother instruments, including multilateral environmental agreements and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
2015–2030.5 Transformations require amongst other things
innovation, learning, solidarity and adaptation. As well as costs
and disruption, transformations promise to open up many newsocial and economic possibilities and opportunities.
This report presents a flexible scientific blueprint for how
the climate change, biodiversity and pollution emergencies can be tackled jointly within the framework of the
SDGs. The first of its kind, this report gathers expertise fromacross recent global assessments to gauge Earth’s environmental decline and suggest how society at large can best
respond. The expert analysis synthesizes key findings from47

1 Tackling the planetary emergency and lighting a path to a sustainable future with new opportunities

1.1. Comparison of risk thresholds across Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) Assessments

Global mean temperature changea) Unique and threatened systemsc) Distribution of impacts

7°C
6°C
5°C
4°C
3°C
2°C
1°C
0°C
TAR

Smith etal. 2009(‘AR4‘)AR5

SR 1.5d) Aggregate impacts
Global mean temperature changeb) Extreme weather events

TAR

Smith etal. 2009(‘AR4‘)AR5

SR 1.5TAR

Smith etal. 2009(‘AR4‘)AR5

SR 1.5e) Large-scale discontinuities
Level of risk

7°C

Very high

6°C
5°C

High

4°C
3°C

Moderate

2°C

Undetectable

1°C
0°C
TAR

Smith etal. 2009(‘AR4‘)AR5

SR 1.5TAR

Smith etal. 2009(‘AR4‘)AR5

SR 1.5Figure 1.1: The “burning embers” diagrams in the IPCC assessments link global warming to estimates of impacts and risks for people, economies and ecosystems
across sectors and regions for selected natural, managed and human systems. The systems include (a) unique and threatened systems (such as tropical glaciers,
coral reefs and indigenous communities), (b) extreme weather events (including floods, droughts and tropical storms; term used in the Special Report on Global
Warming of 1.5 Degrees (SR 1.5) but called extreme climate events in Zommers et al. 2020), (c) distribution of impacts (including the heightened vulnerability of developing countries), (d) aggregate impacts (such as global monetary damage, global-scale degradation and loss of ecosystems and biodiversity) and (e) large-scale discontinuities (such as the shutdown of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation or the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet; called large-scale singular
events in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees (SR 1.5)). All burning embers are presented with thesame colour and temperature scale, removing technical details that varied between the original publications. Grey areas at the top of each column correspond totemperatures above the assessed range in the corresponding report. Dashed lines connect the midpoints between undetectable and moderate risk, and moderate and high risk. Risks transitions have generally shifted towards lower temperatures with updated scientific understanding. TAR is the IPCC Third Assessment
Report and AR4 is the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Smith et al. (2009) updated the TAR diagram incorporating AR4 findings. Figure produced using the Ember
Factory online application.6
Source: Figure adapted from Zommers et al. 2020, Figure 3.

the assessments with those from additional high-impact
peer-reviewed literature and grey literature. Part I of thisreport shows how the findings of the assessments are interlinked and add up to an unparalleled planetary emergency.
It presents a diagnosis of how the human transformation of48

Earth’s natural systems puts the collective human future at
risk. Within Part I, Section 2 examines how human survival
and well-being remain critically dependent on the natural
world, how the economy fails to reflect this relationship andhow the environment is increasingly shaped by humanMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

1.2. Milestones in the History of Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

Scientific
Milestones

1985
Ozone hole reported
over Antarctica

1974
CFC ozone depletion
hypothesis

2014
Upper stratosphericozone begins to increase
as a result of the ODS
phaseout

1988
Mid-latitude ozone
depletion detected

1985 – 1989
Laboratory, field and modellingstudies show chlorine and bromine
deplete polar stratospheric ozone

1995 – 1996
Atmospheric ozone-depleting
substances (ODS) levels begin
to decline

Megatonnes CFC-11equivalent per year

1.5

1.0

Natural emissions

0.5

CFC-11-equivalent emissions
prior to the Montreal Protocol
1960

1970

1980

CFC-11-equivalent emissions
after the Montreal Protocol
1990

2000

2010

2020

Figure 1.2: The key role of science in identifying the depletion of the life-protecting stratospheric ozone layer and the generation of knowledge needed to curb
emissions of ozone-depleting substances. Emissions are presented in CFC-11 (trichlorofluoromethane) equivalents. For a graphic representation of the interaction
between science and policy that yielded this result, see figure 3.6.
Source: figure adapted from Salawitch et al. (2019)activities. Section 3 explores how the world is currently
failing to meet almost all of its targets on limiting environmental decline. Section 4 analyses how an array of deepening and mutually reinforcing environmental risks now
threatens human well-being and the achievement of the
SDGs. In Part II, the report urges the world to respond to theplanetary emergency by transforming people’s relationshipwith nature and with each other. Section 5 analyses how thisdaunting goal of a fundamental, system-wide change in thetechnological, economic and social organization of society
can be achieved. Section 6 then assesses how the Earth’s
environmental emergencies should be addressed together toachieve sustainability. Section 7 moves on to examine how
the economic and financial systems can be transformed tolead and power the shift to a sustainable future, and then explores how food, water and energy systems can be transformed to meet growing human needs in an equitable, resilientand environmentally friendly manner. Actions to reverse
environmental decline in order to reduce the threats it poses
to human health and well-being are addressed in Section 8.
It also examines the environmental dimensions of promoting

peaceful societies before addressing how cities and communities could become more sustainable. Finally, Section 9 sets
out the roles and responsibilities that actors in the public andprivate sphere should assume if transformation is to succeed. It makes clear that humanity needs to take ingenuity
and cooperation to a whole new level in order to achieve thesustainable development that will safeguard people and theplanet in both the immediate and distant future.

1

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2581 (XXIV)
of 15 December 1969

2

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2997 (XXVII)of 15 December 1972.

3

UNEP/GC.26/INF/23, Environment in the United Nations System,
Note by the Executive Director.

4

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 70/1 of 21 October 20155

UN 2015, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable
Development.

6

Smith et al. 200949

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

I. Transforming nature puts human well-being at risk

2
The current mode of development degrades
the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

People rely on nature for livelihoods, prosperity, health andwell-being. This section lays out the many ways in whichpeople depend on nature, including through the provision of resources, the cycling of materials and the regulation of environmental conditions, and the many non-material contributions
that nature makes to a good quality of life. It assesses how
current economic and financial systems fail to account forsociety‘s dependence on the environment. The section thenexplores the underlying social and economic dynamics driving
the human activities that directly degrade the environment
through appropriation of space, modification of life, production, extraction, consumption, pollution and waste disposal.

2.1 Human well-being is critically dependent on the
Earth’s natural systems

ozone layer, 2 a stable global climate and many other criticalbenefits. Human dependence on Earth and its ecosystems isoften exposed when human systems degrade or surpass theplanet’s capacity to sustain prosperity. The growing use ofland, freshwaters, coasts, oceans and natural resources suchas fossil fuels, food crops, timber and aquatic foods havefuelled economic, technological and social advances (seefigure 2.2).3 However, human use of space and resources leaves less room for other living beings, and disposal of waste
surpasses the Earth‘s absorptive capacity (see Section 3).
The consequences, as this report shows, are devastating forhuman well-being and unjust (see Section 4). The benefitsof nature have accrued unequally, and the burden of environmental decline is often disproportionately borne by poor andvulnerable communities.4,5

Human survival and well-being rests on the Earth and its
ecosystems, and though the benefits of nature are received by all, the burden of environmental decline is unjustly
distributed. Humans depend on the Earth‘s finite space andresources as well as its capacity to regenerate renewable
resources, absorb waste and sustain life. The Earth provides
humanity with clean water and air,1 a protective stratospheric

Nature provides both material and non-material benefits
crucial to human well-being and regulates Earth system
functions that secure liveable conditions and protect people from harm. Many benefits derived from nature flow frominteractions between people and the environment. Natureprovides food, medicines, fibre, materials and energy and,with the aid of human inputs the production of many of these51

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

goods has increased over the past 50 years.6 Nature also
provides inspiration and learning, physical and psychologicalexperiences, a sense of place and supports human identities.7 The diversity of nature maintains humanity’s ability
to choose alternatives in the face of an uncertain future;for example, wild species might be domesticated as newcrops. 8 In addition, natural processes modulate and maintain Earth systems, thereby providing a stable climate, mitigating natural hazards such as floods and fires, maintaining
air and water quality, and supporting biological productivity.9
Food production, for example, depends not only on foodplants themselves but on many contributions from nature,including animal pollination, maintenance of soil fertility andwater holding capacity and genetic diversity to withstandenvironmental changes such as increased temperatures or
pests and disease (see Section 4).10
Human well-being, now and in the future, depends ona healthy planet, achieved by avoiding climate change,pollution of air and water, degradation of land, water andoceans, and erosion of life on Earth. A changing climate,a degraded ozone layer, pollution and the degradation of
ecosystems threaten human health, infrastructure and themany benefits that nature provides to people.11 Nature itself
is critical in mitigating these impacts, though in doing so its
integrity is threatened. For example, oceans and land ecosystems have absorbed roughly 50 per cent of total humancarbon dioxide emissions, but in so doing the oceans haveacidified, negatively affecting ocean ecosystems that many
people depend on,12 and the persistence of natural carbon
sinks are themselves uncertain due to climate change 13,14 andother drivers (see Section 2.3).15 Sustaining the flow of benefits from nature increasingly depends on avoiding further
loss of biodiversity.16 For example, biodiversity in agricultural
systems, including species and genetic variability, reduces
vulnerability to stresses and shocks, in part by increasing the
choices available to producers.17 Avoiding land degradation
will benefit billions of people by maintaining crop yields andother benefits of nature.18 A healthy planet is a prerequisite
and foundation for long-term prosperity, human health andwell-being and for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda.
The aggregate value of nature is often difficult to quantify because people value nature and its contributions toquality of life and cultural integrity in many different ways.19
Groups with different culture, history, experience, education,
income or other factors may use and value nature quite differently.20 People experience the value of nature through their
physical and mental health and as social, cultural and holistic
well-being.21 Multiple dimensions of value integrate cultural uniqueness; community reliance on nature that links to52

livelihoods, incomes, and level of importance for well-being;
cultural traditions, including connectedness to place, rituals,
and width of interest across the community; and dramatic
cultural change.22

2.2 Economic and financial systems fail toaccount for nature
Natural capital, as an asset that contributes to humanwell-being, is an important component of human wealth.
Natural capital refers to the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources (e.g. plants, animals, air, water, soils,
minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits to people.23
Inclusive wealth accounting measures the value of all formsof capital assets. It includes natural capital, human capital(skills, knowledge and experience), manufactured capital(building, infrastructure and machinery) and social capital(institutions and relationships among people). A partial
accounting puts the value of natural capital at 20 per cent ofplanetary wealth.24 This estimate excludes the many valuesof nature that are not sold as goods in market economies andhence have no conventionally measured economic value. However, since natural capital provides the life support system
for humanity, all wealth is ultimately dependent on preserving
natural capital.25
Gross Domestic Product fails to fully account for the benefits people get from nature and the costs of its degradation. The standard measure of economic performance,gross domestic product (GDP), only measures the value ofmarket transactions and therefore excludes much of thevalue of nature’s contribution to human well-being. GDP
excludes the value of ecosystem functions that regulate
environmental conditions and the value of non-material
benefits related to spiritual or cultural values. It also excludes measures of negative externalities associated with thedepletion and destruction of nature. GDP measures current
income but does not show whether that income is sustainable. Supporting current income through depletion of natural
capital is not sustainable.
Inclusive wealth is a better measure of sustainable prosperity. Rising GDP overstates human progress because it
does not account for declines in natural capital. Maintaining
or enhancing inclusive wealth (also known as weak sustainability) gives future generations the possibility to be at least as
well off as the current generation.26 Between 1990 and 2014,
the annual growth rate in GDP for a set of 135 countries wasalmost double the increase in inclusive wealth (3.4 per centversus 1.8 per cent).27 Yet even this comparison only partiallyreflects the loss of nature’s contributions over this period.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Natural capital provides contributions to human well-being
for which there may not be substitutes. Maintaining stocksof critical natural capital for which there are no substitutes isnecessary for sustainability (also known as strong sustainability).28 For example, the natural processes integral to
growing food cannot be replaced. Even where substitutes
for natural capital exist, they may be limited and costly. For
example, biodiversity often reduces the need for food andagricultural producers to rely on costly or environmentally
harmful external inputs. Similarly, high-quality drinking water
can be provided through ecosystems that filter pollutants,
through human-engineered water treatment facilities, or
through hybrid solutions such as constructed wetlands andgreywater treatment. Coastal flooding from storm surges
can be reduced by coastal mangroves or by dikes and sea
walls. Where limited or no substitutes for natural capital areavailable, policymakers can set science-based standards forenvironmental sustainability and adopt measures to ensurethat these standards are met. This approach has been adopted for climate change, biodiversity loss and protection of thestratospheric ozone layer.
Markets do not provide sufficient reward for businesses toinvest in conserving or restoring natural capital. Businesses often find it unprofitable to invest in natural capital
because they bear the costs but are not able to capture fully
the benefits of conserving or restoring natural capital that
accrue to wider society. The lack of investment results innatural capital’s continued decline.
Market prices fail to internalize environmental costs, magnifying environmental harm. Business and consumers often
fail to pay the full costs of producing and consuming goods
and services. For example, production and use of fossil fuelscauses climate change, air pollution, destruction of habitat,
ocean acidification and other environmental costs that areborne by society as a whole. Failure to pay for external costs
encourages overproduction and overconsumption of environmentally harmful goods and services and discourages shifts
towards more environmentally friendly substitutes such as
renewable energy.
Subsidies to environmentally destructive industries increase environmental degradation and its costs to people.
Subsidies to fossil fuels, non-sustainable agriculture andfishing, non-renewable energy, mining and transportation
exceed US$5 trillion annually. Globally, fossil fuel subsidies
alone have been estimated at US$4.7 trillion (6.3 per cent of
global GDP) in 2015 and are projected at US$5.2 trillion (6.5
per cent of GDP) in 2017. 29 In 2017–2019, the net transfers
to the agricultural sector in 54 countries was more than
US$600 billion per year. 30 These subsidies distort market
outcomes and result in greater environmental degradation.
Removing harmful subsidies would improve both economicand environmental outcomes.
The failure to recognize the true costs of resource use or
the value of waste reduction impedes movement towards asustainable and circular economy. Failure to include the fullcosts of environmentally harmful activities skews investmentaway from sustainable solutions that involve the restorationof nature, development of renewable energy, more efficientuse of resources, the reuse of materials and other characteristics of a circular economy. In a circular economy, theby-products of production or consumption becomes the raw
material for other products.31 A circular economy eases thepressure on natural resources and reduces waste and thecosts of disposal. The current economic system does notprovide effective incentives to reduce resource use, reusematerials or reduce waste, thereby slowing progress towards
a circular economy.

2.3 Rapidly expanding human activities are
driving environmental change
Human activities are changing the Earth‘s ecosystems andclimate and leaving a geological signature so significant
that the current geological epoch may be named the Anthropocene.I,32 These changes in the Earth system are driven
by an array of underlying causes anchored in socioeconomic
dynamics, the indirect drivers of environmental change, whichI

See Working Group on the Anthropocene of the Subcommission on
Quarternary Stratigraphy of the International Commission on Stratigraphy
http://quaternary.stratigraphy.org/working-groups/anthropocene/;53

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

are addressed in Section 2.3.1. Indirect drivers determine theway societies produce and extract resources use space, andrid themselves of waste matter. The direct drivers of environmental change are discussed in Section 2.3.2.
2.3.1 Resource-intensive and increasingly unequal humandevelopment indirectly drives global environmental change inways that transcend borders and continents
Environmental change is driven by accelerating humanactivities that result from an array of underlying causes
anchored in societal values, behaviour and governance. Indirect drivers of environmental change reflect socioeconomic
dynamics, including developments in population, economy,
consumption, production, equity, technology, human health,culture, conflicts, governance and behaviour. Indirect drivers
interact. For example, human consumption and production
patterns are perhaps the major determinants of environmental impact, and they are a function of both populationand per capita income. Per capita consumption is highest in
high-income segments of the world population. However, as
both population and per capita consumption increase, emerging economies are increasing their consumption. As withall indirect drivers, understanding the interaction between
population and per-capita consumption is key to explaining
past and future consumption patterns. Indirect drivers evolvewith social and economic development paths, and scenario
analysis can improve the understanding of future pathways(see box 2.1). Transformation to a sustainable future restson collectively committing to a pathway that addresses thedrivers of environmental change, keeping in mind that they
are subject to time lags, non-linearities and thresholds in thesocioeconomic systems.
Box 2.1: The role of scenario analysis and the sharedsocioeconomic pathways (SSPs)
Scenario analysis can guide society’s response to environmental challenges. Human-environment interactions affect human well-being, and society can deduce
how environmental change is likely to increase due totime lags and the projected growth in human activities.
However, future developments in environmental change
and related trends in human well-being have substantial
uncertainties, linked to population dynamics, economic
growth and income distributions, behavioural change
and technological progress. To address uncertainties
and to account for the complex interrelations among
their sources, the assessments explore plausible futures
based on, among other methods, scenario analysis.
Scenarios are plausible descriptions of how future

54

developments might evolve, based on a coherent andinternally consistent set of assumptions about the key
relationships and driving forces. They can be modelbased quantifications or narrative storylines and often
include both. A storyline is quantified using computermodels. While scenarios are not forecasts, they can inform decision makers on potential and alternative future
developments on specific environmental issues or likely
progress towards globally agreed environmental goals.
A widely used set of scenarios are the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs). The SSPs describe five alternative trajectories of future socioeconomic development with a focus on challenges to climate change
mitigation and adaptation (figure 2.1). For example,
SSP1 represents a sustainable and cooperative society
with a low-carbon economy and high capacity toadapt to climate change, while SSP3 is characterized
by social inequality that entrenches reliance on fossil
fuels and limits adaptive capacity. Although developed
principally to support climate research, the SSPs arealso used extensively for other fields of environmental
research (e.g. land, biodiversity, resource use) and inmany recent assessments. It should be noted that not
all environmental issues discussed in this synthesis
report are addressed equally in the scenario literatureand thereby the assessments. For instance, there aremany scenarios published on climate change, landuse change and air pollution, while only a few scenario
studies focus on land degradation and chemicals.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

2.1. Shared socio economic pathways (SSPs)
SSP5

SSP3
Policy orientation towards security

Policy orientation towards development, free markets
and human capital

Barriers to trade

Effective international cooperation for development
goals, limited for environmental goals

Material-intensive consumption,
medium meat consumption

Material-intensive consumption,
status consumption andmeat-rich dietsHigh inequality acrosscountries

Strongly reduced inequality
especially across countries

Low population growth
in OECD countries andhigh in other countries

Challenge to mitigation

Low population growth

Slow per capita
economic growthHigh per capita
economic growth

SSP1

SSP4

Policy orientation towards
sustainable development

Policy orientation
towards the benefit ofpolitical and business elite

Effective international
cooperation

Effective international
cooperation for globallyconnected economy, notfor vulnerable populations

Low growth in material
consumption, low-meat diets
Reduced inequality within and across countries

High consumption lifestyle for the rich

Low population growthHigh inequality within countries

Medium to high per capita
economic growth

Low population growth in OECD countries and relatively
high in other countries

SSP2
Continue with current development patterns

Low to medium per
capita economic growth

Challenge to adaptation
Figure 2.1: Shared socioeconomic pathways (in the figure, OECD stands for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development)
Source: figure adapted from O’Neill et al. 2017

The number of people on Earth has more than doubled overthe last 50 years but the growth rate is projected to slow.
The world population has grown from 3.7 billion people in1970 to an estimated 7.8 billion in 2020 (see figure 2.2 panela.i).33 Although the population growth rate is projected toslow, the total population is expected to continue expanding
in most regions. Based on a range of future fertility, mortality,

migration and education assumptions, population projections
used in existing assessments vary between 8.5 billion and10.0 billion people by 2050 and between 6.9 billion and 12.6
billion people by 2100 (figure 2.2 panel a.i).34,35,36,37,38,39 The largest uncertainty is the speed of the fertility transition, with low
population projections resulting from a relatively rapid dropin fertility rates, though drops in fertility rates have a lag time55

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

2.2. Development pathways in human relationship with naturea) Past developments and future projections for different shared socio economic pathways (SSPs)i) Global population in billions
20

10

UN range

15
10

5

5
0

1970

year

0

2015

2015

year

2100

2015

year

2100

2015

year

2100

ii) Global GDP in US$1,000s per capita (2005)
15

150

10

90

5
0

30
1970

year

0

2015

iii) Global energy consumption in exajoules (EJ)
2k

1k

1.5k
1k

0.5k

0.5k
0k

1970

year

0

2015

Historic

SSP1

SSP2

SSP3

SSP4

SSP5

b) Declines in the Living Planet Indicesi) Terrestrial Living Planet Indexii) Global Living Planet Indexiii) Freshwater Living Planet Index

1

1

1

0.5

0.5

0.5

0

1970

year

Index value (1970 = 1)

2015

0

1970

year

Index value (1970 = 1)

2015

0

1970

year

2015

Index value (1970 = 1)

Figure 2.2 a) Past developments and future projections under different SSPs for global population, per capita GDP and energy consumption. b) Past declines in the
Living Planet Index.
Data sources: a) IIASA 2018, SSPs Database, b) WWF 2020, Living Planet Report, 156

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

2.3. Development pathways by country incomea) Gross Domestic Product (GDP)in trillion US$ (2010 constant $)b) Extraction of living biomass (domestic consumption
and exports), in million tons per year

80

20

60

15

40

10

20

5

0

0

1970

1980

1990
Developed

2000

2010

2020

Developing

1970

1980
Least developed

1990

2000

2010

2020

World

Figure 2.3: Development pathways since 1970 across developed, developing and least developed countries. The vast majority of growth in gross domestic product(GDP) have occurred in developed and developing countries (panel a) while extraction of living biomass (e.g. crops and fish) to meet the demand for domestic
consumption and for export is highest in developing countries and rising rapidly (panel b). Countries are classified according to the United Nations World Economic
Situation and Prospects.
Source: Figure adapted from IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Figure SPM.4

on population growth. Towards 2050, the largest growth isprojected in developing countries with low per capita carbon
footprints and high gender inequity in access to education,
work, and sexual and reproductive rights, for instance in SubSaharan Africa and South Asia. A recently published scenario
study suggests that meeting the SDGs of universal secondary
education and universal contraception coverage by 2030
could result in a significant slow down in population growth,
resulting in a global population of between 4.8 billion and 8.7
billion people in 2100.40 A decline in total world population in
the latter half of 2100 is potentially good news for the global
environment, although climate change and loss of biodiversity
will still be a major challenge. Population decline and shifts inage structures also have other profound and potential negative social, economic and geopolitical consequences.41
Urbanization is increasing and is associated with risingenergy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, air andwater pollution and generation of waste such as plastic.
Since 1975, the total area of urban settlements has grownby approximately 2.5 times, accounting for 7.6 per cent of
the global land area and housing 3.5 billion people in 2015.
Most future population growth is projected to take place incities. The share of people living in urban areas is projected
to increase from 54 per cent in 2015 to 78 per cent in 2050.

Around 90 per cent of population growth in cities is projected
to take place in low-income countries, mainly in small andmedium-sized cities in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Rural-urban migration is the critical factor for future urbanization trends, more important than urban fertility rates. Trends
in urbanization are critical to environmental change. While
more than 50 per cent of the global population live in cities,
cities are responsible for around 75 per cent of all carbon
dioxide emissions from energy use.42 Climate change is expected to increase urban energy demand.43 Unplanned urban
expansion has been observed worldwide, mostly on fertileand productive lands.44 Urban areas have generally smaller
land use-related biodiversity impacts due to their limited
extent compared to agriculture and forestry, but urbanization
may alter consumption patterns and hence indirectly lead to
additional impacts on land and biodiversity.45 On the other
hand, urbanization and infrastructure development can generate positive economic effects and even environmental gains
based on efficiency, innovation and migration, depending on
where and how investment is implemented and governed.
The global economy has grown nearly fivefold over thelast 50 years 46 and growth is projected to continue while
inequalities deepen (figure 2.3 panel a and figure 2.2 panela.ii). Across the world, on average, people live longer, are57

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

Consumption has tripled over the last 50 years and is projected to grow further, with developed countries having thelargest environmental footprint. The quantity of materials
consumed per capita when all resources mobilized globallyto the final consumer is taken into account (material footprint of consumption) is highest in high-income countries.
The material footprint of consumption was, in 2017, 60 per
cent higher in high-income countries than in upper-middle
income countries, and thirteen times the level in low-income
ones (figure 2.4).59 Extraction of living biomass (e.g. crops
and fish) to meet the demand for domestic consumption
and for export is highest in developing countries and rising58

2.4. Domestic material consumption
and footprint by country income, 2017100k

million tonnes

80k
60k
40k
20k
0
25

tonnes per capita

more educated and have greater opportunities. The global
Human Development Index value grew nearly 22 per centfrom 1990 to 2017.47 Still, little of the economic growth seen
in developed and developing countries has benefitted least
developed countries (figure 2.3 panel a). Around 1.3 billion
people are still poor according to the 2020 update of theMultidimensional Poverty Index, which captures deprivationsin education, health and nutrition, access to services, and security, in addition to income poverty, 48 and in 2017 nearly 700
million people still lived in extreme income poverty (on lessthan US$1.90 a day) (see Section 4.1).49 In addition, thesemeasures often mask asymmetries within households where
women are often more exposed to deprivations than men.50
The COVID-19 pandemic is projected to push more than 70
million additional people into extreme poverty, and hundredsof millions more into unemployment and poverty.51,52,53 Furthermore, in 2019 nearly 700 million people were estimated to
be undernourished, up by nearly 60 million in five years. The
COVID-19 pandemic may add more than 80 million people
to the total number of undernourished in the world in 2020(see Section 4.2).54 Resources and opportunities are far fromequally distributed within the most developed countries aswell as among countries.55 Inequalities start at birth and accumulate through life in all countries. For example, a person
born in a country with very high human development 56 has a
50 per cent chance of attending higher education and only a
1 per cent chance of dying before the age of 20. In contrast,
someone born in a country with low human development 57
has a 17 per cent chance of dying before the age of 20 and
a 1 per cent chance of attending higher education. In thefive SSP scenarios, global average per capita income is
projected to increase by 60 per cent to 275 per cent between
2015 and 2050, ranging between US$20,000 and more than
US$50,000 per capita in 2050 (in purchasing power parity
values) (see figure 2.2 panel a.ii).58 The wide range of theseprojections is largely driven by alternative assumptions onhuman development, technological progress and development convergence between and within regions.

20
15
10
5
0

Low
incomeLowermiddle
incomeUppermiddle
incomeHighincomeDomestic material consumption
by country income, 2017
Material footprintby country income, 2017
World
Figure 2.4: Domestic material consumption and footprint by country income(2017). Domestic material consumption measures the physical quantity ofmaterials extracted from or imported into a nation’s territory. This consumption is compared with the material footprint, which attributes all resources
mobilized globally to the final consumer, according to country income. These
metrics are used to monitor progress towards SDG Target 12.2, which calls
for the sustainable management of natural resources, and SDG Target 8.4
concerning resource efficiency. 60
Source: Figure adapted from IRP 2019a, GRO SPM, Figure IV

rapidly (figure 2.3 panel b). Global demand is projected to increase faster than population growth due to a shift to moreresource-intensive lifestyles fuelled by increasing per capita
incomes. Between 2015 and 2050, consumption of materials(including biomass, fossil fuels, metal ores and non-metallic materials) is projected to increase by 110 per cent.61

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

2.5. Global Primary Energy Consumption by source

Global Primary Energy Consumption in Exajoules

600

500

until 1960
in decades

from 1965
in years

400

300

200

100

0
1850

1900

1800
Biofuels

1970
1960

Coal

1980

1990

2000

1965

Crude Oil

2010
2019

Natural Gas

Hydropower

NuclearOther
renewables

Figure 2.5: Development in global primary energy consumption by source since 1800 for biofuels (traditional and modern), coal, crude oil, natural gas, hydropower,
nuclear and other renewables (wind, solar and other renewables).
Data source: Our World in Data converted from TWh to EJ

The fastest growth is projected for non-metallic materials,
reflecting additional needs for buildings and infrastructure.62
Increased material consumption is putting further pressure
on an already stressed environment, as the decreases in the
Living Planet Indexes indicates (see figure 2.2 panel b).
Production, marketing and consumer choices have drivenchanges in energy and agriculture systems involving asignificant and ongoing rise in the use of natural resources. Economic growth has been fuelled by an increasein global primary energy production of more than 270 per
cent over the last 50 years. While the share of renewableenergy is increasing, fossil fuels are still the source ofmore than 80 per cent of primary energy and continue todrive climate change (figure 2.5).63 Innovations, marketingand changes in consumer preferences shape production
systems, including that for food. There has been a shift to-wards more meat-intensive diets and increases in material
consumption among those in society who can afford it.
The extent to which diets shift is a key variable in how
much food is required by 2050. Between 2015 and 2050,
demand for agricultural products (including wood, grass
and fodder, food, feed and energy crops) is projected toincrease by 30–80 per cent (SSP1-3), while primary energy
demand is expected to rise by 80–130 per cent (SSP1-5)(figure 2.2 panel a.iii).64 Future developments in demand forenergy and materials are also sensitive to economic growthand structure, while agricultural demand is more directly
affected by population growth.65
Technology can yield important efficiency gains but is nota panacea for unsustainable resource use. Technologicalinnovation and efficiency gains can reduce the environmental footprint of human activities. For example, energy

59

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

2.6. Ratio of biomass of mammals

Humans
0.06 Gigatons

Domesticated animals
0.10 Gigatons

Wild mammals
0.007 Gigatons

Figure 2.6: Estimates of the biomass of mammals on Earth, split between humans, domesticated mammals and wild mammals (the area of the circles indicatesthe relative biomass of each group measured in gigatons of carbon.)Source: Bar-On et al. 2018

efficiency increased by an estimated 12 per cent between
2000 and 2018.66 However, growth in consumption due toreduced cost to consumers, sometimes called the reboundeffect may offset efficiency gains.67 Structural shifts may
also offset efficiency gains. Material productivity has not
improved globally since the year 2000 due to structuralshifts in production towards economies with low material
productivity.68 Although the assessed SSPs show somedecoupling of resource use from economic output (forexample, in improved energy, water and nutrient-use efficiency and increasing agricultural yields) they fall short ofoffsetting rising demand driven by increases in populationand per capita income.69
Massively expanded global trade is exporting environmental footprints and distancing consumers from theirimpacts on the climate and biodiversity. Global trade hasgrown by nearly ten times in the last 50 years.70 Ever-moredistant consumers are shifting the environmental burden of
consumption and production across regions.71 Assessmentof the “upstream resource requirements” of trade (that is,
the additional resources used in the country of origin for60

producing traded goods but left behind as wastes andemissions) reveals that resource-intensive processes haveshifted from high-income importing countries to low-income exporting countries, with a corresponding shift inassociated environmental burdens.72
2.3.2 Increases in resource use and waste generation drive
global environmental change
Human-caused direct drivers of environmental change
are now a dominant force shaping the Earth. To satisfy
growing demands, people use an ever-increasing fraction of
the Earth‘s land, freshwater and oceans for the productionand extraction of food, fibre, energy and minerals as well as
for industrial facilities, infrastructure and settlements. Humans and farm animals have become the dominant species
among all mammals on Earth. One estimate of the combined biomass II of mammals on Earth shows that the humanpopulation constitutes about a third and livestock nearly two
thirds, while wild mammals, from whales to mice, amount toII

Biomass measured in gigatons of carbon

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

2.7. Global use of ice-free land around year 201512%

1% Infrastructure
2% Irrigated cropland
10% Non-irrigated cropland
2% Intensive pasture37%

16% Used savannahs
and shrublands

19% Extensive pasture

100%(130Mkm 2)=
Global ice-freeland surface
22%

2% Plantation forests

20% Forests managed fortimber and other uses

28%

7% Unforested ecosystems
with minimal human use
9% Forests (intact or primary)with minimal human use
12% Other land (barren, rock)Total surface area of planet Earth

3% Land ice

25% Ice-free land

71% Oceans

1% Freshwater

Figure 2.7: Global use of ice-free land around year 2015 for different categories of use ordered by decreasing land-use intensity clockwise from the top.
Source: Figure adapted from IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure SPM.1

less than 5 per cent (figure 2.6).73 Society‘s use of resources
results in the release of greenhouse gases and pollutants,
including nutrients and chemicals as well as household, industrial and human waste. In addition, people modify life andmove organisms, both intentionally, to achieve benefits suchas increased food production, and unintentionally.

Human transformation of landscapes and seascapes drives
biodiversity loss, climate change and degradation of land,
freshwater and oceans. Close to three quarters of ice-freeland and two thirds of the oceans are significantly impacted
by people.74 Food production occupies half of the habitableland on Earth75 (figure 2.7). Increasing agricultural extent

61

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

Global greenhouse gas emissions (GtCO2e)2.8. Global greenhouse gas emissions from all sources60

Land-use change (CH4+N2O)

50

Land-use change (CO2)40

Fluorinated gases (F-gas)

30

N2O

20

CH4

10

Fossil CO2

0
1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2019

Figure 2.8: Global greenhouse gas emissions from all sources from 1990 to 2019. (CH4 Methane, CO2 Carbon Dioxide, N2O Nitrous Oxide)
Source: UNEP 2020a, EGR, Figure ES.1

converts natural habitats, resulting in a loss of biodiversity andcarbon sinks, while agricultural intensification typically uses
more inputs, often with adverse impacts on soil and water
quality and on biodiversity. Half of all agricultural expansion
from 1980 to 2000 occurred at the expense of forests, primarily in the tropics, partly to accommodate cattle ranching andpalm oil production.76 The world‘s forests constitute nearly athird of Earth’s land area, and about 10 per cent of forest area
has been lost through conversions to other land uses since
1990, though the deforestation rate is decreasing.77 Satellite
imaging shows that human pressures reduced intact forest
landscapes by 7 per cent globally from 2000 to 2013.78 Morethan two thirds of the remaining forests are either managed
or plantation. Land is also converted for infrastructure andmining. Urban areas have more than doubled since 1992.79
Land use change is ranked the most important direct driver ofland degradation and loss of biodiversity on land,80 as well as
the most important driver impacting freshwaters (see figure3.1). An estimated 23 per cent of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (2007–2016) stem from agriculture,
forestry and other forms of land use, including carbon dioxide
emissions from deforestation, methane emissions from ruminants and rice cultivation, and nitrous oxide emissions fromfertilizer use.81 In the oceans, which covers 70 per cent of theplanet, human use of seascapes is ranked the second mostimportant driver of biodiversity loss (see figure 3.1).82 Indigenous peoples’ land, which is less impacted than other lands,
includes approximately 35 per cent of all remaining terrestrial
areas with very low human intervention.83

62

Extraction of natural resources has more than tripled andextraction of living biomass has doubled over the last 40
years (figure 2.3 panel b). One third of fish stocks globally were
overharvested in 2015, up from 10 per cent of stocks in 1974.
Another 60 per cent are fished at the limit of sustainability. Just
7 per cent are harvested at levels below the maximum sustainable yield.84,85 Agricultural crop production has increased byabout 300 per cent since 1970. However, 25–30 per cent of
total food produced is currently lost or wasted.86 Agriculture
accounts for nearly three quarters of all freshwater use,87 andwater withdrawals, predominantly for irrigated agriculture,grew by nearly 65 per cent from 1970 to 2010.88 Resource
extraction is ranked the second most important driver of biodiversity loss in freshwater (see figure 3.1).89 Between 1970
and 2017, mining of metal ores increased by three and a halftimes and mining for sand, gravel and clay increased by nearlyfive times. Raw timber production has risen by 45 per cent.
Approximately 60 billion tons of renewable and non-renewable
resources are now extracted globally every year, having nearly
doubled since 1980.90 Resource extraction often happens in
combination with use of land and seascapes, and related emissions and waste can drive climate change and pollution.
Human emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases drive
climate change. Emissions of greenhouse gases, in particular,
carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, as a result of human activities have continuously increased since the industrial
revolution. Greenhouse gas emissions grew 1.5 per cent per
year in the last decade (2009 to 2018), excluding emissions

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

resulting from land-use change, and 1.3 per cent per year
including land use-related emissions (figure 2.8). Atmosphericconcentrations of greenhouse gases have reached levels muchhigher than at any time in the last 800,000 years. Emissionsof carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and industrial processes
accounted for nearly 80 per cent of the total anthropogenic
increase in emissions in carbon dioxide equivalents from 1970
to 2010. Carbon dioxide from these sources contributes two
thirds of the warming caused by anthropogenic greenhousegas emissions.91 About one quarter of the warming stems
from greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry
and other forms of land use. Land use (mostly agriculture)and land-use change is associated with 13 per cent of carbon
dioxide emissions, 44 per cent of methane emissions and 82
per cent of nitrous oxide emissions.92 Natural sinks today are
only able to absorb around half of all carbon dioxide emissions, more or less equally split between terrestrial ecosystems
and the ocean. Increased uptake of carbon dioxide is causing
harmful ocean acidification.93,94 In order to limit warming towell below 2°C, net global emissions from human activities
need to reach zero or even become negative by the middle ofthe century.95

and animals used by humans that are highly adapted to
local conditions. The number of local varieties and breedsof domesticated plants and animals and their wild relatives
has, however, been reduced sharply as a result of land usechange, selective breeding for increased productivity, knowledge loss, market dynamics and large-scale trade.102,103
Gene technology has opened up new ways of altering thetraits of microorganisms, plants and animals to boost
production or improve tolerance of pests, heat and drought,
but its application could potentially have negative effects
on human health, food production and the environment
unless managed carefully.104 The spread of invasive species
is the fifth most important direct driver of biodiversity
loss (figure 3.1). Cumulative records of alien species haveincreased by 40 per cent since 1980 and are associatedwith increased trade. Nearly one fifth of Earth’s surface is
at risk of plant and animal invasions.105 More rapid spreadof infectious diseases, partially caused by the expanding
range of vectors such as mosquitos, or the transmission of
zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19, is a threat to humanhealth (see box 4.4).

Disposal, release and leaks of chemicals, nutrients andwaste are driving environmental declines, especially inaquatic ecosystems. Pollution is regarded as the third mostimportant driver of biodiversity loss in freshwater and thefourth in terrestrial and marine systems (see figure 3.1). Up
to 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge
and other industrial wastes are dumped annually into theworld’s waters, and fertilizers entering coastal ecosystems
have produced dead zones.96 Marine plastic pollution has
increased tenfold since 1980, constituting 60 to 80 per centof marine debris, and is found in all oceans at all depths andconcentrates in the ocean currents. Marine plastics cause
ecological impacts from entanglement and ingestion andcan also act as a vector for invasive species and pollutants.97,98,99 There has been a near-doubling of the global
chemical industry’s production capacity between 2000 and2017. Air pollution (indoor and ambient), pathogen-polluted
drinking water and inadequate sanitation currently causes
millions of premature deaths per year, as discussed in
Section 4.100 Pollutants like black carbon (soot) also act as
short-lived forcers to climate change,101 while some halogenated gases both deplete the stratospheric ozone layer andact as greenhouse gases (see Section 3.7).
Animal and plant domestication, gene technology andthe spread of invasive alien species alters biodiversity.
Domestication and human selection, sometimes overcenturies or millennia, have created a large variety of plants63

2. The current mode of development degrades the Earth‘s finite capacity to sustain human well-being

1

UNEP 2019a GEO-6, 5.4.1

51

UN 2020, SDG Report 2020

2

EEAP 201852

ILO 2020

3

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A3

53

Lakner et al. 2020

4

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, C3

54

FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO 2020, The State of Food Security

5

IRP 2019, GRO, ES 1.1

6

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2

7
8

and Nutrition in the World 2020, Section 1.1.
55

UNDESA 2020, World Social Report

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2

56

Human Development Index value of 0.800 or greater

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2

57

Human Development Index value of less than 0.550

9IPBES 2019b, GA, 2

58

Samir and Lutz 201710

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2

59

IRP 2019, GRO, Preface

11

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A1

60

IRP Global Material Flows Database

12

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A5, A6

61

IRP 2019, GRO, 4.2.2

13

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A2.5

62

IRP 2019, GRO, 4.2.2

14

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure 1

63

Our World in Data 2020, Global primary energy

15

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B2

64

IIASA 2018, SSP database

16

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 3

65

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 2.3.1.1

17

FAO 2019, 2.3.2

66

IEA, Energy Efficiency 201818

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 567

IRP 2019b, GRO, 4

19

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A1

68

IRP 2019b, GRO, SPM

20

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.2.2

69

IRP 2019b, GRO, Executive Summary 4.5

21

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.4

70

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B4

22

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.4

71

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B4

23

IPBES 2019b, GA, Glossary72

IRP 2015

24

UNEP 2018, IWR, Figure 1.8a, ES Box 1

73

Bar-On et al. 2018

25

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A1

74

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM A.1, Figure 1

26

UNEP 2018, IWR, 2.2.3

75

UNEP 2019b, SPM, 2.2.4

27

UNEP 2018, IWR, ES

76

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 10

28

UNEP 2018, IWR, 2.2.3

77

FAO 2020, UNEP 2020

29

IMF 2019 Working Paper No. 19/89

78

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A4

30

OECD 2020, Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2020

79

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B1

31

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 17.3, Figure 17.4, Figure 17.6

80

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM Figure 2

32

Subramanian 201981

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM Figure 1

33

UNDESA 2019, World Population Prospect

82

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 13

34

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3.1

83

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B6

35

UNCCD 2017, GLO, 6

84

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 12

36

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.11.2

85

GSDR 2019, 2.10.1

37

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Box SPM.1

86

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A 1.4

38

IPCC 2018a, SR 1.5, 2.3.1

87

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.1.3

39

Samir and Lutz 201788

IRP 2019b, GRO SPM, 1

40

Vollset et al. 2020

89

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B

41

Vollset et al. 2020

90

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 10

42

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2

91

IPCC 2014a, AR5 SYR SPM, 1.2 and Figure SPM.2

43

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2

92

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.3

44

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 15

93

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A.2.5, B.2.3

45

IRP 2019, GRO, 3.2.3

94

UN 2016, Summary of the First Integrated Marine Assessment

46

World Bank 2020, Data for the period 1968 and 201895

IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, Figure 1

47

UNDP 2018, Human Development Indicies and Indicators,

96

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 102018 Statistical update

97

GSDR 2019, 2.10.1

48

UNDP and OPHI 2020, Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2020

98

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 12

49

World Bank 2020, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2020

99

UNEP 2019b, GEO-6 SPM, 2.2.3

50World Bank 2018, Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2018

100 UNEP 2019b, GEO-6 SPM, 2.2.1, 2.2.5

64Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

101 IPCC 2014c, AR5 SYR, 3.4
102 IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A7
103 FAO 2019, The state of the world’s biodiversity for foodand agriculture, ES 3
104 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.5.2.1, 3.2.1
105 IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B3

65

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

3Society is failing to meet most of its
commitments to limit environmental damage

This section examines the state of the Earth from six perspectives, each relating to a cluster of international agreements: climate change; biodiversity loss; land degradation;
air pollution; chemicals in the biosphere; and the depletion ofstratospheric ozone. It demonstrates how society is failingto meet most of the internationally agreed environmental
and sustainable development goals and targets relating tothese topics. It concludes with a subsection showing how
these major environmental challenges are linked to one
another, and therefore why their collective solution requires
a coordinated approach.
The future is not entirely bleak. Multilateral cooperation andactions by individual nations, industries and households haveyielded positive results, albeit insufficient to date. In general,these successes are not keeping pace with the growing negative ecological consequences of expanding human activities.
If humanity continues on this path, the environment will keepchanging for the worse, and this decline will contribute to conflicts, a reduction in the quality of human life and deterioratingprospects for most other lifeforms on the planet.
Almost all of the Earth system and human system processes
involved in the dramatic changes observed over the past
century contain time lags of years to centuries. This imparts
an inertia to the changes observed and reinforces the urgency
with which people must act. There is a high risk that systems
will cross thresholds beyond which change accelerates andbecomes effectively impossible to reverse.

3.1 Society is not on course to fulfil the
Paris Agreement to limit global warming
Human activities have already caused the Earth’s surface
to warm by more than 1°C since the industrial period of
1850–1900.1,2 Warming substantially greater than the global
average is being experienced in most land regions: up to twiceas large for hot extremes in mid-latitudes and more than threetimes larger in the cold season in the Arctic.3 The increased
atmospheric warming has led to more frequent and inten-

se heavy precipitation events at global scale, but also to anincrease in the frequency and intensity of droughts in someregions.4,5 The additional warming has also led to Arctic sea
ice retreat, permafrost thaw, and to melting of glaciers and ice
sheets, which together with the thermal expansion of the oceans, have resulted in accelerating sea level rise.6 Non-climatic
drivers such as land subsidence, partly human-caused, havealso played an important role in increasing vulnerability to sea
level rise. Human-induced climate change has led to increases in the intensity and frequency of many extreme events, inparticular hot extremes in all land regions, heavy precipitationin several regions and droughts in some regions.7,8 In many
regions, changing patterns of precipitation and the melting ofsnow and ice are altering the volume and seasonal timing ofwater flows in rivers, affecting both the quantity and qualityof water resources, and the potential occurrence of peak flow
events. Climate zones are shifting, including expansion of aridzones and contraction of polar zones.9
The heat-trapping effect of atmospheric greenhouse gases
will persist for centuries to millennia,10 and the resultant
continued increase in global temperature will have large adverse consequences. There is inertia in the climate system.
While some changes in the natural system, such as ocean
acidification, can be detected almost immediately and can beclearly attributed to anthropogenic influence, other effects,
such as sea level rise, will gradually but inexorably reveal
themselves over the next several centuries. They are equally
attributable to climate change, but the connection is lessobvious to non-scientific observers because of the delay. Ice
loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is alreadycontributing to sea level rise.11 The unstable retreat of someAntarctic and Greenland glaciers may further accelerate sea
level rise,12 possibly abruptly. Mass loss from the Greenland
Ice Sheet could be irreversible in the foreseeable future.13
Risks of biodiversity loss and extinction increase greatly bothfor terrestrial and marine species as warming increases,
with large increases for warming levels between 1.5 and 2°C(see Section 3.2) and further increases in risk beyond 2°C
warming. Ocean warming, acidification and deoxygenation,67

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

permafrost degradation, and the extinction of species arephenomena that are highly relevant to human societies andecosystem integrity but are effectively irreversible on century
time scales.14,15 Other effects, such as marine heatwaves andthe retreat of Arctic sea ice, may be reversible over a period of
decades to centuries (table 6.1) if the drivers of warming arereversed. Widespread disappearance of Arctic near-surface
permafrost is projected to occur this century, 2–66 per centof the area is at risk under low emission scenarios, and
30–99 per cent under high emission scenarios, releasing as
much as 240 gigatonnes of carbon to the atmosphere, further
accelerating climate change. Permafrost melting dries out thesoil in some places, results in flooding in other places, andcauses damage to infrastructure.16
Rising concern about the climate has led to the Paris Agreement and other international accords to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed in 1992,17 led to the
Kyoto Protocol in 1997,18 the first coordinated attempt to limit
greenhouse gas emissions. The subsequent Paris Agreementof 2015 was the result of several years of intensive international efforts to reach an agreement between all countries
on limiting climate change. It includes the aim of “holding theincrease in the global average temperature to well below 2°C
above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit thetemperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” In
the light of different national circumstances, the Paris Agreement calls for “rapid reductions” of emissions to be achieved“on the basis of equity, and in the context of sustainable
development and efforts to eradicate poverty.”19 The connections between eradicating poverty and reducing inequality
and addressing climate change are embedded in the sustainable development goals (SDGs, see Section 4).
Despite growing awareness and alarm about climatechange, greenhouse gas emissions have continued to rise.
Emissions of greenhouse gases increased from the equivalent of around 30 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO2e)in 1970 to around 55 GtCO2e in 2019.20 In the absence ofvigorous mitigation measures and policies, most projections
show further increases in greenhouse gas emissions in the
future, driven by increasing fossil fuel use, land-use changes
and other human activities.
If society continues on its current emissions pathway,
it will miss the target of keeping warming to well below
2°C, let alone that of stabilizing global warming at 1.5°C,
and be on course for warming of more than 3°C. Taken
together, the national climate mitigation pledges (known
as Nationally Determined Contributions) made to date fall68

far short of the reductions needed to achieve the goals set
under the Paris Agreement. Current pledges are more consistent with scenarios that lead to a warming well in excess
of 3°C by the latter part of the century. 21 Many countries are
failing to achieve even the modest emissions reductions
goals they set for themselves. 22 Unless major emissions
reductions are achieved by 2030, any chance of stabilizing
global warming at 1.5°C will be lost. 23 Typical scenarios
aimed at holding warming well below 2°C or even to 1.5°C
typically show a 25–50 per cent reduction compared to2010 (see also Section 6.1). 24 Scenarios in which warming
temporarily exceeds the Paris Agreement goals around
mid-century before falling rapidly depend heavily on the development of carbon dioxide removal technologies, whose
ability to capture and store carbon dioxide at scale is as yet
unproven and could lead to unintended negative impacts on
biodiversity and food production. 25,26
In 2020, greenhouse gas emissions have shown a temporary drop as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Carbon dioxide
emissions could decrease by about 7 per cent in 2020 (range
2–12 per cent) compared with 2019 emission levels due to
COVID-19, with a smaller drop expected in overall emissions
as other greenhouse gases are likely to be less affected.
However, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases
continue to rise. Studies indicate that the biggest changes
have occurred in transport, as some COVID-19 restrictions
were targeted to limit mobility, though reductions have also
occurred in other sectors.27 Long-term impacts on emissions are uncertain. The stimulus packages announced bygovernments to support economic recovery may have astrong impact on long-term emissions, leading to either lower
emissions (if investments are combined with decarbonization
strategies) or higher emissions (if investments are mostly
made in greenhouse gas-intensive technologies).
Climate change amplifies existing risks and creates new
risks for natural and human systems. 28,29,30,31,32,33 Restricting
global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited overshoot avoids
many additional risks compared to a stabilization at 2°C,
including reducing the risk of some irreversible impacts.34
At 2°C of warming and higher, the likelihood and magnitudeof impacts rises steeply. For example, substantial further
increases in hot temperature extremes in most inhabited
land regions are projected at global warming of 2°C or morecompared to warming of 1.5°C.35 There would also be further
increases in heavy precipitation in several regions, and ahigher probability of drought and precipitation deficits insome regions.36 Global mean sea level rise is projected to
be around 10 centimetres less by the end of the twenty-first
century in a 1.5°C warmer world compared to a 2°C warmer

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

centuries as a direct or indirect consequence of humanactivities. Only a quarter of their original habitat is largely
still functioning in a semi-natural way, and more than a thirdof terrestrial global plant production is now appropriatedby humans for their own use and the use of domesticatedspecies.37 Climate change exacerbates other threats to biodiversity (see Section 3.7). Many terrestrial, freshwater andmarine species have shifted their geographic ranges, seasonal activities, migration patterns, abundances and species
interactions in response to climate change, and this trend willcontinue.38 Half of all warm-water coral reefs have alreadybeen lost due to such combined effects.39 A third of marine
fish stocks have declined as a consequence of overharvesting.40 Fertilisers entering coastal ecosystems have produced
more than 400 ocean “dead zones” with a total area greaterthan 245,000 km² – more than the land area of the United
Kingdom.41 Widespread changes in organismal traits andreductions in genetic diversity are also evident. The diversityof organisms is in decline in both natural and managed environments (such as agricultural landscapes), with negative
consequences for their productivity and resilience in the faceof stress. The world’s major ecosystems vary in both theintensity of the change-inducing factors they face and theirability to withstand them. Some, including arctic ecosystems
and tropical coral reefs, are thought to be close to collapse in
the form of large-scale regime shifts.42

world. The probability of a sea ice-free Arctic Ocean during
summer is substantially higher at 2°C compared to 1.5°C of
global warming. The risks to ocean and terrestrial ecosystems, including the number of species at risk of accelerated
extinction, increase more than proportionally to the change
in global mean temperature; at 2°C, the number of species
at risk is more than 30 per cent higher than for 1.5°C, andhigher temperature increases further magnify the threats (seeSections 3.2 and 3.7).

3.2 None of the goals for the protection of life on
Earth have been fully met
Worldwide, biodiversity continues to decline at an alarming
and accelerating rate. The absolute abundance of wild organisms has decreased over the past half-century, typicallyby about half across many groups, including birds, mammals
and insects. Hotspots of rare and endemic species, which
account for a disproportionate fraction of global biodiversity, have on average suffered greater declines in ecosystem
structure and biotic integrity than other areas. The global rateof species extinction is already at least tens to hundreds oftimes higher than the average rate over the past 10 million
years and is accelerating. Over 1 million of the estimated 8
million plant and animal species on Earth are at substantially increased risk of extinction in the coming decades and3.1. Relative global impact of direct drivers on major ecosystems
Terrestrial ecosystems

Freshwater ecosystems

Marine ecosystems

0%10%Land- / sea-use
change20%

30%
Directexploitation

40%
Climatechange50%60%Pollution

70%

80%
Invasive alien
species

90%

100%

Other humanactivities

Figure 3.1: Relative global impact of direct drivers on major ecosystems, ranking the past and current causes of declines in biodiversity.
Source: IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Figure SPM.2

69

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

3.2. Assessment of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets
Goal

Target (abbreviated)

Progress towards elements of each target
IPBES Global Assessment

The Global Biodiversity Outlook 5

DRIVERS

1. Awareness2. Integration of values
3. Incentives
4. Production & consumption

PRESSURES

5. Habitat loss
6. Fisheries
7. Agriculture & forestry
8. Pollution
9. Invasive alien species

IMPLEMENTATIONBENEFITSSTATUS

10. climate vulnerability / coral reefs
11. Protected & conserved areas
12. Extinctions prevented
13. Genetic diversity
14. Ecosystems services
15. Ecosystem restoration
16. Access & benefit sharing
17. Strategies & action plans
18. Indigenous & local knowledge
19. Biodiversity science
20. Financial resources

Figure 3.2: A summary of the assessments of progress towards the 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets and the elements contained in their formulations by the IPBESGlobal Assessment and the Global Biodiversity Outlook 5. Each segment represents an element of the target. Blue indicates that the element has been exceeded(not used by IPBES), green indicates good progress and that the element has been or is likely to be achieved by 2020, yellow indicates that moderate progress has
been made towards the element but that it has not been achieved, red indicates poor progress or no significant change in the element, and purple indicates thatthe trends are moving away from achieving the element (not used by IPBES). In cases where the element could not be assessed due to insufficient information,
the segment is grey. In the left hand column: “Drivers“ refers to Strategic Goal A on underlying causes of biodiversity loss; “Pressures“ refers to Strategic Goal B on
the direct pressures on biodiversity; “Status“ refers to Strategic Goal C on improving the status of biodiversity; “Benefits“ refers to Strategic Goal D on enhancing
benefits from biodiversity; and “Implementation“ refers to Strategic Goal E on enhancing implementation.
Source: IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Figure SPM.6; CBD 2020a, GBO-5 SPM

None of the goals in the international agreements intended to slow the rate of biodiversity loss have been fully
met, including those in the strategic plan for biodiversity
2011–2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Across six
international agreements 43 whose objectives include slowing
or reversing biodiversity loss, only one in five of the strategic
objectives and goals are on track to be achieved. Nearly a70

third of the goals are not being met or in some cases evenbecoming further out of reach.44 For example, none of thetargets agreed under the CBD in 2010 (known as the “Aichi
Biodiversity Targets”) were fully met by the target deadline of2020. One assessment of progress found partial progress injust four of the 20 targets.45 A subsequent assessment that
also took into account reports by countries implementing

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

the targets concluded that six of the targets were partially achieved 46 (see figure 3.2). Areas of progress included
increases in the proportion of land and oceans designated asprotected areas and improved international financial flows todeveloping countries. Little or no progress has been made onothers, including the elimination of harmful subsidies.47 Bothanalyses show that there has been moderate or poor progress for most of the targets aimed at addressing the causesof biodiversity loss (see figure 3.1). As a result, the state ofbiodiversity overall continues to decline. Even though conservation actions have likely reduced the number of species becoming extinct by between two and four times, the numberof species threatened with extinction continues to increase.
There has been moderate or poor progress on maintaining
genetic diversity of cultivated plants and their wild relatives,
restoring ecosystem services and no progress overall inenhancing carbon storage. Some progress has been madein adopting policy responses and actions including raisingawareness of the value of biodiversity, sharing benefits
equitably, developing national action plans, and improving
scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of
biodiversity loss.48
Lag times and system feedbacks mean that species can becommitted to premature extinction decades before the lastindividuals actually die and that there is a high likelihoodthat ecosystem thresholds will be crossed, with large andnegative consequences. It is estimated that more than halfa million terrestrial species have insufficient habitat for theirlong-term survival, and are committed to early extinction,
many within decades, unless their habitats are restored.49
Deforestation could cross critical thresholds of fragmentation and area loss that undermine forest ecological integrity and ultimately human well-being.50 Once the world iscommitted to warming greater than 2–3°C, most warm-water coral reefs will die, boreal forests will not reproduce, andice-dependent ecosystems (such as permafrost, glacier-fed
and seasonal coastal ice sheets) face collapse. Coral reefs
are already dying as a result of a warmer world, whereas it
will take many decades to see a significant reduction in thearea of boreal forests (although leading indicators such as
fire and diseases already show change), and centuries tomillennia to see a complete destruction of ice-dependent
ecosystems.51,52
Biodiversity and the benefits it provides are set to decline
further because of continued climate and land-use change.
Most scenarios project ongoing and often accelerating lossof biodiversity (see figure 3.3) and of many of the regulating
and cultural services it supports, largely due to projectedchanges in climate and continued changes in land use.53

3.3 The world is not on course to halt landdegradation
Ongoing changes in land use are inevitable due to evolving human needs and the effects of climate change,
but they need not, in aggregate, lead to further degradation of a finite but essential resource. To recognize
this point while still aiming to halt and then reverse landdegradation, the concept of “land degradation neutrality”
has been proposed by the UNCCD and is a target in SDG
15. It means that for every hectare newly degraded, a hectare of equal value somewhere else is restored from pastdegradation. 54
In 2020, less than a quarter of the global land surface
still functions in a nearly natural way, with its biodiversity
largely intact. This quarter is mostly located in dry, cold, or
mountainous areas, and thus far has a low human population and has undergone little transformation. It also includes
much of the terrestrial protected area network, currently covering 15 per cent of the land area. Of the remaining threequarters, a third (i.e. a quarter of the total land surface) has
been radically transformed from its natural state. The original ecosystem has been replaced by croplands, plantations,planted pastures, infrastructure such as roads, railways,
dams, canalized rivers, human settlements, industrial
developments, waste dumps or active or abandoned mining
lands. The rate of this transformation has accelerated since
the middle of the twentieth century. The other two thirds(i.e. half of the total global land area) retains some levelof natural processes and biodiversity but is strongly andincreasingly human-dominated. It includes the rangelandsof the world that are grazed mostly by domesticated livestock, the semi-natural forests from which wood and otherproducts are harvested, and the freshwater systems whereflows are altered by water use.55 Land degradation has
reduced productivity in more than 20 per cent of the global
terrestrial area.56,57 Wetlands are the most transformed anddegraded ecosystem type. They have lost about 85 per centof their area and much of their function.58
Although land degradation is ubiquitous, its large andpersistent impacts are only now being appreciated.
Degradation occurs everywhere in the world, to varying degrees and in many forms, all of which compromise humanwell-being (see figure 3.4). The economic impact is large,
and billions of lives are affected (see Section 4). However,land degradation has been present for so long, and in somany places, that it has often come to be thought of as thenatural state or is conceived as an inevitable consequenceof progress. The absence of an agreed global definition has

71

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

3.3. Projected loss of biodiversity between 2015 and 2050
Local species richness (N=3)

Regional species richness (N=4)

Biodiversity intactness (N=1)

0%

-4%

-8%

-12%
Fossil-fueled development
SSP5xRCP8.5

Regional rivalry
SSP3xRCP6.0

Sustainability
SSP1xRCP2.6

Model uncertainty(When more than one model available)

N = Number of models available (Values averaged)

Changebetween2015 and
2050

Figure 3.3: Projected loss of Biodiversity between 2015 and 2050 under three different emissions scenarios .
Source: Figure adapted from IPBES 2019b, GA, Figure 4.2.14

been an impediment to quantification of the issue (see box3.1), 59 but in the past decade there has been a convergenceon definitions that can be applied to all terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, based on a long-term reduction in thecapacity of the affected ecosystems to deliver benefits topeople, now and in the future. Some definitions also include
an accompanying reduction in the diversity, abundance, or
health of nature. Of particular concern is degradation where
ecological processes have been impaired to the point thatthe ecosystem is no longer able to recover – unaided, fully
and in a reasonable time – once the causes of degradation
have been alleviated.60
Box 3.1 Teasing apart land degradation and landtransformation
A useful distinction is between land transformationand land degradation.61 Transformation may be legal
or illegal, but it is usually intentional. The ecosystem
is deliberately altered for the purpose of increasing
the delivery of a particular benefit, or set of benefits
to a group of people, often at the expense of otherbenefits, and almost always with a loss of biodiversity.
For instance, a diverse, self-regenerating natural forest72

may be converted to a managed tree plantation, ora grassland into a cropland. In the developed world,transformation often occurred centuries ago, and isoften assumed to be the natural and desired state.
In the present time, active transformation is more
visible in the developing world, where it attracts muchattention, unfairly in the opinion of people living there,
since they are following a well-trodden development
path. Degradation, on the other hand, is the loss of
ecosystem function, in either transformed or natural lands, as a consequence of human actions. It is
usually unintentional. The loss of ecological function
leads to a reduced (or less reliable) flow of benefits
to people, frequently including even the benefits forwhich the ecosystem was being managed. Degradation, like transformation, is typically accompanied byloss of biodiversity. Degradation is widespread andongoing (even accelerating) in both the developed
and developing world.62 Rehabilitation aims to reverse
degradation, but not necessarily to reverse transformation. Restoration, which aims to return both function
and biodiversity to some previous state before transformation occurred, is harder to achieve and takes
much longer.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

3.4. Land degradation world mapsb) Soil erosion valuea) Human footprint value0
Remaining
Wilderness

1

Intact450Modiﬁedc) Human appropriation of net primary production

0%

0–4

4 – 1515 – 34

34 – 65

65 – 108 108 – 164 164 – 325d) Total abundance of species occurring in primary vegetation100%

no data< 65%

66 – 80%

80 – 83%

83 – 95%> 95%

Figure 3.4: Human activities have modified the land surface of the planet as shown through the human footprint value indicating the intactness of terrestrial
ecosystems (panel a) the soil erosion value (panel b), the human appropriation of net primary production (panel c) and the total abundance of originally occurring
species as a percentage of their total abundance in minimally disturbed primary vegetation, expressed as the Biodiversity Intactness Index (panel d).
Data sources: a) Brooke, et al. (2020), b) Borrelli et al. (2007), c) Newbold et al. (2016), d) Haberl et al. (2007)
Data compiled and plotted by Emily Zhang

Land degradation and transformation contributed arounda quarter of greenhouse gas emissions in the last decade.
Over half of these emissions derive from land transformation (particularly deforestation) and most of the remainderfrom the loss of soil carbon in cultivated land. Halting landtransformation and degradation could contribute 6.6 (range
2–11) GtCO2e per year to greenhouse gas emission reductions between 2020 and 2050, and land restoration-related
activities 63 could contribute a further 18.6 (range 1.8–35.5)
GtCO2e per year over the same period, while simultaneously
restoring ecological function and ecosystem services, andin some cases, biodiversity (see section 5).64,65,66
The issue of land degradation is recognized as a global
concern, but the approaches to addressing it have been
inadequate and fragmented. The UNCCD specifically addresses degradation in drylands. There is no single conven-tion to protect forests, but several treaties address aspectsof forest degradation, including the CBD, the UNFCCC, theInternational Tropical Timber Agreement and some of therules of the World Trade Organization. Wetlands of international importance are protected under the Ramsar Convention. Sustainable Development Goal 15 (Life on Land)
sets out to halt and reverse land degradation by 2030.
This builds on the concept of land degradation neutrality,
adopted by the UNCCD in 2015, also for achievement by
2030. These constitute the first comprehensive global
targets relating to land degradation. There have been other
implicit or explicit targets relating to particular aspects ofdegradation, such as combatting desertification, or soil
degradation, or wetland loss. Many countries have nationaltargets related to preventing or reversing land degradation,
but in aggregate they have not been sufficient to meetinternational goals.

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3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

Despite the agreed goal of halting land degradation, landdegradation is projected to increase in the twenty-first
century under all development scenarios (see Section 4).67
Under scenarios where slowing land transformation is not apriority, the fraction of land remaining in a near-natural stateis projected to be as little as 10 per cent by mid-century, while
degraded land will reach over 20 per cent. The pace of landdegradation depends strongly on the outcome of efforts tomitigate climate change (see Section 3.7). In particular, underscenarios where mitigation actions are weak and slow, degradation in arid lands and polar regions is projected to accelerate. Land-based climate mitigation actions can, if targeted
at rehabilitation of degraded lands, achieve both climate andland restoration objectives, but the availability and productive
potential of such lands is insufficient to supply more than asmall part of the net carbon uptake needed by mid-century. If
inappropriately applied, for instance by afforestation of lands
not previously forested, or by reforestation using monocultures of species not native to the area under restoration, theco-benefits to land restoration will not be achieved, and net
biodiversity harm could result.68

3.4 Air pollution is not sufficiently reduced to protect human well-being
Air pollution is the biggest environmental risk factor contributing to the global burden of disease.69,70 From a healthperspective, the most important air pollutants are ground-level ozone and particulate matter,71 both of which can also act
as short-lived climate forcers. An estimated 90 per cent of
the world’s population lives in an area where annual averageoutdoor concentrations of the pollutant PM2.5 (fine particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less)exceeds WHO air quality guidelines.72,73 Urban areas typically have high levels of pollution; of the 45 megacities withmeasurements in 2013, only four met the WHO guidelines forPM2.5.74 Projected increases in urbanization have the potential to negatively impact on local and regional air quality.
Nature contributes to the regulation of air quality but
can be degraded in the process.75 Nature improves air
quality through the retention and detoxification of pollutants, though these processes (such as acidic deposition)affect terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems negatively.76 Lossof biodiversity and ecosystem function, resulting from air
pollution and other drivers such as land degradation andclimate change, may compromise nature‘s contributions
to moderating air pollution.77,78,79 Ecosystems can also be
sources of pollutants, such as from biomass burning, dust,
biogenic volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen emissions, as well as ammonia and methane that contribute74

to secondary pollutants. These contribute interactively toambient air pollution and many act as short-lived climate
forcers. 80,81,82,83,84,85 Nature also helps prevent emissions of
air pollutants, for instance in the way that vegetation modulates dust emissions from soil. 86 Climate-related factors
interacting with land-use and land cover changes in many
dryland areas have over the last few decades resulted inincreased frequency and intensity of dust storms withnegative impacts on air quality and human health. 87 The
increased occurrence of wildfires as a result of climatechange will negatively impact air quality and thus represent a growing health risk. 88 Natural or human-induced
increases in the production and release of airborne allergens (pollen or fungal spores) and consequent upsurges inallergy-related respiratory ill health can make people more
susceptible to air pollution impacts. 89 Releases of hazardous chemicals from environmental reservoirs such as
soil, water and ice due to increasing temperatures are also
projected to increase exposures and vulnerabilities for bothpeople and ecosystems.90

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

While there is no global agreement on limiting air pollution, international targets, regional agreements andnational policies91,92,93 aim to decrease air pollution and its
negative impacts. The international targets with a bearing
on air pollution are SDGs 3.9, 7.1 and 11.6 and Aichi Biodiversity Target 8. The Montreal Protocol and the Paris
Agreement also impact air pollution; their implementation
will affect air quality, both directly through changes inemissions and atmospheric chemistry, and indirectly by
mitigating climate change and its subsequent impacts on
air quality.94,95 The United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe’s Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air
Pollution (CLRTAP) 96 is an example of a successful regional
agreement that has led to marked improvements in air quality. In Europe, the abatement of pollutant emissions under
CLRTAP has helped to increase average life expectancy by
12 months and decreased the exceedance of critical loads(i.e. the exposure ecosystems can sustain without being
degraded) for acidification by a factor of 30 and nitrogen bya factor of three.97
Progress on reducing air pollution is mixed, with air quality improving in high-income countries but continuing todegrade in low-income countries.98,99,100,101,102,103 Globally,
health impacts from exposure to ambient PM2.5 and ozone,
and household PM2.5 have decreased significantly (by about
25 per cent) between 2006 and 2016.104,105 However, thesetrends are highly variable from place to place.106,107,108,109,110
For example, North America and Europe have seen decreases of about 75 per cent in sulphur dioxide emissions(which contribute to ambient sulphur dioxide concentrations
and particulate matter pollution) since 1990, while increases have been seen elsewhere, including of 50 per cent in
Asia.111 The regional differences in progress towards targets
are striking and cause for concern. Quantifying these trends
in middle- and low-income countries is greatly hindered bylack of data. Large data gaps for quantifying and characterizing air pollution and its impacts can be addressed throughactions that expand the knowledge base as well as improvemonitoring and reporting; these include improving emission
inventories, increasing sampling coverage of a range ofpollutants and impacts, as well as improving availability andaccessibility of data and information.112,113
While air pollution levels are impacted by activities in many
sectors, action to decrease emissions in the energy sector
is critical to achieve air quality targets.114 Energy production
and use is the main source of anthropogenic emissions formany pollutants, accounting for 85 per cent of primary PM
emissions and almost all of the emissions of sulphur dioxide
and nitrogen oxides.115 Air quality related SDG targets will not

be fully met with current energy policies alone, but rather atransformation of the energy sector is needed.116,117 As air
quality has linkages across sectors, more holistic and integrated assessments are needed to develop policies and interventions that avoid potential unintended trade-offs. 118,119,120

3.5 Chemicals and waste are not always
managed safely
A wide range of hazardous human-produced chemicals
are accumulating in the biosphere, in the environment inwhich humans live, and in the human food chain, which
adversely affect ecosystems and human health. The production and use of chemicals are increasing (see figure 3.5).
Hazardous and toxic chemicals have adverse effects onterrestrial and aquatic life. Large quantities of human-manufactured chemicals continue to be released to the air, waterand soil. In many parts of the world, emissions and releasesof hazardous chemicals are increasing. Not only do theseemissions pose risks to human health and the environment,
they also represent lost opportunities to realize economic
benefits from repurposing the waste stream. Significant
progress has been made in reducing releases of some chemicals of concern, including ozone-depleting substances(see Section 3.6) and some persistent organic pollutants.
Global warming leads to the remobilization of some pollutants such as persistent organic pollutants due to melting
glaciers and thawing permafrost. Atmospheric long-range
transport of pollutants is responsible for their occurrence inremote areas. Supply chains involving trans- or inter-continental shipping of hazardous chemicals potentially increase
the risk of their accidental release into the environment.121
The Millennium Development Goals set in 2002 to minimize the adverse impacts of chemicals and waste by2020 will not be achieved. Solutions exist (see Section 5),
but more ambitious worldwide action by all stakeholders isurgently required. There has been good progress in addressing the legacy of persistent organic pollutants, such as thepesticide DDT, under the Stockholm Convention, where a
global monitoring programme has been in place for morethan 10 years. The levels and trends of selected persistentorganic pollutants in air and mother’s milk are monitoredaround the globe. On several continents there has been a
reduction in concentration of a range of persistent organic
pollutants of high concern, even in remote areas. The levelsof contaminants newly added to this convention, such as
brominated and fluorinated chemicals, have not yet showna decline. The results of the monitoring programme suggestthat targeted regulations, including those that predated theconvention in some regions, are working to reduce levels of75

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

3.5. Chemical Intensification 1955 – 2015

Proportional change relative to 1970

5
4
3
2
1
0
-1
1960

1970

1980

Use of Nitrogen
fertilizer (global)

1990
Use of pesticides(global)

2000

2010
Chemical industry output(emerging economies)

Figure 3.5: Examples of growth in the global use of chemicals and in the output of the chemical industry in emerging economies in the period 1955–2015
Source: Figure adapted from UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, Figure 4.4

persistent organic pollutants in the environment and in human populations. Effective regulatory actions at the global
level since the entry into force of the Convention in 2004,
particularly for listed persistent organic pollutants that are
still commercially available, are expected to lower environmental concentrations in the long term.122,123
Chemical-related multilateral agreements have improved
the management of the whole life cycle of chemicals.
Agreements including the Rotterdam, Stockholm and Basel
Conventions address the life cycle of chemicals, including
their sources, commerce (use), transport, and disposal. The
Minamata Convention on mercury covers the entire life cycleof mercury and mercury-added products. A multi-stakeholder voluntary agreement known as the Strategic Approach
to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) addresses
emerging policy issues and other concerns in global chemicals management such as: lead in paint; chemicals in products; hazardous substances within the life cycle of electricaland electronic products; nanotechnology and manufactured
nanomaterials; endocrine-disrupting chemicals; environmentally persistent pharmaceutical pollutants; perfluorinatedchemicals and the transition to safer alternatives; and highly
hazardous pesticides. Work to strengthen the science-policy
interface and prepare recommendations regarding the Strategic Approach and the sound management of chemicals andwaste beyond 2020 are still ongoing.124

76

3.6 Strong international coordinated action isrestoring Earth‘s protective ozone layer
Human-made chemicals have caused the depletion of theozone layer in the stratosphere, exposing people and otherorganisms to harmful ultraviolet radiation. The reduction in
the concentration of ozone in the stratosphere, first detectedin the late 1980s, is directly due to the release of humanmade chemical compounds including chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs) and bromine-containing halons. The impact of theseozone-depleting substances is manifest as an ozone “hole”
above Antarctica and a thinning of the ozone layer in the
Arctic and in mid-latitudes. This has increased the amountof ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth’s surface, which isharmful to both people and other organisms.
Concern about the threat to the ozone layer prompted
pioneering scientific research, assessments and international agreements to address a complex global environmental problem. Meetings of international experts beginningin 1979125 produced the first of a series of in-depth scientificassessments of ozone depletion.126 With the threat identified,
UNEP formed an expert working group to develop a framework to protect the ozone layer. The resulting Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer was adopted
by 21 countries in March 1985.127 This Convention called forParties to take measures to protect human health and theMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

3.6. Milestones in the History of Stratospheric Ozone Depletion

1985 – 1989
Laboratory, field and modellingstudies show chlorine and bromine
deplete polar stratospheric ozone

1989 1991 1994

2002

2006

2018

2013
Control of production
and consumption of
all ODS by all parties

1986 – 2008
Global consumption of
ODSs reduced by 98%

1987
Montreal Protocol on
Substances that Deplete
the Ozone Layer

2014

2016
Kigali Amendment

2007
HCFC accelerated phaseout(Montreal 2007 Adjustment)

1985
Vienna Convention
for the Protection of
the Ozone Layer

2010

2005
IPCC/TEAP Special Report on
Safeguarding the Ozone Layer
and the Global Climate System

1999 Beijing

1988
WMO Report of theInternational Ozone
Trends Panel

1990 – 1999
Montreal Protocol
Amendments

Montreal Protocol
Milestones

19981997 Montreal

1981
WMO The Stratosphere:
Theory and Measurements

1995 – 1996
Atmospheric ozone-depleting
substances (ODS) levels begin
to decline

UNEP/WMO Scientific Assessments of Ozone Depletion

1995 Vienna

International
Scientific Assessments

1985
WMO Atmospheric Ozone

1992 Copenhagen

1974
CFC ozone depletion
hypothesis

2014
Upper stratosphericozone begins to increase
as a result of the ODS
phaseout

1988
Mid-latitude ozone
depletion detected

1990 London

Scientific
Milestones

1985
Ozone hole reported
over Antarctica

2010
Global productionof CFCs andhalons end

2009
Montreal Protocol
universal ratification(196 parties)

Megatonnes CFC-11equivalent per year

1.5

1.0

Natural emissions

0.5

CFC-11-equivalent emissions
prior to the Montreal Protocol
1960

1970

1980

CFC-11-equivalent emissions
after the Montreal Protocol
1990

2000

2010

2020

Figure 3.6: Evolution of the interaction between science and policy in identifying the depletion of the life-protecting stratospheric ozone layer and the generation ofknowledge and actions needed to curb emissions of ozone-depleting substances. Emissions are presented in CFC-11 (trichlorofluoromethane) equivalents.
Source: figure adapted from Salawitch et al. (2019)77

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

environment from ozone depletion, but to also cooperateon scientific research and observations. The full scientificassessment report published in late 1985 was the first of its
kind, in the sense of being international, comprehensive, peerreviewed, and including a summary for policymakers.128 The
summary noted the first evidence of the Antarctic ozone hole,albeit without an understanding of its cause. Two years later,
the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone
Layer was adopted to control, at least partially, the production
and consumption of ozone-depleting substances. It established technical committees and mandated scientific assessments every four years, starting in 1990.129,130,131
Stratospheric ozone has begun to recover because of concerted international action. In the late 1980s, laboratory, field
and modelling studies established the cause of the Antarctic
ozone hole and mid-latitude ozone depletion. The scientificassessments since 1988 have provided the scientific foundation for strengthening the Montreal Protocol through a seriesof amendments and adjustments limiting the consumption
and production of ozone-depleting substances. The levels ofchlorine- and bromine-containing substances at the surface
peaked in about 1995 and most are now steadily decreasing.
It is now projected that the Antarctic ozone hole will disappear in the 2060s132 (see figure 3.6).
Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HFCs) used to replace someozone-depleting substances have been shown to be potent
greenhouse gases and subsequently controlled throughinternational action. CFCs, which were widely used as
refrigerants, propellants and solvents, have been replaced insome applications by hydrofluorcarbons (HFCs). The ozonedepleting CFCs were also potent greenhouse gases, hence
eliminating their emission into the atmosphere was greatly
beneficial for the climate system. While HFCs have a verysmall impact on ozone levels, they are also powerful greenhouse gases. Recognition of this unintended consequence
led to the 2016 Kigali Amendment controlling the production
and consumption of several HFCs.133 As a result, their projected climate impact in 2100 has been reduced from 0.3–0.5°C
to less than 0.05°C.134

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3.7 The different forms of environmental change areintertwined
Climate change, land-use change, land degradation, andair and water pollution act synergistically to cause pervasive, extensive and systemic damage to biodiversity andecosystem services on land and in the ocean135,136,137,138,139,140(figure 3.9). The abundance of wild organisms worldwide
in 2010, as measured by the mean species abundance, isestimated to have reduced by 34 per cent relative to pre-industrial levels, and projections driven by future land use andclimate change suggest losses of 38–46 per cent by 2050
(figure 3.9, pale pink and dark orange arrows).141 Many landand ocean ecosystems and some of the services they provide
have already changed due to global warming142,143 (figure3.8b).The projected terrestrial area where the ecosystem will
shift from one biome to another as a result of climate change
is 7–8 per cent for 1.5°C warming, 13 per cent (range 8–20
per cent) at 2°C warming, 28 per cent (range 20–38 per cent)at 3°C warming, and 35 per cent at 4°C warming144 (figure 3.9,
dark orange arrow). Climate change increases extinction risk,
with 20–30 per cent of plant and animal species assessed
globally at greater risk of extinction under 2°C warming,145,146
and progressively higher numbers are risk with greater
warming (figure 3.9, dark orange arrow). The global fractionof insects, vertebrates and plants for which more than half of
their current range would no longer be climatically suitableby 2100 is 4–8 per cent for 1.5°C warming, 8–18 per cent for
2°C, 26–49 per cent for 3.2°C and 44–67 per cent for 4.5°C(figure 3.7). Such extensive range losses would undermine
the provision of ecosystem services such as pollination at the
global scale (figure 3.9, magenta arrow; figure 1.1 (d)). Terrestrial species on all continents have already been observed tohave variously changed in abundance, seasonal activity or
geographic range in response to climate change. Risks posedby climate change to terrestrial ecosystems in general, which
include biome shifts, species range loss and phenologicalmismatches, are considered already moderate and are projected to transition to high even below 2°C of global warming
and to very high with 3°C.147 A summary of risks to uniqueand threatened systems including coral reefs and the Arctic
concludes that the risk level transitions globally from high tovery high at 1.5°C warming (figure 1.1 (a)).148 Climate change
and associated sea ice loss and biogeochemical changes
such as oxygen loss have caused poleward shifts in distributions of marine species since the 1950s of 52 km ± 33 km
per decade for epipelagic species and 29 ± 16 km per decadefor seafloor species, altering species composition, ecosystem function, abundance and biomass of systems from theequator to the poles, and reducing fisheries catches.149 A
decrease in the biomass of marine animal communities andMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

3.7. Species projected to lose over 50% of their climatically determined geographic range
80 %Insects

Birds

Mammals

Plants70 %Percentage change

60 %
50 %
40 %
30 %
20 %
10 %
0%

1.5

2.0

3.2

4.5
1.5
2.0
3.2
4.5
1.5
2.0
3.2
4.5
1.5
Temperature increase (in °C) compared to the period from 1850 to 1900

2.0

3.2

4.5

Range between min and max
Figure 3.7: Species projected to lose over 50 per cent of their climatically determined geographic range. The proportions of species in four broad groups oforganisms that are projected to lose over half of their climatically determined geographic range by 2100 under climate change scenarios in which global warming
reaches 1.5°C, 2°C, 3.2°C or 4.5°C above pre-industrial levels by that time. The models used to make these projections assume that species move at realistic rates
while attempting to track their geographically shifting climate envelope. The uncertainty range is the 10–90 per cent confidence interval across the various regional climate patterns explored. This study is based on the assessment of 19,848 insect species, 12,429 vertebrate species and 73,224 plant species.
Data source: IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.3

their production, and a shift in marine species composition
are also projected over the twenty-first century.150 The effort
required for humans to adapt to the effects of climate-driven
species redistribution on economic development, livelihoods,
food security, health and culture will be far-reaching and substantial (figure 3.9).151
Land-use change and unsustainable land use leading toland degradation contribute to climate change. The transformation and disturbance of natural ecosystems that has
occurred since 1750 has reduced global soil organic carbon
by 176 Gt. If current trends continue, human-caused emissions from soil and vegetation will roughly add another 80 Gt
of carbon to the atmosphere over the 2010–2050 period152(figure 3.9, light orange arrow). A fifth of vegetated areas
showed declines in productivity between 1998 and 2013 dueto poor land or water management practices.153 Such landuse change and land degradation deplete terrestrial carbon
stocks, accelerating climate change (figure 3.9, dark purple
arrow) and depleting biodiversity154 (light pink arrow).

Land-use change also affects the climate system throughaltered albedo, evaporation and plant transpiration. In
regions with seasonal snow cover, such as boreal regions
and some temperate regions, increased tree and shrub coverhas a wintertime warming influence due to an increase in thesolar radiation absorbed by the less reflective vegetation.155
This means that afforestation can locally induce warming inthese regions and thus counteract cooling associated withadded carbon uptake from trees. Land-use changes can also
induce local to regional cooling, for instance through increased evaporation of water and plant transpiration in regionswith irrigation,156 but the global effect is zero since the water
re-condenses in the atmosphere, emitting the energy it absorbed during evaporation.
Climate change and biodiversity loss jeopardize the healthand productivity of land. Loss of biodiversity and vegetation
cover accelerates soil erosion and land degradation (figure 3.9, dark pink arrow). Global warming has already led toshifts in climate zones in many parts of the world, including79

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

3.8. Impacts and Risks to Humans and Ecosystems from Climate Changea) Risks to humans and ecosystems from changes in land-based processes as a result of climate change
Changes in these processes drive risks to food systems,
livelihoods, infrastructure, the value of land, and human andecosystem health. Changes in one process (e.g. wildﬁre orwater scarcity) may result in compound risks. Risks arelocation-speciﬁc and differ by region.

GMST change relative tolevels in pre-industrial time (°C)

Increases in global mean surface temperature (GMST), relative
to pre-industrial levels, affect processes involved indesertiﬁcation (water scarcity), land degradation (soil erosion,vegetation loss, wildﬁre, permafrost thaw) and food security(crop yield and food supply instabilities).
5°

L

4°

1.5°C

3°

M

2°

M

1°

M

M
M

L
M

M

M
M

H

H

H

H

H

Permafrost
degradation

Tropical crop
yield decline

2006 – 2015
Drylandwater scarcity

Soilerosion

Vegetationloss

Wildﬁredamage

M

H

M
M
H

Food supply
instabilities

Systems at risk:
Food
Livelihoods
Value of land
Human health
Ecosystem health
Infrastructure

GMST change relative tolevels in pre-industrial time (°C)

Indicative example of transitions
5°
4°
3°
2°
1°

Over 100 million
people additionally
exposedOver 50%
increase inarea burned inMediterranean
regionM

Increase inﬁre weather
seasonM
H

WildﬁredamageIndicative example of transitions
Periodic foodshocks acrossregions
Infrequent
price spikes
affectindividual
countries

Sustained
food supply
disruptions
globally
M
M
H

Food supply
instabilities

Figure 3.8: Assessment of projected risks to (a) land-related human systems and ecosystems arising from the combination of global climate change, socioeconomic development and mitigation choices in terrestrial ecosystems (b) coastal and open ocean based on observed and projected climate impacts on ecosystem
structure, functioning and biodiversity. Impacts and risks are shown in relation to changes in global mean surface temperature relative to pre-industrial level. The
literature was used to make expert judgements to assess the levels of global warming at which levels of risk are undetectable, moderate, high or very high. As partof the assessment, literature was compiled and data extracted into a summary table. A formal expert elicitation protocol (based on modified-Delphi techniqueand the Sheffield Elicitation Framework), was followed to identify risk transition thresholds in panel, including a multi-round elicitation process with two rounds of
independent anonymous threshold judgement, and a final consensus discussion.
Panel (a) indicates risks to selected elements of the land system as a function of global mean surface temperature. Links to broader systems are illustrative andnot intended to be comprehensive. Risk levels are estimated assuming medium exposure and vulnerability driven by moderate trends in socioeconomic conditions
broadly consistent with an SSP2 pathway.

80Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

3.8. Burning Embers

4°
5°
3°

4°
3°
1.5°C

2°

2°
1°

1°
present
0°day

Warm water Kelp
forests
coralsSeagrass Epipelagic*
meadows

RockyshoresSalt
Cold water Estuaries
marshescoralsSandybeaches

Mangroveforests

Level of added impacts/risks
Very highPurple: Very high probability of severe impacts/risks and the presence of signiﬁcant irreversibility or thepersistence of climate-related hazards, combined with limited ability to adapt due to the nature of the hazard
or impacts/risks.

High

Red: Signiﬁcant and widespread impacts/risks.

Moderate

Yellow: Impacts/risks are detectable and attributable to climate change with at least medium conﬁdence.

Undetectable

White: Impacts/risks are undetectable.

0°AbyssalplainsGlobal mean sea surface temperature (SST)change relative to pre-industrial levels (°C)

Global mean surface temperature (GMST)
change relative to pre-industrial levels (°C)b) Impacts and risks to ocean ecosystems from climate change

Very highHigh
MediumLow
Transition range* see ﬁgure caption
for deﬁnition

Figure 3.8 (continued): Panel (b) indicates assessed risks at approximate warming levels and increasing climate-related hazards in the ocean: ocean warming,
acidification, deoxygenation, increased density stratification, changes in carbon fluxes, sea level rise, and increased frequency and/or intensity of extreme events.
The assessment considers the natural adaptive capacity of the ecosystems, their exposure and vulnerability. Impact and risk levels do not consider risk reduction
strategies such as human interventions, or future changes in non-climatic drivers. Risks for ecosystems were assessed by considering biological, biogeochemical, geomorphological and physical aspects. Higher risks associated with compound effects of climate hazards include habitat and biodiversity loss, changes in
species composition and distribution ranges, and impacts/risks for ecosystem structure and functioning, including changes in animal/plant biomass and density,
productivity, carbon fluxes and sediment transport. Since assessments of risks and impacts in panel (b) are based on global mean sea surface temperature, thecorresponding sea surface temperature levels are shown.
Sources: Figure adapted from IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure SPM.2 and IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, Figure SPM.3

expansion of arid zones and contraction of polar zones.157
In Sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Central and East Asia, andAustralia, warming and reduced precipitation have contributed to desertification (figure 3.9, light purple arrow).158 Lossof glacier mass and snow cover is higher with greater global
warming.159 Widespread near-surface permafrost thaw is
projected to occur during the twenty-first century, with lossesof 69 +20 per cent by 2100 in the absence of climate change
mitigation, reducing to 24+16 per cent for high-mitigation
scenarios. A regional-scale threshold between 1.5°C and 2°C
of warming has been identified in the Mediterranean above
which biome shifts unprecedented in the last 10,000 years
and associated with extreme drought are projected. In Southern Africa, much greater water stress and increased drought
are anticipated for warming above 1.5–2°C. 160,161 Globally,risks from water scarcity, wildfire damage and permafrost
degradation are projected to be already high at 1.5°C; for warming of 3°C, risks arising from water scarcity, wildfire damage
and vegetation loss become very high (figure 3.8a).

Climate change risks to food security are expected to
become increasingly severe with increased global warming.
The risk is expected to become high between 1.2°C and3.5°C of warming depending on socioeconomic development
pathways, and very high risks could be incurred with only
2°C warming in some pathways.162 At 3–4°C warming, very
high risks of declines in low-latitude crop yields are expected whilst 4°C warming is considered catastrophic for foodsupply stability and access.163 Rising carbon dioxide concentrations are projected to reduce the protein and micronutrient
content of major cereal crops, which is expected to further
reduce food and nutritional security.164
Climate change, biodiversity loss and water pollution affectoceanic and coastal ecosystems. Without action to limit
global warming, marine heatwaves, coupled with ocean acidification and loss of oxygen, will result in the crossing of criticalthresholds in the ocean and in coastal systems, beyond whichecosystem functioning will be impaired (figure 3.7). Marine81

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

3.9. The interactions between climate change, land use and biodiversity

Greenhouse gas emissions,increased drought,
loss of carbon
sinks

Land
Degradation &Deforestation

Biome shifts,
regional desertification,
increased drought, fire,regional water stress
Loss ofecosystemfunctioning

ReducedHuman
Wellbeing

ClimateChangeHabitat loss,
extinction
risks
Reduced terrestrial
carbon stocks, lossof carbon sinks

Species range loss,
extinction risks, ocean
acidification, phenologicalmismatch

Biodiversity
Loss

Figure 3.9: The interactions between climate change, land use and biodiversity.

heatwaves have already resulted in large-scale coral bleaching
events at increasing frequency, causing worldwide reef degradation. Recovery is slow (more than 15 years), if it occurs at
all.165 There are many potential limits to adaptation in marine
ecosystems,166 and these limits are projected to be exceeded
well before the end of the century in many coral reef environments, urban atoll islands and low-lying Arctic locations.
Marine heatwaves are projected to become 50 times more
frequent and 10 times more intense in the absence of strenuous climate change mitigation.167 Ocean acidification, which
inevitably results from increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide
concentrations, amplifies the adverse effects of warming,
impacting the growth, development, calcification, survival andabundance of a broad range of species, from algae to fish.168
Warm-water coral reefs are projected to decline by 70–90
per cent at 1.5°C warming and by more than 99 per centat 2°C,169,170 compromising food provision, tourism, coastal

82

protection and the diversity of coral reef-associated species(figure 3.8b). Cold-water coral reefs, similarly highly biodiverse,
are also projected to be harmed. Unless efforts to mitigate
climate change are successful, by the end of the century thebiomass of marine animals is projected to decline by 10–20
per cent and the maximum potential catch of fisheries by
20.5–24.1 per cent relative to 1986–2005.171 In the Arctic, thechances of the sea being ice-free in September by the end of
the century rise from about 1 per cent each year for stabilized
global warming of 1.5°C, to 10–35 per cent for a stabilized
2°C increase.172 A sea ice-free Arctic Ocean would disrupt thefunctioning of the Arctic ecosystem.
Coastal ecosystems face high to very high risks unlessclimate change is halted. The risk of irreversible loss ofmany already declining coastal ecosystems, such as seagrass meadows and kelp forests, increases with further global

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

warming (figure 3.8b). Increased salinization and hypoxia inestuaries contribute to their decline.173 Global mean sea levelis rising, with acceleration in recent decades due to increasing rates of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice
sheets174 as well as continued glacier mass loss and ocean
thermal expansion, and is accompanied by increased wave
heights in the Atlantic Ocean.175 Irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet and instability in the West Antarctic ice sheet
may occur between 1.5°C and 2°C.176 A high risk of potential
collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet is considered to exist
for 2.5°C warming ( figure 1.1 (e)). Depending on the amountof sea level rise, 20–90 per cent of current coastal wetlands
are projected to be lost by the end of the century, including
mangrove forests and salt marshes (figure 3.8b).177 Local
sea levels that historically occurred once per century are
projected to become at least annual events at most locations
during the twenty-first century.178 Extreme sea levels andcoastal hazards will be exacerbated by projected increases intropical cyclone winds and associated heavy rainfall.179
Reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases typicallyalso reduces air pollution. The greenhouse gases and aerosols responsible for anthropogenic climate change are insome cases also air pollutants, and even when they are notthemselves toxic at ambient levels, they are often associated with chemicals that are. For instance, carbon dioxide
is not poisonous at current elevated levels, but reducing
carbon dioxide emissions from industrial processes typically reduces the emissions of gases that cause human andecosystem health problems, including tropospheric ozone
precursors. Similarly, methane is not toxic at normal levels,
but combines with oxides of nitrogen emitted from industry
and vehicles to form tropospheric ozone, which as a result
frequently exceeds damage-causing levels. Particulatematter affects both the Earth’s radiation balance and humanhealth (see Section 3.4).

residues in soils and sediments are examples. On the other
hand, plastic and other chemicals can reduce food waste
through spoilage, and pesticides reduce the loss of crops
before and after harvest.180
Most human-created substances implicated in stratospheric ozone depletion are also greenhouse gases, as aresome of the substances that replace them. While the stateof stratospheric ozone is improving as a result of concerted
international efforts to reduce the production and emission of ozone-depleting chemicals, a degree of depletionof this life-protecting layer will persist well into the middleof the twenty-first century (Section 3.6). This reduction inemissions also reduces the contributions of these gases toclimate change.181
The multiple interactions between environmental problems
mean that uncoordinated single-issue solutions are inefficient and likely to fail. An integrated approach that addresses the underlying root causes of interlinked environmental
problems and pays attention to unintended consequences ofactions is both more cost-effective and more likely to be successful than treating the issues as if they were independentof one another. It further allows synergies to be identified andexploited, while steering away from the worst trade-offs.

Water pollution is a leading cause of the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in freshwater and coastal aquatic systems (figure 3.1). Key water pollutants include excess
nutrients, salts and sediments resulting from agriculture, human settlements and land degradation. Water pollution andair pollution are often linked, since diversion of waste fromone pathway can simply displace it into another pathway. For
instance, excess nitrogen in water is often removed by anaerobic denitrification, which results in emissions of nitrous
oxide. The solution is to reduce nitrogen waste overall.
Plastics and chemical waste entering the biosphere contributes to both biodiversity loss and to land degradation.
The accumulation of plastics in the oceans and pesticide83

3. Society is failing to meet most of its commitments to limit environmental damage

1

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1.2.1;

45

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Figure SPM.62

WMO 2020

46

CBD 2020a, GBO-5 SPM

3IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1.2.1, 1.2.2, Figures 1.1 and 1.3, 3.3.1, 3.3.2

47

CBD 2020a, GBO-5 SPM

4IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2.2.5

48

CBD, 2020b, GBO-5, Part II

5

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.3.4

49

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A6

6

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 3.2.1; 3.4.1

50

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 1.1

7

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.3.2

51

IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, B3

8

IPCC 2012, SREX, 3.1

52

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 4, 5

9IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.2.6

53

IPBES 2019b, GA, 4.ES.7, 4.4.2

10

IPCC 2014c, AR5 SYR, 1.2.1

54

UNCCD 2017b

11

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, TS.3

55

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 5.5.2

12IPCC 2019d, SROCC, Cross-Chapter Box 8

56

IPBES 2018b, LDRA SPM Background 3

13

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, Table 6.1

57

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A1

14

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.2

58

RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands 2018, Global Wetland Outlook, 2

15

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 1.12.3.1-3

59

PBES 2018a, LDRA, 2.2.1

16

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 3.4.1

60

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.2

17

UNFCCC 1992

61

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 1.1

18

UN 1997, Kyoto Protocol

62

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 2

19

UN 2015, The Paris Agreement

63

Excluding biomass energy with carbon capture and storage

20

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, Cross-Chapter Box 2

64

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, Figure TS.5

21

At the Climate Ambition Summit 12 December 2020 45 countries

65

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 4

pledged significant emissions reductions by 2030, and 24 countries

66

IPBES 2018b, LDRA SPM, 24

committed to be net zero by the middle of the century. (see https://news.

67

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 7.2

un.org/en/story/2020/12/1079862)

68

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 3.5

22

UNEP 2020a, EGR ES, 6

69

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.4.1

23

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, TS.2

70

GBD 2016, Risk Factors Collaborators
UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.4.1

24

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 2.1

71

25

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.6.1, 3.6.2

72

HEI 2019

26

Work is ongoing in preparation for the 6th assessment report of the73

Shaddick et al., 2020

Working Group 1 of IPCC, expected to be released in 2021

74

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.3.1

27

UNEP 2020, EGR, ES 2

75

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3., 3.3.2

28

IPBES 2019b, GA, 1.1

76

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3

29

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 2.7.3

77

PBES 2018c, Africa Regional Assessment, 4.2.2.6.3

30

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4

78

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3

31

IPCC 2014d, AR5 WGII SPM, A3, B1

79

IPBES 2018d, Americas Regional Assessment, 4.4.2

32

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A5

80

IPBES 2018c, Africa Regional Assessment, 4.2.2

33

IPBES2018a, LDRA, KM, B5

81

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 4.2.4

34

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1.2.3

82

IPBES 2018d, Americas Regional Assessment, 4.4.2

35

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.3

83

IPBES 2018e, Europe and Central Asia Regional Assessment, 2.2.1.3

36

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.3.4

84

IPBES 2018f, Asia and the Pacific Regional Assessment, 2.3

37

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A5

85

Jia et al., 201938

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.2.6

86

IPBES 2019a, GA, 2.3
IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.2.4.

39

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A4

87

40

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 5

88

IPCC 2013, AR5 WGI, 11

41

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B10

89

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 11.5.3.3

42

IPBES 2019b, GA, 4.5.5

90

UNEP, AMAP 2011, 2.2, 3.2

43Convention on Biological Diversity, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of91

Yamineva and Romppanen 2017

International Importance, Convention on Migratory Species, International

92

Global Atmospheric Pollution Forum 2011

Plant Protection Convention, World Heritage Convention and Convention

93

Lode et al., 2016

on International Trade in Endangered Species

94

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 2

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, C1

95

Malabed, J., Velasquez, J., Shende, R. 2002

44

84

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

96

1979 Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution

146 IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 3

97

UNECE 2016

147 IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, A3.1

98

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.5

148 IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, B5.7

99

GSDR 2019

149 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A5.1

100 CBD 2014, GBO-4, Figure 21.2

150 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B5

101 IPBES 2018f, Asia and the Pacific Regional Assessment

151 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.3

102 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5

152 UNCCD 2017, GLO, 6

103 Sachs et al., 2020

153 UNCCD 2017, GLO, ES

104 GBD 2016, Risk Factors Collaborators

154 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 4105 Shaddick et al., 2020

155 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2.5.2

106 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.2

156 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2.5.1

107 UNEP 2019c, GCO II

157 IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A2.5

108 WHO 2016a

158 IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A2.5

109 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3

159 IPCC 2019d, SRROC, 3.3-4

110 IPBES 2018d, Americas Regional Assessment

160 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, Table 3.8

111 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.3.1

161 IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A5.1

112 WHO 2016b

162 IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure 4.1B

113 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 3.4.2

163 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.2.2

114 Rafaj et al., 2018

164 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, Cross-Chapter Box 6

115 IEA 2016

165 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A6.4

116 Rafaj et al., 2018

166 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, C1.3

117 IEA 2016

167 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B2.5

118 UNEP, WMO 2011

168 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.3.10, 3.4.4

119 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 4.2.1

169 IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, B4.2

120 UNEP, CCAC 2016

170 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B6.4

121 UNEP 2019c, GCO II, I.5.1.1

171 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B5.1

122 UNEP 2019a, GEO 6, 4.3.3

172 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B1.7

123 UNEP 2019c, GCO II, I.6.2.1

173 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B4.2, B6.1, B6.3

124 UNEP 2019c, GCO II, II.3.1

174 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A.3

125 UNEP, 1979

175 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A3.5

126 WMO, 1981

176 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.5.2.5

127 The Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer 1985

177 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B6.2

128 WMO, UNEP 1985

178 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B6.2

129 WMO 1989

179 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B3

130 WMO 1988

180 IPBES 2018b, GA SPM, B3

131 WMO, NOAA, FAA 1991

181 WMO 2018, Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion, ES

132 WMO 2018
133 Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete
the Ozone Layer, 2016.
134 WMO 2018, ES, Figure 4
135 UNEP 2019b, GEO-6 SPM
136 IPBES 2018b, LDRA SPM, A4
137 IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, B.1-4
138 IPCC 2014a, AR5 SYR SPM, 1.3
139 IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.2
140 IPCC 2019a, SRROC SPM, A.7
141 UNCCD 2017, GLO, 6
142 IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, A3.1
143 IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 5.4
144 IPCC 2018a, SR 1.5, 3
145 IPCC 2014c, AR5 SYR, 2.3.1

85

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

4
The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals
is threatened by environmental risks

Where Section 2 showed people’s dependence on the natural
world and their role in shaping it, Section 3 concluded that,
under current trends, internationally agreed environmental
goals are unlikely to be achieved. People are changing theclimate system, polluting air and water and using more land
and marine resources than ever before. Life on Earth is
rapidly eroding and nearly all of nature‘s regulating functions
are in decline. This section discusses how environmental
degradation, including climate change, loss of biodiversity
and ecosystem services and pollution of air, land and water,
undermines progress towards achieving the economic andsocial objectives of the SDGs. It explores risks to poverty
and economic development (SDG 1 and SDG 8), to food andwater security (SDG 2 and SDG 6), to human health (SDG
3), to reducing inequality (SDG 5 and SDG 10), to promoting
peaceful and inclusive societies (SDG 16) and to cities andcommunities (SDG 11). Figure 4.1 provides an overview of
selected environmental changes, as discussed in Section 3,
and selected impacts on the SDGs, as discussed below.
Ongoing and projected environmental degradation undermines progress towards the SDGs. In many countries in the
Global South, poverty levels and thereby people’s vulnerability to environmental degradation remain high (see Sections
2.3.1 and 4.1). Most scenarios project clear improvement
over time in areas including reducing hunger (SDG 2), increasing access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation(SDG 6) and increasing access to modern energy services(SDG 7), though not enough to meet the related SDG targets
by 2030.1 Trends in environmental degradation will makereaching these and other goals even more challenging (seefigure 4.1).2,3 Poor and vulnerable communities are most at
risk from environmental threats and future generations will
be more affected than the current. Poverty is increasingly
concentrated in rural dryland areas of South Asia and SubSaharan Africa.4 Socioeconomic developments, such as in
population, trade, consumption and inequality, determine
the vulnerability and exposure of people and thus related impacts on their well-being. For instance, a scenario with low
population growth, reduced inequalities, land-use regulation,

low meat consumption, increased trade and few barriers toadaptation or mitigation (SSP1) shows much lower climate-related risks of, for example, water scarcity, flooding andfood security than scenarios with opposite characteristics(SSP3), given the same level of global mean temperature
increase (see figure 4.2).5,6
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted human well-being,
disrupted implementation towards many of the SDGs and,in some cases, turned back decades of progress.7 In 2020,
global per capita GDP is expected to decline by 4.2 per cent
(SDG 8), pushing an estimated 71 million more people into
extreme poverty (SDG 1) and resulting in hundreds of thousands of additional under-5 deaths (SDG 3). The disruption
caused by the pandemic is also a threat to food security,with the World Food Programme estimating an almost doubling of the number of people facing acute food insecurity in2020 compared to 2019 (SDG 2) (see Section 2.3.1).8 Due tolockdowns, school closures have kept 90 per cent of all students out of school for some period of time (SDG 4) and, insome countries, cases of domestic violence have increasedby 30 per cent (SDG 5). Poor and disadvantaged people havebeen affected most (SDG 10), while all these impacts canfurther threaten global peace and security (SDG 16).

4.1 Environmental decline impedes progresson economic development and ending poverty(SDGs 1 and 8)
While economic poverty has decreased (SDG 1.1), multidimensional poverty remains high (SDG 1.2). Absolute
poverty, as indicated by the number of people living on lessthan US$1.90 per day, fell from 1.85 billion in 1990 to 736
million in 2015.9 Recent estimates indicate that nearly 700
million people lived in extreme poverty in 2017, but that the
COVID-19 pandemic may push at least another 70 million
into extreme poverty. Around 1.3 billion people are still pooraccording to the Multidimensional Poverty Index, which
captures deprivations in education, health and nutrition, access to services, and security, in addition to income poverty

87

Environmental degradation threatens the achievement of the SDGs
Impeding poverty elimination,
inequity reduction, economic
development and peace
Exacerbated multidimensional poverty
Accentuated inequality,
including gender inequality
Lost income opportunities
Increased risk of conflictover resources
Increased risk of displacement and outmigration

Hampering efforts tomake cities and communities sustainable
Increased vulnerability
to natural disasters
Stresses on urban
infrastructure
Rising air and waterpollution
Rising waste disposal
problems

Changing climate
Highertemperatures
More extreme
weather events,
e.g. flooding,droughts, storm
surges andheatwaves
Rising sea level
Changing
precipitation
patterns
Ocean
acidification

Threatening human health
Increased undernutrition,
heat stress and air
pollution-related diseases
Exacerbated food- andwater-borne infections andzoonotic diseases
Reduced ability of nature
to provide medicines andsupport physical andmental well-being

Weakening food andwater security
Increased foodsystem vulnerability
Reduced agricultural
productivity
Reduced nutritional
value of crops
Lower catch in fisheries
Increased water
scarcity

Biodiversity loss
and ecosystemdegradation
Loss of species
richness and accelerated species
extinction
Loss of genetic
resources in domestic and wild
species
Loss of ecosystem
functions, such aspollination, seeddispersal, soil formation and biological productivity

Figure 4.1: Selected environmental changes and related impacts on efforts to achieve the SDGs. The clustering of SDGs provides an integrated perspective withthe environment as the foundation for economic and social development and, ultimately, human well-being. As a result, unsustainable resource use, waste andpollution impact adversely both the natural resource base and human well-being.
Source: Figure adapted from UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, Figure 20.1

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

4.2. Different socioeconomic pathways affect levels of climate related risks

GMST change relative to levels
in pre-industrial time (°C)

Desertification(water scarcity in drylands)

Land degradation(habitat degr., wildlife, floods)

Food insecurity(availability, access)

3°

1.5°C

M

2°

M

L

M

M

M

M

M
1°

H

H

H

H

M

2006 - 2015

M

0°
SSP1

SSP3

SSP1

SSP3

SSP1

SSP3

Level of impacts/risks

Confidence level for transition

Very highPurple: Very high probability of severe impacts/ risks and the presence ofsignificant irreversibility or the persistence of climate-related hazards, combinedwith limited ability to adapt due to the nature of the hazard or impacts/risks.

High

Red: Signiﬁcant and widespread impacts/risks.

Moderate

Yellow: Impacts/risks are detectable and attributable to climate change with atleast medium conﬁdence.

Undetectable

White: Impacts/risks are undetectable.

Risks
Impacts

Socio economic choices can
reduce or exacerbate climate
related risks as well as influence
the rate of temperature increase.
The SSP1 pathway illustrates aworld with low population growth,high income and reduced
inequalities, food produced in low
GHG emission systems, effective
land use regulation and highadaptive capacity. The SSP3
pathway has the opposite trends.
Risks are lower in SSP1 comparedwith SSP3 given the same level of
GMST increase.

H= HighM= MediumL= Low

Figure 4.2: As Figure 3.8, but for risks associated with desertification, land degradation and food security due to climate change and patterns of socioeconomic development. Increasing risks associated with desertification include population exposed and vulnerable to water scarcity in drylands. Risks related to landdegradation include increased habitat degradation, population exposed to wildfire and floods and costs of floods. Risks to food security include availability andaccess to food, including population at risk of hunger, food price increases and increases in disability adjusted life years attributable due to childhood underweight.
Risks are assessed for two contrasted socioeconomic pathways (SSP1 and SSP3) Risks are not indicated beyond 3°C because SSP1 does not exceed this level oftemperature change.
Source: Adapted from IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure SPM.2(see Section 2.3.1). What is critical is not merely absolute
poverty but also relative poverty, especially as income
disparities have been increasing worldwide.
Climate change and ecosystem degradation makes poverty reduction more difficult. Climate change impacts are
expected to exacerbate poverty in most developing countries and create new pockets of poverty through increasing
inequality in both developed and developing countries.10 Key
risks include deteriorating livelihoods, destruction and deterioration of assets, shifts from transient to chronic poverty,
declining work productivity, declining agricultural yields andreduced access to water. Ecosystem degradation, including
land degradation, negatively impacts people’s vulnerability
to extreme events, access to resources and small-scale
food production and agricultural sustainability, with negative
impacts on both the urban and rural poor who are directly
reliant on environmental resources.11 Without rapid andinclusive progress on eradicating multidimensional poverty,
climate change can increase the number of the people living
in poverty by between 35 million and 122 million people by2030.12 Limiting global warming to 1.5°C, compared with
2°C, could reduce the number of people exposed to climate-related risks and susceptible to poverty by up to several
hundred million by 2050.13
Environmental changes are increasingly impacting economic development and employment (SDG 8). Changes intemperature and precipitation patterns, along with changes
in extreme events such as heatwaves, heavy precipitationin several regions and droughts in some regions (Section3.1), are already having an impact on human systems.14 Key
economic sectors being affected include tourism, energy
systems and transportation.15 In 2018 alone, damages fromnatural disasters, the vast majority of which were climaterelated (including droughts, fires, storms and floods), were89

4. The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is threatened by environmental risks

estimated at US$155 billion.16 Safe work activity and worker
productivity during the hottest months of the year will be
increasingly compromised with higher ambient temperaturesand climate change.17 Land degradation has already reduced
productivity in 23 per cent of the global terrestrial area,18 witheconomic losses as large as 5 per cent of total GDP being
observed.19 Over the past 50 years, the potential of nature tocontribute to human well-being has declined in 14 of 18 major
categories of contributions that were recently assessed.20
These changes have decreased the flow of regulating andnon-material benefits to people, resulting in a significant lossof non-market values. For example, loss of pollinators puts
between US$235 billion and US$577 billion in annual global
crop output at risk.21

mitigation action increase the risk of escalating costs, lock-inof carbon-emitting infrastructure, stranded assets and reduced flexibility in future options for reducing emissions.30 The
loss of benefits that people get from nature are also costly.
Some benefits, such as wild pollination, are irreplaceable, while for others substitution can be extremely expensive, suchas the replacement of coastal mangroves with built flood protection infrastructure.31 The diversity of nature also maintains
humanity’s ability to choose between alternative development
options in the face of an uncertain future.

The costs of inaction on limiting environmental change far
outweigh the costs of action. Though estimates of futuredamages to the economy from climate change are uncertainand exclude important categories of damages (e.g. loss of public goods and global commons) 22 global aggregate impacts
are estimated to reach high levels with 2.5–3°C of warming(see figure 1.2).23,24 By the end of the century, inaction on
climate change could lead to a 15–25 per cent reduction in
per capita output for 2.5–3°C of global warming, relative to aworld that did not warm beyond 2000–2010 levels.25 Estimates of economic damages associated with 2°C of warming
reach US$69 trillion, 26 while an estimated US$15–38.5 trillion
in economic damage could be avoided by limiting warming to
1.5°C.27 The global health savings from reduced air pollution
could be more than double the costs of implementing theParis Agreement between 2020 and 2050.28 Estimates of thecosts of reducing emissions, though substantial, are far lessthan the estimates of damages. Cost estimates for limiting
warming to less than 2°C are 2–6 per cent of global GDP in
2050, and 3–11 per cent in 2100.29 Further delays in climate

Though food security has been improving, environmental
changes and shocks threaten further progress in ending
global hunger (SDG 2). After a period of reductions in thenumber of people affected by hunger, the world is now facing
an alarming situation. In 2019, nearly 700 million people were
estimated to be hungry (undernourished), up nearly 60 million
in five years. This upward trend is partly due to increasing
frequency of extreme weather events, altered environmental
conditions and the associated spread of pests and diseases
over the last 15 years. Such factors contribute to vicious
circles of poverty and hunger, particularly when exacerbatedby fragile institutions, conflicts, violence and the widespread
displacement of populations. The economic impact of the
COVID-19 pandemic may add more than 80 million people
to the total number of undernourished in the world in 2020.
If recent trends continue, the number of people affected byhunger will surpass 840 million by 2030, which is far fromthe goal of ending hunger by 2030.32 Current low levels of
biodiversity (species and genetic variability) in agricultural
systems increase their vulnerability to stresses and shocks(SDG 2.5), and biodiversity loss, land degradation and climatechange jeopardize land productivity, potentially altering thesuitability of vast areas for agricultural production and humanhabitation.33

4.2 The Earth‘s capacity to supply food and water
weakens in the face of environmental decline(SDGs 2 and 6)

Billions of people face the challenges of inadequate accessto drinking water and sanitation, increasing water pollution and water scarcity (SDG 6). In 2017, around 2.2 billion
people did not have access to safely managed drinking water(SDG 6.1) and more than 4 billion people did not have accessto safely managed sanitation (SDG 6.2). Together, these
deprivations were responsible for approximately 8 per cent of
all deaths among children under 5. Water pollution (SDG 6.3)
has continued to worsen over the last two decades, causing
increased threats to freshwater ecosystems, human healthand sustainable development.34 Furthermore, more than90

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

2 billion people globally live in river basins suffering water
stress, where total withdrawals exceed 40 per cent of therenewable freshwater available (SDG 6.4). In some countries
in Africa and Asia, the proportion withdrawn extends beyond
70 per cent.35 Irrigation is the primary human use of freshwater resources, and around 71 per cent of the world’s irrigatedarea and 47 per cent of major cities currently experience atleast periodic water shortages.36 In addition, many vulnerable
and poor people are dependent on activities such as rainfed
agriculture that are highly susceptible to variability in precipitation patterns.37,38
Environmental change poses multiple, interacting and mutually reinforcing risks to agricultural productivity and foodsecurity (SDG 2). Climate change is affecting crop yields.
Yield decreases are already occurring in the tropics and are
expected to continue.39,40 Climate change also reduces thenutritional quality, availability and diversity of crops as wellas undermining key ecosystem services that underpin foodproduction.41 Soil erosion from agricultural fields is estimatedto be 10 to 20 times higher (under no-till systems) to morethan 100 times higher (with conventional tillage) than the soil
formation rate.42 An estimated 176 Gt of soil organic carbon
has been lost historically, mostly from land-use change, andanother 27 Gt of soil organic carbon is projected to be lost
between 2010 and 2050, affecting agricultural yields throughreduced water-holding capacity and loss of nutrients.43 As
the remaining natural land suitable for agriculture is limited,
future expansion is projected to take place on more marginallands with lower yields.44 Biodiversity loss and declines inregulating ecosystem services pose risks to food production
through impacts on pollination services, resistance to more
frequently applied pesticides and herbicides in insects andplants, and soil nutrient losses.45 Animal pollination is criticalto more than 75 per cent of global food crop types, including
fruits and vegetables and some of the most important cash
crops, such as coffee, cocoa and almonds.46 Ground-levelozone is a strong oxidant that can enter plants through theleaves, affecting photosynthesis and other physiological
functions, and thereby affecting forest productivity andagricultural yields.47 Climate change risks to food security are
expected to become high between 1.2°C and 3.5°C of warming depending on socioeconomic development pathways,
and very high risks could be incurred with only 2°C warming
in some pathways.48 At 3–4°C of warming, very high risks ofdeclines in crop yield in low latitudes are expected whilst 4°C
of warming is considered catastrophic for food stability andaccess.49 Rising carbon dioxide concentrations are projected
to reduce the protein and micronutrient content of major
cereal crops, which is expected to further reduce food andnutritional security.50

Water availability, reliability and quality is being threatenedby climate change, pollution and ecosystem degradation(SDG 6). Water stress is mostly driven by water demand,and demand from agriculture and irrigation – already thelargest user – is expected to increase further in a changing
climate.51,52,53 All assessed scenarios project an increasein water demand and water scarcity.54,55 Climate change is
projected to reduce water availability significantly in mostdry subtropical regions and increase water availability at highlatitudes.56 Projections of the number of people exposed andvulnerable to water stress by 2050 under climate change vary
widely. The number increases from an average of 496 (range
103–1159) million people at 1.5°C to 662 (range 146–1480)
million people at 3°C, 57 distributed unequally between regions.
Climate-driven sea level rise will exacerbate coastal water
stress due to changes to the salinity of coastal groundwaterand damage to infrastructure.58 Combined with scarcity ofwater in river channels and excess pumping of groundwater,
sea level rise has caused intrusion of highly saline seawater
inland, posing a threat to coastal water resources and an
emerging challenge to land managers and policymakers.59,60
Water quality is negatively affected by waste discharges, including pathogens from wastewater, nutrients from untreatedsewage discharges and agriculture, and heavy metals andorganic chemical from industrial and agricultural sectors.61
New pollutants not easily removed by current wastewater
treatment technologies are of emerging concern, including
certain veterinary and human pharmaceuticals, pesticides,
antimicrobial disinfectants, flame retardants, detergent metabolites and microplastics.62

91

4. The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is threatened by environmental risks

Biodiversity loss in agriculture threatens the resilienceof food systems (SDG 2). The decline in pollinators, cropand livestock diversity and soil organic matter, threatens the
agricultural yields of the few main crops that feed the world.
Biodiversity in agricultural systems, whether at the genetic, species or ecosystem level, decreases vulnerability tostresses and shocks, reducing their impacts and supporting
recovery and adaptation in the face of climate change andother environmental shifts.63 Diversity increases the choices
available to producers in their efforts to adapt production systems and to breeders in their search for better-adapted plant
and animal populations. While more than 6,000 plant species
have been cultivated for food, fewer than 200 make substantial contributions to global food output, with only nine (sugar
cane, maize, rice, wheat, potatoes, soybeans, oil-palm fruit,sugar beet and cassava) accounting for 66 per cent of total
crop production in 2014. The world’s livestock production isbased on about 40 animal species, but only a handful provide
most of the global output of meat, milk and eggs. Among
extant local breeds, 26 per cent are classed as being at riskof extinction. A third of freshwater fish species assessed
are considered threatened.64 Pollinators, natural enemies ofpests, and beneficial soil organisms are under pressure fromthreats including habitat degradation and pollution.

4.3. Environmental Risks and Human Health

Climate change accelerates damage to ocean and coastal
ecosystem integrity and functioning, impacting fisherycatch and coastal livelihoods (SDG 2). Climate change,
biodiversity loss and ocean acidification are increasing risks
to fisheries and aquaculture via impacts on fish physiology,
survivorship, habitat, reproduction and disease incidence, andon invasive species, and these effects will increase at higher
levels of warming.65 One projection suggests a decrease inglobal annual fishery catch for marine fisheries of more than
3 million tonnes for 2°C of global warming.66 This threatens
benefits for coastal livelihoods, especially for fishing communities in the tropics, sub-tropics and the Arctic.67,68 In theoceans, nearly a third of fish stocks are already overfished 69
and over 55 per cent of the total ocean area has been subject
to industrial fishing.70

Human HealthandWellbeing

Economic factors

Geographic factors

E
X
P
O
S
U
R
E

Social factors

Political factors

Environmental Risks

Figure 4.3: Connections between environmental risks and human health andwell-being.

4.3 The deteriorating environmental health of theplanet undermines human health (SDG 3)
Environmental degradation impacts human physical andmental health and causes millions of deaths annually(SDG 3). In 2012, almost a quarter of all deaths were attributable to modifiable environmental health risks, including
air, water and land pollution; heatwaves, flooding and other
weather extremes due to climate change; spread of pathogens; desertification; reduced biodiversity; and food inse-

92

curity.71 The SDGs address many of these risks, including
vector and water-borne diseases (SDG 3.3), non-communicable diseases and mental health (SDG 3.4) and exposure
to hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil contamination (SDG 3.9). The incidence of non-communicable diseases
is on the rise globally and will continue to be affected by
the state of the environment in relation to pollution, diet andMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

physical (in)activity. Furthermore, emerging impacts andchallenges for human health and well-being include threats
from antimicrobial resistance, industrial chemicals, multiple
exposures and newly emerging diseases.72
Environmental pressures disproportionately affect thehealth of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. The
young, the elderly, women, people living in poverty andor with chronic health conditions, indigenous people andthose targeted by racial profiling are some of the groups
whose health is most vulnerable to the impacts of environmental decline.73 Diarrhoeal disease, mostly caused by
faeces-contaminated water, is responsible for around 1.7
million deaths every year, many of them children under 5 in
sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.74 This is a prime example of how environmental pressures can disproportionately
affect the young, especially as a significant proportion ofthese deaths can be prevented through safe drinking water,adequate sanitation and handwashing (SDGs 6.1 and 6.2).75
The multifaceted relationship between the environment andhuman health should be framed within the context of social
determinants of health as illustrated in figure 4.3. Socioeconomic and cultural factors have significant impacts onhuman health, through lifestyle choices and agency, inequalities, and damaging practices such as war, violence, unsafe
working conditions and child labour.76 Social and wealthinequalities as well as complex interrelations between
health, socioeconomic and environmental factors, must be
considered when striving to achieve SDG 3.
Climate change increases health risks through undernutrition, disease, mental health stressors and violence,extreme weather events, heat stress and pollution. Healthimpacts from climate change depend on population vulnerability, individual livelihood status, cultural identity, income
level and living area. Low-lying coastal zones and small
island states, for example, will be more exposed to storm
surges, coastal flooding and sea level rise.77 Increases inambient temperature are linearly related to hospitalizations
and deaths once specific thresholds are exceeded. Risks
associated with extreme weather events such as heatwaves, heavy precipitation in several regions, and droughts
in some regions already become high between 1°C and
1.5°C warming (see figure 1.1, panel b). Tipping points could
exist for human systems with increased temperatures andmay arise in places in which low human adaptive capacity exists. Warming of ambient temperatures by up to 3°C
is projected to see substantial increases in heatwaves
causing heat stroke and death.78,79 Risks of heat-related
mortality and morbidity become high between 1°C and 3°Cof global mean temperature increase, 80 whilst above 4°C cli-mate-related health impacts will likely increase non-linearly.
Increased variability in precipitation patterns (e.g. shifts inmonsoon seasons) is projected to increase the incidenceof water-related and vector-borne diseases. 81 For example,
the Aedes mosquito-borne diseases (dengue, chikungunya,
Zika and yellow fever) are expected to expand their ranges,
exposing additional populations to the risk of infection. 82 It
is estimated that the world will see around 60,000 additional deaths due to climate change-induced malaria for theyear 2030 and 30,000 deaths for 2050. 83 There is a lack ofprojections indicating how climate-sensitive health outcomes such as diarrheal disease and mental health could be
affected by climate change. 84
Ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss and increased
human-animal interactions are eroding nature’s contributions to human health and exacerbating the riskof zoonotic diseases. Urbanization, current agricultural
practices, land-use change and biodiversity loss are altering
ecosystem dynamics and facilitating increased human-animal contact. These changes exacerbate the risk of zoonotic disease emergence and spread. 85 Infectious diseases
that develop into epidemics or even into pandemics, as iscurrently the case for the Coronavirus SARS CoV2 disease(COVID-19; see box 4.1), have major health, economic andsocial implications that may impact the way society interacts with the environment.
Nature‘s ability to support the provision of medicines isin decline worldwide. An estimated 4 billion people rely primarily on natural medicines for their health care, with communities living in lower-income settings particularly reliant
on largely plant-based traditional medicines. The health ofthese people is compromised as wild collected medicinal
plants become less available. Some 70 per cent of drugs
used for cancer are natural or are synthetic products inspired by nature and more than 20 per cent of modern drugs
used for all diseases are based on leads from natural molecules, identified by science or based on indigenous local
knowledge, including aspirin, vincristine and taxol. Thoughnovel natural medicines are continuously being identified,
the potential for future discoveries is critically underminedby biodiversity loss. 86,87
Pollution is expected to continue to contribute to millions
more premature deaths in the coming decades. In 2015,
it was estimated that 6.5 million deaths were attributable
to ambient and indoor air pollution combined, 1.8 million
deaths to water pollution (unsafe water sources and inadequate sanitation) and another 1.3 million deaths to pollution
stemming from soil, heavy metals, chemicals and occu-

93

4. The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is threatened by environmental risks

pational environments. 88 As these three categories haveoverlapping contributions, total pollution-related mortality
is estimated at 9 million deaths (16 per cent of total global
mortality), which is three times as many deaths as AIDS,
tuberculosis and malaria combined. From a health perspective, the most important outdoor air pollutants are groundlevel ozone and fine particulate matter. Due to emissions
from industrial, agricultural, vehicular and domestic activities, as well as background dust and wildfires, large proportions of the global population remain exposed to levelsof air pollution exceeding WHO guidelines. 89 The frequency and intensity of dust storms due to land degradation
have increased over the last few decades in many dryland
areas.90 Scenarios that assume that past trends of stricter
air pollution policies, coupled with increasing incomes willcontinue into the future, still anticipate 4.5 million to 7 million premature deaths globally by mid-century.91 Ground-level ozone peaks, particularly in urban areas, are projected toincrease ozone-related deaths. Total atmospheric mercury
concentrations have increased by about 450 per cent above
natural levels due to human activity, contributing to highmercury loads in some aquatic food webs and presenting aserious human health concern.92
Eliminating emissions of ozone-depleting substances
has prevented millions of cases of skin cancer. Ozone
in the stratosphere screens out biologically damaging
ultraviolet radiation. Excessive ultraviolet radiation exposure leads to melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer,
cataracts and other health problems in humans.93 If
action had not been taken, growing emissions of ozonedepleting substances would have destroyed two thirds ofthe ozone layer by 2065, leading to millions of cases ofskin cancer annually.94
Mental health will become increasingly affected by theloss of nature and extreme weather events. Time spent innature has positive impacts on physical and mental health.
Natural and semi-natural ecosystems are spaces for physical exercise, recreational activities and mindfulness, andcontribute to well-being, happiness, quality of life and a sense of place and belonging.95 Other benefits of biodiversity
include cultural identity and reduced post-surgery recovery
time in patients with trees outside their hospital rooms.96
Though mental health risk projections for different degrees
of warming are lacking, projected increases in environmental health risks such as increased incidences of flooding
events, desertification and biodiversity loss can cause
diffuse human health effects via conflict and migration,
while natural disasters can cause emotional stress, such as
post-traumatic stress disorder.97

94

Box 4.1 The risk of pandemics: the case of COVID-19
Several global assessments have highlighted the links
between the health of the planet and human health.
Infectious human diseases are caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, or parasites. Zoonotic diseases, or zoonoses,
are infectious diseases transmitted between animals
and humans. Infection of people occurs through direct
or indirect contact and can be vector-borne (for instance by a tick or mosquito), food-borne or water-borne.
Nature is the origin of most infectious diseases, but alsoa source of medicines, including antibiotics, for treatment. Zoonotic diseases have been significant threats
to human health throughout human history.98,99 About
75 per cent of all new infectious diseases in humans
have their origin in animals.100 More than 335 emerging
infectious diseases outbreaks were reported worldwide between 1940 and 2004, more than 50 per decade,and the frequency of their emergence is increasing.
In the latter part of that period, about half of all emerging infectious disease outbreaks originated in wildlife.
Among emerging zoonoses specifically, 72 per centof outbreaks originated in wildlife, with the rest fromdomestic animals.101 Populations of wild animals carry ahigh diversity of potential zoonotic pathogens, especially where the diversity of host animals is higher, as is thecase in the world’s tropics.102
Most diseases in wild animals remain very poorly studied, many pathogens remain unidentified, and manyoutbreaks are overlooked.103 It is estimated that outof 1.6 million potential viruses in mammals and birds,
700,000 could pose a risk to human health without
urgent preventative action.104 Given that human ecological disruption and unsustainable consumption drive therisk of zoonotic spillover, humans’ adverse impacts onnature need to be addressed to curb pandemics.105
Emerging zoonoses have significant implications for
public health and economic stability, with the costs ofrecent major outbreaks, such as SARS, MERS and Ebola,
estimated in the tens of billions of US dollars each andexceeding 1–2 per cent of GDP in less wealthy countries.106 When all is counted, it is expected that the economic devastation caused by COVID-19 will be far greater,
measured in trillions to tens of trillions of US dollars.
COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the WHO on 11
March 2020.107 The disease is a severe acute respiratory
syndrome, caused by a coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The
virus spread quickly across the world via international

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

travel. In an effort to reduce mortality rates, avoid overburdening healthcare services and protect vulnerable
groups, most countries around the world put in placestrict measures to reduce person-to-person spreadthrough social distancing and restrictions – including
shutdowns – of offices, schools, stores and travel. The
pandemic has upended people‘s lives, brought sectors
such as international air travel and tourism to a standstill, and caused major health, economic and social
impacts around the world. As of December 2020, morethan 64 million cases of COVID-19 have been recorded
and 1.5 million people have died.
A temporary positive impact of the pandemic has been
seen for some aspects of air quality. Due to a sharp
decline in travel and other economic activities, local air
pollution and greenhouse gas emissions fell in many
places. An unprecedented drop in daily global carbon
dioxide emissions was seen from the start of the pandemic to early April 2020. The brief but marked improvement in some aspects of air quality illustrate what could
be gained by ambitious action to reduce the environmental impact of transport (see box 8.1).

4.4 Environmental change accentuates inequalities(SDGs 5 and 10)
Inequalities in environmental opportunities and burdens
are expressed and interconnected at various levels, arising
between and within countries along dimensions of ethnicity, gender, race and income. Environmental burdens associated with pollution, resource scarcity and extreme events
accentuate socioeconomic inequalities and are projected
to increase under current development trajectories.108,109,110
For instance, environmental pressures and their impacts on
health and well-being fall especially on groups that are already vulnerable or disadvantaged (see Section 4.4). Furthermore, where poor people find work either in industry, agricultureor the informal sector, they are more likely than higher-wage
employees to work in dangerous, unregulated settings whererisks such as exposures to hazardous chemicals are high.111

and Small Island Developing States .113,114 Countries with higher
initial temperatures, greater climate change levels and lower
levels of development, which often implies greater dependence
on climate-sensitive sectors and in particular agriculture, areexpected to bear the highest levels of impacts.115
Gender inequality accentuates vulnerability to environmental change and differences in access to the social and environmental resources needed for adaptation. Whereas both
men and women experience changing demands in productiveroles, women experience increasing burdens due to factors
such as family care and reproductive responsibilities, anddifferential access to labour markets, land rights, education,
health, and financial resources, as well as, in many contexts,
unequal decision-making power.116,117,118 Gender inequality isparticularly marked in agriculture. While agricultural production is increasingly feminized, agricultural and food policies,
including training and research and development, do notconsider the specific needs of women. Furthermore, women
have limited access to decision-making processes for resource management and have less access to resources that
increase agricultural output, including financial resources,
land, education, health and other basic rights. Women’s
relatively higher vulnerability to weather-related disasters is
documented in terms of number of deaths and in how sociallyconstructed gender differences affect exposure to extreme
events, leading to differential patterns of mortality for both
men and women.119,120

Climate change accentuates inequality through direct andindirect impacts. Climate change disproportionately affects
disadvantaged and vulnerable populations through foodinsecurity, higher food prices, income losses, lost livelihood
opportunities, adverse health impacts and population displacements.112 Some of the worst impacts are expected to fall on
agricultural and coastal livelihoods, indigenous people, women,children and the elderly, poor labourers, poor urban dwellers
in the Global South, and people and ecosystems in the Arctic95

4. The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is threatened by environmental risks

4.5 Environmental degradation impedes efforts topromote peace (SDG 16)
Many conflicts are linked to the exploitation of natural
resources (SDG 16). Competition over land and resources
can spark conflicts, including between actors with different
levels of power where indigenous peoples or local communities often are vulnerable. Since the mid-twentieth century,at least 40 per cent of all intrastate conflicts have been
linked to the exploitation of natural resources, whether highvalue resources like timber, diamonds, gold, minerals andoil, or scarce ones like fertile land and water.121 More than
2,500 conflicts linked to fossil fuels, water, food and land
are currently occurring across the planet, and at least 1,000
environmental activists and journalists were killed between
2002 and 2013. Violence is also used to discourage resistance to large-scale degradation.122
Environmental degradation can intensify disputes within
and between countries. Land degradation, exacerbatedby climate change, reduces land availability and livelihood
safety nets, which may increase competition for land potentially leading to migration and/or conflict, especially indrylands.123,124 Water crises, involving a significant decline
in the availability, quality and quantity of fresh water, havebeen identified as among the top global risks for the coming decade.125 Water scarcity is exacerbated by increasing
demand (including from agriculture), climate change and local contamination as well as the construction of large dams
and changes in resource rights. Water disputes (including
cross-border disputes) can contribute to political instability,
disrupt institutions and weaken natural resource governance, fuelling insecurities and distrust among stakeholders
that can lead to conflict.126
Linkages between environmental degradation, migrationand conflict occur within a larger context of multiscaleinteraction of environmental and non-environmental
drivers and processes. In an increasingly connected world,
consumption, production and governance decisions in one
country increasingly influence materials, waste, energy
and information flows in other countries. Decisions taken
by powerful actors in order to generate economic gains
can shift economic and environmental costs in ways thatlead to or exacerbate conflicts. Least developed countries,
often rich in and more dependent upon natural resources,
have suffered the greatest land degradation, experienced
more conflict and lower economic growth and contributed
to environmental outmigration by several million people.127
Indigenous peoples and local communities have direct-

96

ly experienced threats and expulsion from their lands tomake way for mining, agricultural expansion and industrial
logging for export.128 While the relationship between climatechange and conflict is relatively weak, there is a positiveand statistically significant effect between climate change
and outmigration for agriculture-dependent communities.
Furthermore, drought significantly increases the likelihoodof sustained conflict for particularly vulnerable nations orgroups, owing to the dependence of their livelihood on agriculture and natural resources.129

4.6 Environmental degradation hampers
efforts to make cities and communities
sustainable (SDG 11)
Cities and communities are negatively affected by climate change, loss of nature and pollution, hindering them inbecoming inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable (SDG
11). Climate change and ecosystem degradation are impacting the provision of basis services to urban populations living in informal settlements (SDG 11.1) and can accentuate
extreme weather events and their impacts (SDG 11.5). Witharound 6.5 million deaths annually related to ambient andindoor air pollution and 3 billion people lacking access toadequate waste disposal facilities, air pollution and waste
management remain challenging in many cities (SDG 11.6).
Compared to high-income neighbourhoods, informal settlements are more vulnerable to environmental degradation
as they are often in areas prone to flooding, landslides andother natural disasters and close to landfills.
Climate change is projected to increase risks for urban
populations, assets and economies. Key risks to settlementsfrom climate change that span sectors and regions and areprojected to increase include heat stress, heavy precipitation,
inland and coastal flooding, landslides, air pollution, drought,
water scarcity, sea level rise and storm surges. Coastal communities are exposed to additional climate-related hazards,
including tropical cyclones, marine heatwaves, sea-ice loss
and permafrost thaw.130,131 Cities, especially large landlocked
cities, will be exposed to increased heat stress due to the urban heat island effect, which increases the intensity of heatwaves by an estimated 1.22°C to 4°C.132,133 This is particularly
relevant as the number of mega-cities grows.134 Urbanization
also increases extreme rainfall events over or downwind of
cities.135 Key urban risks associated with housing136 include
poor quality and inappropriate location, making them more
vulnerable to extreme events. Climate-related risks will be
amplified for those lacking essential infrastructure and services or living in exposed areas.137,138

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Climate change and ecosystem degradation will impact
coastal communities through submergence, coastal flooding and erosion. The population and assets projected to
be exposed to coastal risks as well as human pressures oncoastal ecosystems will increase significantly in the coming
decades due to population growth, economic development
and urbanization. The costs of coastal adaptation varystrongly among and within regions and countries. Some
low-lying developing countries and small island states are
expected to face very high impacts that, in some cases,
could have associated damage and adaptation costs of several percentage points of GDP (on low lying urban islands
and urban atoll islands).139,140 The vulnerability of coastal
cities to natural disaster is exacerbated by loss of ecosystems such as mangroves that reduce the risks from storm
surges.141 In the absence of more ambitious adaptation
efforts and under current trends of increasing exposure andvulnerability of coastal communities, annual coastal flood
damages are projected to increase by 2–3 orders of magnitude by 2100 compared to today.142
Rapid development and urbanization combined withinsufficient environmental governance in many regions
suggest a likely worsening of air pollution and rising solid
waste. Traffic, residential fuel burning, electricity generation,industry and agriculture all contribute to urban air pollution,with varying contributions of sectors in individual cities. In
growing cities across Africa, Asia and other developing regions, there has been a rapid increase in the number of vehicles, driven by population growth and economic development. The impacts of pollution from megacities extend far
beyond the urban area with effects at local, regional andglobal scales.143 Solid waste is mostly generated in and disposed of in cities and its volume correlates with purchasing
power. Cities produce 1.3 billion tons of solid waste per year.
Solid waste per capita has doubled over the last decade.144
Many low-income cities still have waste collection coveragein the range of 30–60 per cent.145 With increasing incomes,
global waste volumes are going to increase further, which
will increase the pressure for policies that decouple economic development and human well-being from resource
consumption. For example, without global intervention,
the quantity of plastic in the ocean alone could increase to100–250 million tons by 2025.146 Waste has also become
a global economic sector, with large quantities of often
hazardous waste being unlawfully exported to developing
countries, with the potential to cause significant impacts.147
As developed countries pursue the goals of reduced waste,a circular economy and greater resource efficiency, developing countries must not be left behind.148

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4. The achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals is threatened by environmental risks

1

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3

52

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.1.4, 3.2.2, 3.4.2

2

IPBES 2019b, GA, 3.3.2

53

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.3.5, 3.4.2

3

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1.1

54

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 6.1.4

4

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.1.3

55

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3.4

5

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.2.2.8

56

IPCC 2013, AR5 3.56Section 2.3.1, Box 2.1

57

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, Figure 3.4

7

UN 2020, SDG Report

58

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.4.5.3, 3.4.5.4, 3.4.5.7, 5.4.5.4

8

WFP 2020

59

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 4.9.7

9

UN 2019, SDG Report, SDG 1

60

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, B.9.1

10

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 13.2.2

61

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 9.5, 21.3.4

11

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.2.2

62

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 9.5.7

12IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.5.2

63

IPBES 2016b, Pollinators Assessment, 3.8.3

64

FAO 2019, The State of the World’s Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture,

13

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, B.5.1

14

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4

15

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.9

65

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 5.4.2

16

Swiss Re Institute 2019, Sigma Report, ES

66

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.4

17

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.7.1

67

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 19.3

18

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.5.3

68

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A.5.2, A.5.4

19

IPBES 2018b, LDRA SPM, 8

69

FAO 2019, The State of the World’s Biodiversity for

20

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.5.1

21

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.5.3

70

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A.5

22

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.5.2.4

71

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 4.2.1

23

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 4

72

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 3.4.1

24

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 19.6.3.5

73

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 24.4

25

Burke et al., 2018

74

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 4.2.1, 9.1

26

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5 Box 3.6

75

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 2.5.1

A.2.6.1, 2.3.2, 4.2

Food and Agriculture, ES.3

27

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.5.2

76

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 24.4

28

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 24.4

77

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.7

29

IPCC 2014c, AR5 SYR, 3.4

78

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.5.5, 3.5.5.8, Table 3.7

30

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, D.1.3

79

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 6.4.5

31

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.2.2, 2.3.5.2, 2.3.5.3

80

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.13

32

FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO 2020, Section 1.1

81

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, Box 6.7

33

UNCCD 2017, GLO, ES

82

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.7

34

IPBES 2019b, GA, 3.3.2.1

83

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.3.3

35

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3.4

84

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.7

36

UNCCD 2017, GLO, II.8.1

85

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, Box 6.1

37

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1.1.2

86

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.4.2

38

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.1.4, 3.2.2, 3.4.2

87

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A.A1, A.2

39

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.5.3

88

Stanaway et al., 201840

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, B.5.3

89

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3.3

41

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.5.4

90

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.4.3.2

42

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, A.1.5

91

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3.3

43

UNCCD 2017, GLO, II.6

92

UNEP 2019d, Global Mercury Assessment, KM.5

44

UNCCD 2017, GLO, II.6

93

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 11.4.3

45

IPBES 2019b, GA, 3.4.6

94

Andersen et al., 201346

IPBES 2019b, GA, ES, 2.3.9

95

UNCCD 2017, GLO, I.1

47

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 22.4.2

96

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 6.1

48

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure 4.1B

97

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.4.1

49

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.2.2

98

IPBES 2019b, GA, 3.3.2.2

50

IPCC 2018a, SR 1.5, Cross-Chapter Box 6

99

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, A2

51

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2.4

100 UNEP 2020c, KM

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Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

101 Jones et al., 2008
102 Anthony et al., 2017
103 Johnson et al., 2020
104 Carroll, D. et al., 2018
105 UNEP 2020c, Pandemics Report
106 Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) 2019, WHO
107 WHO 2020, COVID-19 timeline
108 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.2, 2.1.4, 2.1.11, 2.1.18, 2.3.4.2, 2.3.5.2
109 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 2.3, 2.5.3, 8.5.4
110 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.2, 2.1.4
111 UNEP 2019c, GCO II, 7.4.3
112 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 5.2.1
113 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 5.1.3, 5.1.4.1
114 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 5.2.1
115 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.18.3
116 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 5.1.3, 7.4.9.3
117 IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 9.3.5.1.5, Box 13-1
118 IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, Cross-Chapter Box: Gender and Climate Change
119 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 5.1.3
120 IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 11.3.3
121 UNEP 2009
122

IPBES 2019a GA SPM, B4, 2.1.6, 2.1.11, 2.1.18, 2.1.18.2.3

123 IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 5
124 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 4.9.3
125 WEF 2020, Global Risks Report, Figures I, II
126 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.18.2.3
127 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.2, 2.1.4
128 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.6
129 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.6
130 IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, A.9
131 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, TS.2, 2.5.4, Cross-Chapter Box 4
132 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, ES.8
133 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, Cross-Chapter Box 4
134 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.4.8
135 IPCC 2019c, SRCCL,2.5.1, 2.5.2, 2.5.3
136 IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 8.3
137 IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1.3.2
138 IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 3.5, 8.2-4, 22.3, 24.4-5, 26.8, Table 8-2, Box 25-9,
Cross-Chapter Box: Heat Stress and Heat Waves
139 IPCC 2014d, AR5 WGII SPM, B.2
140 IPCC 2019d, SROCC, ES.4, 4.1.3
141 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3.5.3, 4.3.3, 4.3.4, Box 6.1
142 IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 4.3, Figures SPM.1, SPM.4, SPM.5
143 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 5.3.1
144 IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.1.15.3
145 UNEP 2015a, Global Waste Management Outlook, 3.4.1
146 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 7.3.3
147 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 4.3.4
148 UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 4.3.4

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Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

II. Transforming humankind‘s relationship with natureis the key to a sustainable future5
Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation cantransform societies and economies and secure a sustainable future

Only transformative change will enable humanity to fulfil international environmental agreements and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Only a “fundamental, system-wide
transformation across technological, economic and social
factors, including paradigms, goals and values” can reverse
the current trends that threaten the well-being of present andfuture generations and the survival of other species.1,2,3 Transformation can also enable the realization of the collective
vision of a sustainable future for humanity, one that involves
a rapid and thorough decarbonization, food security for all,an end to poverty, harmony with life on land and beneath thewater, and substantial improvements in justice and fairness.4,5

5.1 Transformative systemic change is a prerequisite
for a sustainable future
Mitigating climate change, conserving biodiversity andmeeting other environmental challenges requires fundamental and systemic changes in social and economic systems.
Current responses to these challenges have included sectoralinterventions and increasing cross-sectoral cooperation, butthese have fallen short of the systemic change required totransform the underlying drivers of environmental change.6

Transformative societal change would affect not only thesubsystems described below (including economic and financial systems, energy systems, food systems, water systems,
health systems, and systems for infrastructure and settlement), but rather simultaneously and holistically reshapethese systems and the interactions between them. Human attention and political will are often exhausted after addressing
system issues, including controversies involving trade-offs
between different interests, whereas the emphasis should beon the possible synergies and multiple benefits of change.
The magnitude of the problems hampering change requires
larger-scale and more fundamental actions addressing therules and dynamics of systems.7
Transformation does not necessarily entail changing
everything massively and quickly. Transformative change
can be a product of incremental but cumulative changes –especially if those changes affect key drivers, such as structural elements or fundamental processes.8 Each individualand organization has a role to play in moving society along
pathways toward a sustainable future that will vary acrossnations, regions and contexts, including through existing
institutions and policy approaches.

101

5. Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation can transform societies and economies and secure a sustainable future

Fundamental, system-wide reorganization requires significant upfront investment but can generate large positive
returns. For example, studies of greenhouse gas emissions
reduction show that the costs of doing nothing, measured interms of damages from future climate change, far exceeds
the costs of investing in mitigation (see Section 4.2). Someemissions reduction strategies pay for themselves, such as
investments in energy efficiency that can deliver cost savingsof US$2.9–3.7 trillion per year by 2030 or switching to lowcost renewable energy sources.9 Other interventions mayneed to be accompanied by structural changes so that thepositive returns for society also generate positive economic
returns for a business or household and encourage widespread adoption. This often requires the reform of subsidies
and incentive structures (see Sections 5.1.2, 5.2). To guideand measure the outcomes of government action, more inclusive measures of wealth and economic performance canaddress the limitations of conventional metrics such as GDP,
which fail to properly reflect the benefits of change because
they exclude important non-market social or environmental
benefits or damages such as negative externalities (seeSection 5.2).

development [(i) governance, (ii) economy and finance, (iii)
individual and collective action and (iv) science and technology] and six entry points to sustainability transformation[(i) human well-being and capabilities, (ii) sustainable andjust economies, (iii) energy decarbonization and access, (iv)food systems and nutrition patterns, (v) urban and periurban development and (vi) global environmental commons.10 ] This report lists eight leverage points in global,
regional and local systems, and simplifies the five IPBES
and four UN levers into three kinds of governance interventions. This is not a suite of options, but rather a checklistof constituents: each element likely must change in thetransformation to sustainability, whereby some elements
substantially enable others.11

5.2 The levers and leverage points fortransformative change

2. Consumption, population and waste: Reduce the negative
global effect of human needs and demand – a function of
consumption and production rates, population size, andwaste – by reducing per capita consumption and production in some regions and human population growth inothers.

Transformative change towards sustainability can result
from strategic intervention at key points of leverage within
systems. Implemented globally, transformative change
would result in a world that operates differently in many
important respects. To envision change on this scale, it canbe helpful to identify elements of the destination of transformative change, or leverage points and describe the change
needed in these elements. It is also possible to pinpoint key“levers” of a strategy to bring such change about, including
a “carrots and sticks” approach. The elements and levers
are outlined below. Constantly recalling the elements of thedestination and adaptively managing systems can help torealize this vision.
The elements of the “destination” and the strategy fortransformative change are derived from several recent
reports. Reviewing a wide range of assessments and otherscenario and pathways analyses at global and regional scales, the IPBES Global Assessment proposed a framework
for categorizing actions and strategies toward transformative change in terms of eight leverage points and five levers(recognizing that the metaphor of leverage is an imperfect
one and that changes to complex systems are not straightforward). The UN Global Sustainable Development Reportfocuses on a set of four levers for achieving sustainable102

Key areas for transformative change:
1. Paradigms and visions of a good life: Move towards paradigms that emphasize relationships with people and nature
over material consumption, including many existing visionsof good lives as those lived in accordance with principles
and virtues of responsibility to people and nature.

3. Latent values of responsibility: Unleash existing capabilities and relational values of responsibility to enablewidespread human and organizational action.
4. Inequalities: Systematically reduce inequalities in income
and other forms, including across gender, race and class.
5. Participation in governance of environmental action andresource use: Practice justice for and inclusion in decisionmaking of those most affected by it, especially including
indigenous peoples and local communities.
6. Externalities: Understand and internalize the distant,delayed and diffuse negative effects of actions, including
economic activity.
7. Technology, innovation and investment: Transform
regimes of investment and technological and social
innovation, such that technologies and their use produce
net-positive impacts on people and nature (for example, bytransitioning to a circular economy and eliminating waste).

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

8. Education and knowledge generation and sharing:
Promote the broad base of knowledge and capability thatis fundamental to well-functioning and just societies, andincrease and spread knowledge specific to sustainability.

from civil society organizations. Thus, these levers and leverage points are available both to those designing policy andpractices and to those seeking to shape policy and practice
via grassroots or other bottom-up actions.

The strategy and levers for transformative change:

Six systems are key entry points for transformations towards sustainability. Synthesizing the six foci of the IPBESGlobal Assessment,12 the Global Sustainable Development
Report’s six entry points, and the six transformations of The
World in 2050 initiative, it is possible to identify six areas for
system transformation: economy and finance; food and water; energy; human settlements; health, equity and peace; andenvironment (see table 5.1).

A. Fix the “carrots” and build capacity: Change the incentive
structure facing individuals and organizations, including
by broadly reforming subsidies to shift from harmful
production-enhancing ones towards those that directly
improve well-being and a suite of social and environmental
capacities and outcomes. Simply adding new incentives
to balance the negative effects of existing subsidies is not
sufficient because of a lack of underlying capacity for environmental stewardship and because existing subsidies
have systemic perverse effects.
B. Manage better: Reform management organizations, programmes and policies to make them pre-emptive, inclusive,
integrated across sectors and jurisdictions, robust to uncertainty, and geared towards system resilience or transformation as needed. Existing management systems are largely
historical artefacts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
geared towards underpopulated lands and lightly used waters, imagining linear relationships between causes and theireffects. Sustainable pathways through the twenty-first century will require management systems designed to accommodate the complexity of social and ecological systems andpervasive and long-distance effects in space and time of local
actions. Management would include unilateral action withinstates as well as bilateral and multilateral action across them.
C. Strengthen the “sticks”: Bolster environmental laws
and policies and strengthen the rule of law by ensuringconsistent enforcement of all laws, including by eliminating corruption and strengthening institutions such as
independent judiciaries.
Change in organizational and individual behaviour pervades
every element of transformative change. Every lever applied
at every leverage point entails and effects changes in humanaction, including by policymakers, politicians and a diverse
set of actors in business and civil society. These changes
can be top-down and/or bottom-up and can be accelerated
when pressure for change emanates from multiple sources.
Each lever can be applied at each leverage point by managers
and decision makers at local, regional, national and international level, triggering broader social and industrial change.
Government action may follow pressure from businesses andindustry associations, public opinion and protest or advocacy

Applying the levers to the leverage points fosters systemtransformations that move society toward sustainability.
All three levers at the heart of a strategy for transformativechange can be applied to each of the leverage points identified (see table 5.1). Similarly, pressure applied at the leverage
points can drive transformational change in key systems. Bidirectional relationships between some systems and leverage
points mean that systemic change can help shift the leverage
points closer to the destination of sustainability. For instance,
paradigms and visions of a good life (1) impact all systems.
They are in turn shaped by changes especially in economy
and finance, human settlements and health, equity and peace. Patterns of consumption, population and waste (2) bothshape and are shaped by all six systems. Latent values of responsibility (3) are relevant to the actions of all players within
the system (such as consumers, farmers and food distributors), and the configuration of systems can unleash action by
all actors in line with latent values. Addressing inequalities (4)and enhancing participation (5) can enable system transformations; all six system transformations can lessen inequalities and enable participation. Similarly, addressing externalities (6) could enable the six system transformations, while
the transformations within each system should substantiallyreduce externalities. All six system transformations could
be driven partly by appropriate technology, innovation andinvestment (7); meanwhile economy and finance, energy andhuman settlements could also drive needed changes in technology, innovation and investment. Education and knowledge
generation and sharing (8) could be a driver of all systemtransformations via specific knowledge systems and generalsocietal education; only transformations in human health,equity and peace can really advance this leverage point.
Transformative change can result from the culmination ofmany seemingly small but strategic actions, while someattractive and feasible actions can impede transformation.
Global systems are multiscalar and complex and actions103

5. Human knowledge, ingenuity, technology and cooperation can transform societies and economies and secure a sustainable future

intended to generate change face risk from co-option, unintended effects and unforeseen feedbacks. By acknowledging
these risks and uncertainties, actions can be characterized interms of their contribution to transformative change.
• Transformative enablers are important actions that facilitate
broader systemic change (e.g. the replacement of GDP by
better measures of sustainability such as inclusive wealth).
• Incremental enablers are actions that yield small changes
whose accumulated impact contributes to transformativechange (e.g. slowly shifting and reorienting subsidies, wholesale subsidy reform would be a transformative enabler).
• Necessary measures are actions to protect nature and its
contributions to people in the short term, but which may
not contribute to transformative change (e.g. the expansionof protected areas).
• Insufficient measures are interventions that may contribute
somewhat to environmental protection in the short term,
but detract from longer-term efforts towards transformative change (e.g. incentive programs for biodiversity andecosystem services not accompanied by wider reform of
harmful subsidies or environmental law).
Feasibility may vary widely across strategies and actions, buttransformative enablers may only become feasible after intervention via incremental enablers or the triggering of tipping
points. The changes that appear most feasible may be thosethat do not contribute to, or even impede, transformativechange, for instance by retaining or even consolidating thepower of interests vested in the status quo (see Section 5.3).

organizations also have substantial stakes in maintaining thestatus quo. These vested interests may oppose change that
disrupts their livelihoods, market share and future revenues.
These barriers can be overcome with investments to overhaul
infrastructure and built capital, directly confronting regressive
habits and norms, and enabling the reorganization of labour
by, for example, providing financial incentives and training toshift businesses and labour away from unsustainable industries and practices towards sustainable ones.
Societies have demonstrated both potential and limitationsin the capacity to undertake widespread systemic change
in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 mobilization in response to the COVID-19 pandemic indicates how societies are capable of systemic change, but also how parts ofsociety may resist change. The rapid design, implementation
and relatively widespread acceptance of physical-distancing
measures, restrictions on movement and economic activities, despite the resulting economic and social dislocation in
many nations, demonstrate how shifts in norms and priorities(leverage points 1 and 3) can reshape multiple systems.
Widespread systemic change is needed to address theglobal environmental emergencies through mitigation, restoration and adaptation. Transformative change must begin
now to avoid imposing huge and potentially irreversible environmental declines on today‘s youth and future generations.
A sustainable future is achievable, and it can be a just andprosperous one, full of human ingenuity and opportunity, nourished by and caring for a vibrant natural world. The following
sections on the key systems for transformation detail specificchanges that can enable society to collectively realize thisambitious but essential vision for humanity and the Earth.

5.3 Implementing transformations and overcoming
barriers from inertia and vested interests
Participatory and equitable processes can raise public acceptance of transformative change (leverage point 5). While
the appropriate level and nature of inclusion of rights-holders
and stakeholders varies across contexts, broad participationand the perception of fairness in decision-making processes and outcomes is key to generating public acceptance oftransformative change (leverage point 5).13,14
Systemic opposition, friction and inertia can thwart transformative change.15 Existing infrastructure and built capitalcreate system inertia by making change difficult and costly. In addition, individuals and organizations have habits,
procedures and ways of doing business. These norms yielda reluctance and resistance to change. Some individuals and

104

1

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, C

2

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, C2

3

UNEP 2019b, GEO-6 SPM, 4.2

4

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

5

TWI 2050, 2019

6

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 12, 17

7

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

8

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

9

IRP 2017

10

GSDR 2019, II

11

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

12

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.4.3

13

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 2

14

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

15

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Table 5.1. The action of the levers and leverage points in fostering thesix key system transformations
LeversLeveragepointsC. Strengthen the “sticks”

B. Manage Better

A. Fix the “Carrots”

Governance andindividual actions

System transformations

Economyandfinance

Food
and
water

EnergyHuman
Human
settlements health,equity andpeace

Environment

1. Paradigms
and visions ofa good life

•

•

•

•

•

•

2. Consumption, population,
and waste

•

•

•

•

•

•

3. Latent
values of
responsibility

•

•

•

•

•

•

4. Inequalities

•

•

•

•

•

•

5. Participationin environmental action andresource use

•

•

•

•

•

•

6. Externalities

•

•

•

•

•

•

7. Technology,
innovation andinvestment

•

•

•

•

•

•

8. Educationand knowledge generation and sharing

•

•

•

•

•

•

Direct actions that can foster the system transformations,·••= Both levers and leverage points can apply= Leverage points can primarily influence the system transformations

105

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

6
Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed
together to achieve sustainability

Climate change, loss of biodiversity, land degradation, and air
and water pollution are highly interconnected. This section
examines how these interconnected systems can be transformed individually and collectively to be sustainable, assessing
which actions are synergistic and which involve trade-offs,
emphasizing actions needed in the short-term.
Protecting life on Earth, including human life, requires actions that are significantly more effective than those taken
thus far. Action to halt the loss of biodiversity and land degradation, avoid dangerous climate change and keep the effects
of chemicals on the biosphere within tolerable limits must be
coordinated to be effective. All these forms of degradation are
primarily driven by the unsustainable level of consumption
by the well-off, while the poor are left behind, characterizing
contemporary civilization. Achieving transformative change
requires that the fundamental drivers of overconsumption are
addressed, through changes in personal values, norms, economic and social operating rules, technologies and regulations.
Given the interconnected nature of climate change, loss of
biodiversity, land degradation, and air and water pollution,
it is essential that these problems are tackled together
urgently. Actions needs to be taken now even where thebenefits may not be realized for years due to the long-lasting
nature of environmental effects or to inertia in the socioeconomic system. Essential actions with delayed effects include
reforestation and restoration of degraded lands. Response options that can address multiple environmental issues, mitigate
multidimensional vulnerability and help minimize trade-offs
and maximize synergies, need to be implemented. Numerous
response options that can preserve and restore the environment and contribute to achieving some of the other SDGs havealready been identified. For example, large-scale reforestation with native vegetation can simultaneously help address
climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation and water
security. A key challenge is to avoid unintended consequences.
For instance, large-scale afforestation schemes that replacenative vegetation with monoculture crops to supply bioenergy
can be detrimental to biodiversity and water resources.

6.1 Scaled-up and accelerated actions to address
climate change in this decade are essential
Mitigation and adaptation are both urgently needed toreduce the risks of climate change.1 Mitigation is insufficient
to remove all the risks from climate change since adverse
climate impacts are already apparent and more are projected
at 1.5°C of warming and beyond. Some impacts, such as sea
level rise, will continue for centuries after the global temperature has stabilized.2 Without meaningful climate mitigation,
adaptation also will be insufficient to limit all the risks associated with climate change. Limits to adaptation already exist
for the most sensitive human and natural systems at 1.5°C ofwarming, and further limits exist at higher levels of warming.
A slower rate and magnitude of climate change creates additional opportunities for adaptation.3
Governments must scale up and accelerate action to meetthe Paris Agreement goals and limit dangerous climatechange. Evidence shows that the risks associated withclimate change, including risks of extreme weather events,
of impacts on unique and threatened ecosystems, and oflarge-scale discontinuities such as the disintegration of theGreenland and Antarctic ice sheets (see figure 1.1), are generally higher than previously understood. There is a near-linear
relationship between future temperature change and cumulative carbon dioxide emissions. This relationship implies thatnet emissions would need to be reduced to zero within only
a few decades if the Paris Agreement goals are to be met.
Limiting the global mean temperature increase to well below
2°C and pursuing efforts to stay below 1.5°C, in line with
the Paris Agreement requires significant strengthening andrapid implementation of existing national pledges to reducegreenhouse gas emissions. To limit global warming to 1.5°C,
with a probability of about 50 per cent, net emissions of carbon dioxide will need to be reduced by 45 per cent by 2030
compared to 2010 levels and reach zero by 2050. To limit
global warming to 2°C, emissions need to decline by about
25 per cent by 2030 compared to 2010 levels and reach net
zero by around 2070.4 Emissions of other greenhouse gases

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6 Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed together to achieve sustainability

must also be reduced rapidly. The target year for net-zeroemissions for other greenhouse gases is generally projected
to occur about one or two decades later than that for carbon
dioxide. More ambitious reductions would be necessary forhigher certainty of avoiding dangerous climate change, as
indicated in the emissions gap presented in figure 6.1, whichshows pathways with about 66 per cent chance of limiting
global warming to 1.5°C and 2°C.5 Delaying action exacerbates difficulties and incurs greater costs.6
An important determinant in climate change mitigation is
the timing of emission reductions, affecting both short-termand long-term technology choices. Slower emission reductions in the short term will require very rapid reductions later inthe century, followed by the large-scale removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, if the Paris Agreement goals areto be met. Carbon dioxide removal technologies differ widelyin terms of maturity, potential and risks, while several technologies have significant negative impacts on land, energy,
water and nutrients when deployed on a large scale. In contrast, the sequestration of carbon in restored natural ecosystems and soil do not require land-use change and can haveco-benefits, such as improved biodiversity, soil quality andlocal food security. Effective governance is needed to limit
trade-offs and ensure the permanence of carbon storage interrestrial, geological and ocean reservoirs. If negative emission technologies become practical at scale and affordable inthe second half of the century, they would allow for a slightly
slower energy system transition to low-carbon technologies.
Even in this scenario, net-zero emissions would need to beachieved around the middle of the century. If the deploymentof large-scale carbon dioxide removal is to be limited, deeper
near-term emission reductions are required, combined withmeasures that lower demand for energy and land.7,8Limiting global warming requires rapid and far-reachingtransformation of energy systems, land use, infrastructure and industrial processes. Emissions of carbon dioxide
in both the land-use and energy systems can be reduced tozero or below based on a portfolio of mitigation measures,
striking different balances between lowering energy andresource intensity, decarbonizing energy supply, and thereliance on carbon dioxide removal and behavioural change.
For non-carbon dioxide emissions such as methane andnitrous oxide, measures have been identified to significantly
reduce emissions from the energy sector (such as fugitive
emissions of methane from mining) and agriculture (including methane from livestock and rice production), but it will
be hard to reduce emissions to zero based on only technicalmeasures. Immediate reductions in the emissions of shortlived climate forcers such as black carbon and methane are108

an important contribution in limiting warming. It should be
noted that reductions in the use of fossil fuels also reduce
cooling aerosol emissions, leading to less air pollution but
also reducing the amount of climate change avoided.9
Adaptation involves both preparations for and responses
to climate change impacts, with nature-based solutions
playing a vital role. Mitigating climate change is vital,
urgent and cost saving: the lower the degree of warming
the easier and cheaper it will be to adapt. Societies, economies and ecosystems must adapt to changing temperature and precipitation patterns, including more heatwaves,heavy precipitation in several regions, droughts in someregions and higher sea levels. There has been significant
progress in climate change preparedness over the last two
decades. Adaptation options, if well-designed and managed
in a participatory manner, can reduce the vulnerability ofhuman and natural systems, and have many synergies withachieving the SDGs, including those related to food andwater security, though potential trade-offs must be recognized. Adaptation is place- and context-specific and can beenhanced through complementary actions across all levels
from individuals to governments. Increasing investment insocial and physical infrastructure is vital to enhance theresilience and adaptive capacity of societies. Specific interventions can include climate-resilient agriculture, land-use
planning, nature-based solutions such as conserving andrestoring ecosystems, coastal defence systems and social
safety nets. Nature-based solutions have gained prominence, given the close interlinkages between climate change
and biodiversity loss, and the potential to deliver co-benefits. Nature-based adaptation options include restorationor protection of coral reefs, seagrass meadows, coastal
wetlands, mangroves, and beaches to reduce coastal flooding and erosion; green and blue spaces to reduce urban
flooding and heat-related risks; and protecting and restoring
floodplains, peatlands, and riparian vegetation to reduceriver flooding.10,11,12,13

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

6.1. The Emissions Gap
70
Conditional
NDC case2010 – policies scenario

60

Unconditional
NDC case

Current policies scenario
Unconditional NDC scenario

Median estimate of levelconsistent with 2°C:
41 GtCO2e (range 39–46)

30

Median estimate of levelconsistent with 1.5°C:
25 GtCO2e (range 22–31)A

2°C scenario

20

10

0
2010

32 GtCO2e40

29 GtCO2e

Remaining gap
to stay within
2°C limit

15 GtCO2e50

12 GtCO2e

Gigatonnes of CO2 emissions (GtCO2e)

Conditional NDC scenario

A

B

Blue areashows pathways
limiting global
temperature increase
to below 2°C with
about 66% chance.

Green area shows pathways limiting global
temperature increase to
below 1.5°C by 2100 andpeak below 1.7°C (bothwith 66% chance).

2020

1.8°C scenario

B

2030

1.5°C scenario

2040

2050

Figure 6.1: Global greenhouse gas emissions under different scenarios and the emissions gap in 2030 for unconditional and conditional nationally determined
contributions (NDCs) scenarios (median and 10th to 90th percentile range, based on the pre-COVID-19 current policies scenario).
Source: Figure adapted from UNEP 2020a, EGR, ES, Figure ES.5

6.2 Scaling up and accelerating the conservation,
sustainable use and restoration of biodiversity
is critical
Substantial gains in the protection of nature can be achieved through the sustainable management and restorationof landscapes and seascapes that are productive and often
inhabited. Transformative actions to reduce the drivers of
biodiversity loss must necessarily occur mostly in human-populated and production-oriented landscapes and seascapes
outside of protected areas. This requires the developmentof new land- and resource-use rules and objectives that are
beneficial, neutral or at least much less harmful to biodiversity,
while permitting uses benefitting humans.14 Effective management of land and sea resources and their biodiversity requires

a situation-appropriate combination of: security and clarityof land tenure and responsibility; financial and non-financial
incentives to resource owners and custodians; and regulations and agencies to monitor and enforce them, working at
ecosystem scale and coordinating actions across the various agencies and jurisdictions involved. Recognition of thecustodial traditions and knowledge of indigenous peoples andlocal communities, and the use of participatory approaches
to resource management, are key success factors. A multiple land-use approach includes the promotion of pastoral,
cropping and forestry practices that sustain biodiversity andsupport local livelihoods, while avoiding land degradation. It
includes the strategic and widespread restoration of degradedlands and ecosystems.15 An integrated approach to action isneeded to bend the curve of biodiversity loss (figure 6.2).

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6 Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed together to achieve sustainability

6.2. Bending the curve of biodiversity lossa) Extent of suitable habitatb) Wildlife population density

0.3

0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100c) Local compositional intactness
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
-0.02
-0.04
-0.06

Change in relation to the 2010 index value

Change in relation to the 2010 index value

0.2

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100d) Global extinctions
0.08
0.04
0
-0.04
-0.08

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100

Historical trend

Business as usual

1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 2030 2040 2050 2060 2070 2080 2090 2100

Conservation action only

Integrated action

Figure 6.2: Historical and modelled future trends in four selected terrestrial biodiversity indicators, based on a “business as usual” approach, a package of boldconservation and restoration measures (“conservation action only”), and an integrated package combining such conservation and restoration action with additional measures to address both supply-side and demand-side pressures on habitat conversion for food production (“integrated action”).62
Source: CBD 2020b, GBO-5, Figure 22.1

Fisheries reform, integrated spatial planning, conservation, climate mitigation and reduced pollution are all key torestoring marine life. Sustainable fish quotas are essential
to reform fisheries, end overfishing and restore marine biodiversity. Integrated spatial planning covering multiple usesof marine resources can help advance sustainable development in oceans and coastal areas.16,17 Trade negotiations
are ongoing to craft new rules on the elimination of harmful
fisheries subsidies.18 Expansion of protected areas andstrict no-take areas in both territorial waters and the open
ocean can conserve and rebuild stocks of commercial andnon-commercial species and protect aquatic ecosystems.
No-take areas have been demonstrated to be an effective and practical solution to overfishing. The deep seas
mostly fall outside of national sovereignty and thus haveno pre-existing formal ownership rights. Consequently, only
5.3–7.4 per cent of the deep seas are currently protected.
Catch and effort restrictions, regulation of fishing capacityand gear, and co-management of fisheries resources can
all help conserve fish stocks. Restoring marine life in boththe open oceans and in coastal areas is achievable using a
combination of proven approaches, but only if global war-

110

ming is limited to 1.5°C (which would hold the acidificationof the oceans below critical thresholds) and the contamination of the oceans with chemicals, plastics, sewage andsediment (from land degradation) is halted.19
Key actions to conserve biodiversity such as reversing
the net loss of habitat, halting overharvesting, reducing
pollution and slowing the spread of invasive alien species will help nature adapt to climate change. The relative
importance and impact of the main drivers of biodiversity
loss differ across different biomes. For example, habitat
transformation is the major threat for tropical forests, whileinvasive alien species have their most severe impacts on
islands and freshwater ecosystems. 20 Many species are
endangered by overharvesting and poaching for humanconsumption in local or international markets, practices that
also increase the risk of the emergence of novel zoonotic
diseases like COVID-19. Alleviating these pressures will permit many populations and communities of wild organisms
to remain viable as they track the moving location of theirpreferred climate zone. 21 Such adaptation strategies are
consistent with the objectives and programmes of action

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergenciesof the conventions and other international undertakingson biodiversity, desertification, forest protection, air pollution, chemical management and ozone protection. Somesolutions are beneficial to more than one issue; for example,
the protection of intact forests reduces carbon emissions
and also conserves biodiversity. 22,23 Such solutions are also
consistent with nature-based adaptation strategies under
the climate convention but are potentially undermined byunrestricted use of land-based climate mitigation options
such as biofuel production or afforestation. 24,25,26
The private sector can help protect biodiversity by ensuringthat the products it trades are sustainably sourced, andthat benefits accrue in both local and distant locations. The
removal by governments of implicit or explicit subsidies thathave the unintentional effect of driving the loss of biodiversity
or its habitats, including some forms of subsidies for farming,fishing, mining and industries exporting commodities will assist the private sector in achieving sustainable use. Beneficial
market-based actions include positive incentives for protecting biodiversity or generating ecosystem services for the useof others. Consumer education, product traceability to source
and certification as being climate, ecosystem and biodiversity-friendly permit consumers to make informed choices between harmful and sustainable products. Some companies,
such as those trading and processing commodities like palm
oil and cocoa, have adopted policies to reduce their environmental footprint, for instance by purchasing supplies fromdeforestation-free farmers or fisheries that reduce damage to
non-target species.27

Protected area networks need to be expanded, interconnected and better managed to conserve biodiversity in achanging climate. The expansion of formally protected areas,such as national parks, has been the main pillar of biodiversity conservation action for over a century. Despite significant
progress (protected areas now cover more than 14 per centof land, and almost 6 per cent of the ocean), 28 there are still
important gaps in the representation of some ecosystems.29
Wetlands are an example of a functionally critical, highly
threatened and biodiversity-rich ecosystem needing urgent
protection.30 Many protected areas are too small or isolated
to be effective in the long term, given the impacts of climate change. Increasing connectivity between fully or partly
protected areas makes them more resilient to climate change
and more able to sustain viable populations of threatened
species.31 Some ostensibly protected areas have weak management and governance and need increased investment,
including for surveillance and law enforcement. Expansion of
the protected area network continues to be beneficial. Whenthe true value of natural capital and the services it provides
are not considered (see Section 6.2), protected area expansion can seem politically and economically costly. Taking into
account the risks of not protecting ecosystems, and strategic
prioritization of locating new protected areas where the benefits are greatest in relation to the cost, greatly outperforms an
ad hoc approach.

6.3 Transforming land management can meet humanneeds, while helping biodiversity and the climate
Diverting land exclusively to climate mitigation adds topressures on land use from food and fibre production.
Transitions in global and regional land use are found in all
pathways limiting global warming to 1.5°C with no or limited
overshoot, but their scale depends on the pursued mitigation portfolio.32 Land-use transitions as part of mitigation
pathways could slow the achievement of other SDGs, suchas those relating to life on land and in the oceans, food andwater security, and equity; but there are also climate-oriented land-use transformation measures that could assist
in reaching non-climate SDGs. The degree to which landuse-based mitigation approaches such as afforestation andbioenergy are required depends on the mitigation portfoliothat is pursued, but could potentially result (by 2050, relative
to 2010) in an increase of up to 2.5 million km² in non-pasture agricultural land for food and feed crops, 6 million km²
more agricultural land for energy crops, and a 9.5 million km²
increase in planted forests. This magnitude of change would
compromise the sustainable management of land for humansettlements, food, livestock feed, fibre, bioenergy, carbon
storage, biodiversity and other ecosystem services.33,34 On

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6 Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed together to achieve sustainability

the other hand, mitigation options limiting the demand forland include sustainable intensification of land-use practices,
ecosystem restoration and changes towards less resource-intensive diets.

benefit, sustainable land-use systems will lie between thesecontrasting models, taking into consideration the specificsocial, economic, ecological and technological context of thelandscape.41

Transforming land use can contribute to climate change
mitigation while minimizing trade-offs. Relevant transformative actions include sustainable intensification, ecosystem
restoration, dietary changes and food waste reduction. By
maximizing the potential of transformative actions, it is possible to shift land use to a net greenhouse gas sink rather thana source. These options can contribute to climate change
mitigation without driving detrimental land-cover change.
They create strong direct and indirect co-benefits and havesynergies with SDGs such as eradicating poverty, eliminating
hunger, promoting good health and well-being, provision ofclean water and sanitation, and life on land.35 The practicalactions include improved cropland and grazing management, dietary choices that minimize the requirement of newcroplands, and the reduction of food waste. Transformationof diets and reduction of food waste can help to significantly
reduce emissions resulting from the food system. At present
about a quarter (12 GtCO2e per year) of net anthropogenic
greenhouse gas emissions arise from the agriculture, forestry
and other land-use sectors, 36 while the global food system as
a whole emits 21–37 per cent of global greenhouse gases,
much of it from deforestation to create new agriculturallands.37 Transformation of diets such that protein needs arederived more from plants and less from animals has thepotential to reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by
0.7–8 GtCO2e by 2050 (2–20 per cent of current emissions).38
Co-benefits include improvements in human health and wellbeing, conservation of biodiversity and enhanced ecosystemservices.39 Reducing post-harvest losses, where a part ofagricultural output never reaches the market, can be reduced
by better storage and transport, and post-consumer loss canbe reduced by education and change in consumer behaviour.

Sustainable agricultural intensification can help to avoid
further loss of natural ecosystems while also creating
space for land-based mitigation and can have synergies
with biodiversity conservation and restoration. Careful andappropriate agricultural intensification can reduce the lossof natural ecosystems, including by avoiding deforestation,and create space on former agricultural lands for land-based
mitigation or biodiversity protection. To deliver the promised
biodiversity and ecosystem services benefits, the spared land
(i.e. land not used for agriculture thanks to intensification)must be used for ecosystem restoration and protection. Landscapes where the use-intensity already exceeds sustainability
limits, on the other hand, would benefit from de-intensification. Many landscapes have both under- and over-intensive
elements, and the optimal solution involves both land-sparing
and land-sharing, along with other novel approaches.42

Sustainable land management, coordinated and optimized
at the scale of whole landscapes, can enable the multiple
objectives of agricultural production, climate mitigation,
climate adaptation and biodiversity protection to be realized simultaneously. Sustainable land-use strategies form acontinuum, with end points dubbed “land sparing” and “landsharing.” Land sparing reduces the need to transform natural
ecosystems to agricultural lands by increasing productivity
on already-converted lands. Land sharing attempts to meetproduction, biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation objectives on the same land parcel. Different types of
biodiversity and ecosystem services fare better with eachapproach.40 There is increasing consensus that most multi-112

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Land- and ocean-based climate mitigation approaches, including ecosystem restoration, could provide a third of the
mitigation effort needed in the next decade. Nature-based
solutions, such as reforestation with native trees, restorationof degraded lands, improved soil management and agroforestry, can contribute significantly to reducing the atmosphericabundance of carbon dioxide. Such solutions have been
estimated to be able to provide 37 per cent of the mitigation
effort needed until 2030 to limit warming to 2°C, 43,44 andcoastal areas hold additional potential (see below).
Ecosystem restoration can involve returning agriculturalland to its natural state, or the rehabilitation of ecosystems
on degraded land. Ecosystem restoration is a cost-effective
way of achieving multiple benefits.45 The potential for ecosystem restoration depends on the degree to which other transformative enablers such as sustainable intensification, dietarychanges and food waste reduction are implemented, as there
is potential competition between the use of land and water forecosystem restoration, pastureland, and agricultural cropping
for food and energy feedstocks.46 To maximize the co-benefits, policies aimed at increasing land carbon sinks needto restrict activities to ecosystem restoration specifically, as
opposed to the more general reforestation or afforestation,
which might otherwise encourage the planting of monocultures of non-native trees 47 or the conversion of carbon- andspecies-rich peatland, grassland or savannas to less richforests. Ecosystem restoration also helps biodiversity adapt
to climate change.
Ecosystem restoration can simultaneously mitigate climatechange, slow and reverse biodiversity decline and increase
the benefits that people get from nature. Restoration candeliver multiple benefits in all ecosystems. It offers particularly important benefits in dryland regions where climate change
and desertification are projected to cause reductions in cropand livestock productivity. Avoiding, reducing and reversing
land degradation, including desertification, would enhancesoil fertility, increase carbon storage in soils and biomass,
and increase agricultural productivity and food security.48,49
Ecosystem restoration makes a cost-effective contribution to
the timely action to avoid, reduce and reverse land degradation that can increase food and water security whilst contributing to climate change mitigation and adaptation.50 This
includes restoration of vegetated coastal ecosystems, suchas mangroves, tidal marshes and seagrass meadows (coastal“blue carbon” ecosystems), that could provide climate change
mitigation through increased carbon uptake and storage ofaround 0.5 per cent of current global emissions, with co-benefits for local ecosystems and livelihoods.51

6.4 Science-based management can reduce the adverse effects of chemicals on human health andthe environment
The existing regulatory and legislative framework for the
management of chemicals must be comprehensively
implemented, taking into account the scale, complexity andpace of the issue. The development of basic legislation andinstitutional capacity has been recognized as critical to the attainment of sound chemicals and waste management. Many
countries have already made important headway in enacting
laws, creating programmes, and implementing policies to thisend, in particular in the developed world, such as the REACH
program in Europe and the Canadian Challenge Program on
chemical substances. Further steps, particularly in developing countries and economies in transition, could include thefollowing: intensification of action at all levels to strengthen
legislative and institutional capacities to regulate chemicals
and waste during their full life cycle; the development of national chemicals management profiles and action plans on thesound management of chemicals and waste; advancing thealignment and harmonization of policies between countries,
mutual learning regarding effective approaches, and the maximization of opportunities for regional cooperation, drawing
on existing institutional structures.52
Science-based approaches to the sound management ofchemicals are available. Established approaches for the
management of chemicals that are available to governments
and regulators include: accelerating chemical hazard assessment and harmonized classifications of substances; refining
chemical risk assessment and risk management decisionmaking processes; and advancing alternative assessments
and informed substitution of chemicals of concern, including through non-chemical alternatives. At the same time,
concerns have been expressed that current approaches are
at times complex and slow. Over the past decades, valuablelessons have been learned in the practical application of these approaches, and opportunities have emerged to enhancetheir effectiveness, streamline their use, and employ themmore systematically in all countries. Developing countries andeconomies in transition in particular stand to benefit fromprogress in these areas.53
Data gaps can be filled if priorities are established. Opportunities to strengthen the engagement of scientists and thescience-policy interface include: taking steps towards thecost-effective harmonization of data generation and collection, strengthening monitoring and surveillance capacities, andsharing data more systematically at all levels; scaling up industry engagement in generating and disseminating relevant113

6 Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed together to achieve sustainability

data; strengthening two-way communication, and supporting
collaboration between scientists and policymakers; and exploring methodologies that facilitate more systematic identification of future priorities at the international level. Although awealth of data and knowledge has been generated, many data
gaps and unknowns remain. These include gaps in regard to:chemical hazard data for a range of chemicals on the market;
environmental, health and safety data; outdoor and indoor
chemical releases; exposures and concentrations in humans
and the environment; and adverse impacts of chemicals. Disparities remain in data collection and availability across timeand countries, making the identification of baselines, trends,
and emerging issues and priorities challenging. While adiverse set of mechanisms has been established at the international level to identify emerging issues and to set priorities
for action (for example, the SAICM mechanism), opportunities exist to explore the complementarity of processes andthe use of science-based criteria for prioritization. Various
barriers pose challenges to making policy-relevant knowledge
available for informed decision-making.54
Innovation and new business models may help to reduce
global and local chemical pollution. The implementation of
new business models (such as chemical leasing) aimed at
reducing the use of chemicals of concern, the scaling up ofefforts to develop green and sustainable chemistry alternatives, and commitments to phase out chemicals of concern inconsumer products, can all help to reduce chemical pollution.
Despite these efforts, voluntary actions and sustainability
strategies that go beyond compliance and advance soundchemicals management are not yet being sufficiently developed and replicated, particularly in developing countries.
Furthermore, important private sector stakeholders are notyet fully engaged in relevant discussions at the national andinternational level. Strengthening corporate commitment
at the highest level is therefore essential. From a design
perspective, incentives to develop green and sustainablechemistry solutions are needed. Responsible production
should be encouraged, and consumer information related
to chemicals should be clear, transparent and reliable. As
an important contribution to a sustainable future, chemistry
and its products must be adapted to a circular economy – asystem aimed at eliminating waste, circulating and recycling
products, and saving resources and the environment. The
increasing trade in chemicals and related products, and thequest to recycle products and materials, create opportunities
but also raise concerns regarding the fate of chemicals andchemicals in products once they reach the waste stage or
become secondary raw materials. Challenges include thechemical content of products becoming secondary raw materials, as well as the global flows of recycled products often

114

being unknown, potentially impeding management intervention that could ensure undesired chemicals re-entering supply
chains are not causing health and safety problems at various
stages of the material flow.55
Multi-stakeholder partnerships will help protect humanhealth and the environment from the adverse effects
of chemicals and waste. The engagement of all relevant
stakeholders at the national, regional and global levels isneeded to protect human health and the environment fromthe adverse effect of chemicals and waste. This includes not
only the chemicals and waste community, such as ministries
of environment and health, intergovernmental organizations,civil society organizations engaged in chemicals and waste,
the chemical industry and trade unions, but also actors in
key economic and enabling sectors, some of which have so
far not been sufficiently engaged. To advance ambitious andconcerted commitment, a global collaborative framework forthe sound management of chemicals and waste would needto create mechanisms and incentives to foster the commitment and engagement of sectoral ministries, retailers, downstream manufacturers and academia, as well as the broader
global community.56

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

6.3. Aligned actions for protecting and restoring life on Earth

Reducedconsumption

Sustainableproduction

Reducing
other drivers

Climatechange action

Conservation /restoration
2000

2010

2020

2030

2040

2050

Figure 6.3: The left axis schematically indicates the trends in the diversity of life on Earth which by various metrics have been declining and are projected to continue to do so under business as usual scenarios (trend line). Various areas of action could reduce the rate of biodiversity decline, and the full portfolio of aligned
actions could in combination halt and reverse the decline (bend the curve), potentially leading to net biodiversity gains after 2030. These are, from bottom to top:
(1) Enhanced conservation and restoration of ecosystems; (2) climate change mitigation; (3) action on pollution, invasive alien species and overexploitation; (4)more sustainable production of goods and services, especially food; and (5) reduced consumption and waste.
Source: Source: CBD 2020a, GBO-5 SPM

6.5 Aligning objectives and actions can deliver transformative change for both the environment andhuman development
Key international environmental agreements need to bealigned and become more mutually supportive. The further
development of the goals, targets, commitments and mechanisms under multilateral agreements in the areas of climatechange, biodiversity, land degradation, oceans and pollution
needs to be aligned and become more synergistic and mutually supportive. There needs to be enhanced harmonizationin the implementation, monitoring and financing of the agreements. Sustainable policies, technologies and management
practices need to be implemented within the interconnectedfood-forestry-water-energy systems given their impact on
climate, biodiversity and land degradation.
Adaptation actions that reduce the vulnerability of humanand natural systems to climate change have many potential
synergies with sustainable development. Vulnerability toenvironmental change can be reduced by adaptation measu-

res to ensure food and water security, reduce disaster risks,
improve health conditions, maintain ecosystem services andreduce poverty and inequality.57 However, if poorly designed
or implemented, adaptation can also result in unacceptabletrade-offs or even maladaptation, with adverse impacts forsustainable development such as increasing greenhouse gas
emissions or water use, or encroachment on natural ecosystems. Adaptation options that also mitigate emissions canprovide synergies and cost savings, such as when land management reduces emissions while simultaneously reducing
disaster risk, or when low-carbon buildings are also designed
for efficient cooling.
Given the interaction between sustainable development,
climate action and biodiversity protection, a greater alignment of policies can deliver transformative change. There
are both synergies and trade-offs between environment anddevelopment policies. For instance, climate stabilization at
warming of 2°C or less would make it easier to achieve many
aspects of sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. Efforts to advance the SDGs can accelerate progress115

6 Earth’s environmental emergencies must be addressed together to achieve sustainabilityon the Paris Agreement, and vice versa. The manner of integrating adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity and sustainable
development in policy is dependent on context-specific conditions where synergies are achieved and trade-offs are made,involving “winners” and “losers” across governance levels andtime scales.58 Reconciling trade-offs between development
needs and emissions reductions requires an understanding of
the dynamics between adaptation, mitigation and sustainable
development, and of the specific roles that different actors
play at particular points in time. Enhancing synergies andavoiding trade-offs is essential for achieving multiple benefits
and transformative change for people and the planet.
Multilevel governance is key for systemic transformationand for reconciling environmental and development objectives.59 Governance approaches that coordinate and monitor
multiscale policy actions and trade-offs across sectoral, local,
national, regional and international levels are best suited forthe implementation of environmental goals, such as thosefor climate change, biodiversity, land degradation, and air andwater pollution, while simultaneously promoting sustainable
development.60 This is because vertical and horizontal policy
integration and coordination enables the interplay and tradeoffs between sectors and spatial scales, and the dialogue
between local communities, institutional bodies and nonstate actors.
Policies that support the achievement of the SDGs, suchas those for poverty alleviation, clean water and universal
energy access, need to align constructively with environmental policies in order to realize potential synergies. Aligning policies synergistically increases their efficiency and effectiveness, whilst increasing societal support. For example,
integrated landscape governance entails a mix of policies andinstruments that together ensure nature conservation, ecological restoration and sustainable use, sustainable production(including of food, materials and energy), and sustainable forest management and infrastructure planning.61 As a further
example, the nature of legal rights to land ownership and ofinternational forest certification systems can be reformed sothat rural development and poverty alleviation can be alignedwith carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation,
thus avoiding deforestation and increasing the resilience ofhuman and natural systems to environmental change. Suchan approach can address and reverse the drivers of deforestation and prove transformative during the UN Decade on
Ecosystem Restoration that begins in 2021. Better alignmentof measures can create the portfolio of actions needed toprotect and restore life on Earth (figure 6.3).

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Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

1

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, A.3

52

UNEP 2019c, GCO-II, Part II

2

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, B.2

53

UNEP 2019c, GCO-II, Part III

3

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, B.2.3

54

UNEP 2019c, GCO-II

4

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, C.1

55

UNEP 2019c, GCO-II, Part I, 4

5

UNEP 2020a, EGR, ES6

56

UNEP 2019c, GCO-II, Part V, 3

6

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, D.3

57

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 5

7IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, C.3

58

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 5.5.1

8

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 25

59

IPCC 2014e, AR5 WGIII, 4

9IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, C.2

60

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 5.5

10

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, D

61

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 35

11

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, D

62

Leclère et al. 2020

12

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, C

13

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, D

14

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 2, 8

15

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 5

16

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, D6

17

IPCC 2019a, SROCC SPM, C.2

18

WTO 2020

19

Duarte et al. 2020

20

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 4.3

21

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 4

22

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 6

23

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 6.3

24

PBES 2018a, LDRA, 6

25

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2.6

26

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 1

27

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 8

28

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, C1

29

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Appendix 430

Ramsar Convention on Wetlands 2018, Global Wetland Outlook

31

IPCC 2014b, AR5 WGII, 4

32

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, C.2.5

33

IPCC 2018b, SR1.5 SPM, C.2.5

34

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 2.4.4, 4.3

35

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, C.3, C.4

36

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, Table 2.2

37

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 5 ES

38

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, B.6

39

IPBES 2019b, GA, 540

CBD 2020b, GBO-5, Box 22.2

41

IPBES 2019b, GA, 6.3.2

42

Finch et al. 201943

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, D8

44

IPBES 2018b, LDRA SPM, A14

45

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 5

46

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 4

47

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, D848

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 2, 4, 6

49

IPBES 2019b, GA, 2.3, 5

50

IPBES 2018a, LDRA, 5

51

IPCC 2019d, SROCC, 5117

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

7
Transforming economic, financial and productive
systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability

Economic, financial and productive systems profoundly shape society‘s relationship with nature. This section examines
how those systems can be transformed to lead and power thepath to a sustainable future. It explores how the food, waterand energy systems can be transformed to meet growing
human needs in an equitable, resilient and environmentallyfriendly manner.

7.1 Transforming economic and financial systems tobecome sustainable and justAchieving a just and prosperous future for all on a safe andresilient planet requires the transformation of economic andfinancial systems. Current economic and financial systems
focus on a narrow set of financial returns from market activities. Achieving the SDGs will require economic and financial
systems that simultaneously support economic well-being,social inclusion and environmental sustainability – sometimes
called the “triple bottom line.” Economic well-being means thatall basic needs are met, meaning an end to poverty and hunger, and the provision of education, water and sanitation, clean
energy, decent jobs and modern infrastructure for all (SDGs 1,
2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 9). Social inclusion means gender equality,
reduced inequalities and freedom from violence (SDGs 5, 10
and 16). Environmental sustainability means that dangerous
climate change is averted, having clean air to breath and cleanwater to drink, life on land and in the water is protected andcritical ecosystems functions preserved (SDGs 6, 7, 11, 12, 13,
14, 15).1,2,3 This all requires systemic change in economic andfinancial systems to assure freshwater availability, sustainable
cities, sustainable production and consumption, climate stability, and protection of marine and terrestrial ecosystems (SDGs6, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15).
Achieving all of the Sustainable Development Goals will
require large changes in economic activities, national accounts, financial systems and governance.4 Securing equitable access to goods and services while averting dangerous
climate change and avoiding environmental harm will require
major structural changes in economic activities. Such a shift isunlikely without reforming economic and financial systems tobetter align market incentives and national accounts with theprotection of global commons and common-pool resources.
Measures of economic performance should include the valueof nature’s contributions to human well-being. Including thevalue of nature’s contributions to human well-being in measures of economic performance is vital for aligning economic
incentives with more sustainable outcomes. The UN-led initiative on the System of Environmental Economic Accounting
is working to expand the accounting rules to incorporate thevalue of nature. The framework integrates economic and environmental data to provide a more comprehensive view of theinterrelationships between the economy and the environment
and the stocks and changes in stocks of environmental assets.
It is a flexible multipurpose system which generates outputs
that can be adapted to countries‘ priorities and policy needs
while at the same time producing internationally comparable
statistics.I China is working to develop and report a measure of
Gross Ecosystem Product along with GDP.5
Governments should use measures of inclusive wealth to
track progress towards sustainable development. Sustainable development requires leaving future generations with sufficient capital assets, including natural capital, to allow them tomeet their needs.6 Governments should develop measures ofinclusive wealth to inform policy and track progress towards
sustainable development. Improved data collection, methods,
and reporting of changes in natural capital along with othercapital assets (produced and human) is needed in order to accurately measure inclusive wealth.7,8,9,10 Measures of inclusive
wealth may be supplemented by science-based environmental
sustainability standards for critical natural capital that cannot
be effectively substituted by other forms of capital.
Making economic systems more sustainable requires
policies that align private incentives with social and environmental objectives. Eliminating incentives for environI

SEEA web page: https://seea.un.org/content/about-seea

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7. Transforming economic, financial and productive systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability

mentally harmful activity and promoting more sustainable
alternatives can align private and social goals. Policy toolsthat internalize environmental costs include taxes on environmentally harmful activities and cap-and-trade systems
targeted at emissions of pollutants. Policy tools that promote
environmentally friendly alternatives include payments forecosystem services, tax breaks for environmentally benign
economic activities and feed-in tariffs for renewable energy.
Policy reforms also include the abolition of perverse subsidies (especially in agriculture, energy and transportation) thatdamage global commons and common-pool resources, suchas subsidies for fossil fuels that lead to climate change andair pollution.11,12
Policies that reward the reduction, reuse and recycling ofmaterials in production or that penalize waste generation
can accelerate the shift to a circular economy.13 A circular
economy reduces pressures on natural resources and thepollution of land, water and air caused by waste disposal andinefficient use. Moving to a circular economy is one way to
decouple economic growth from increasing environmental
degradation. Putting a tax on the extraction of virgin raw
resources and the disposal of waste to reflect their full costs
increases the relative attractiveness of reducing, recycling
and reusing existing materials. Product design and purchasing guidelines such as performance labels are anotherimportant policy lever. Achieving a circular economy requires
changes in the practices of businesses and households. A
key element is the notion that well-being does not necessarily increase with the consumption of resources, especiallyat high levels, but is rather derived from the services andamenities that resources help provide.14 Efficiency andsufficiency reduce the needs for resources while increasing
well-being.15 A shift away from individual ownership towards
a sharing economy can further increase economic efficiency
and sufficiency.16,17
Achieving sustainability will require major shifts inpatterns and large flows of investment. In energy, accomplishing a transition from a fossil fuel-dominated supply
to a low-carbon system consistent with Paris Agreement
climate objectives will require investments in renewableenergy, nuclear energy, transmission, distribution, storageand energy efficiency of US$0.8–2.9 trillion per year through2050.18 Global financing for biodiversity is estimated at about US$80–90 billion annually,19 far below the conservatively
estimated hundreds of billions of US dollars needed.20 Biodiversity, climate and other environmental finance could be
ramped up by redirecting some of the estimated more than
US$5 trillion in annual subsidies on fossil fuels, non-sustainable agriculture and fishing, non-renewable energy, mining

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and transportation (see Section 2.2). Large investments
are also required to make water, food and other economic
sectors sustainable (see Section 7.2). The investments pledged by governments around the world to restart economies
stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic should be directed towardsustainable economic structures and lifestyles that increase
the inclusive wealth of society.
Substantial private sector investment is needed to complement public financing to achieve the SDGs and assure
resilient management of risk and natural disasters. The
investments required to reach the SDGs exceed the capacity of public funding, therefore substantial private sector
financing is essential. Socially- and environmentally- oriented
investment funds that provide low-cost financing for sustainable projects can close part of the financing gap. Currently
there is an estimated US$500 billion of assets in impact
investing. 21 However, achieving large-scale financial flows on
the scale needed to achieve the SDGs will likely require making such investments more financially attractive. New tools
and approaches that can leverage and incentivize private
sector funding include the use of capital markets to unlock
private sector investment in sustainable infrastructure. The
Global South needs increased access to low-interest financein order to achieve the SDGs. The Global North has exacerbated the shortfall by failing to meet its commitments underenvironmental conventions and on international development assistance.
Good governance is at the core of a well-functioning
economy able to provide a good quality of life for all. Good
governance, which involves interaction between state andnon-state actors to assure the rule of law, the absence ofcorruption and global cooperation, is key in building inclusive
and just economic and financial systems for transformativechange. Economic growth directed towards increasing access to food, water, energy, good health and education, anda clean and healthy environment, improves quality of life, butwith diminishing returns at high levels of income and consumption. A well-functioning sustainable economic system
will “meet the needs of the present, without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”22

7.2 Transforming food and water systems to makethem equitable and resilient
Feeding humanity, ensuring water security, and enhancing
the conservation and sustainable use of nature are complementary and closely interdependent goals. Achieving themrequires actions on the ground to improve food production
and water supply systems, in conjunction with changes inMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

demand and in the systems that connect production and
Making freshwater systems sustainable in the face ofconsumption. Pressures and context vary regionally, so susclimate change, increasing demand and pollution requires
tainable solutions must be context-appropriate and based on
steps to improve supply and use efficiency, reduce polluvarious knowledge systems, including science and indigetion, and restore natural habitats and flow regimes. Impacts
nous and local knowledge.Transforming economic, financial
on freshwater
systemsfrom climate change, rising demandandproductive
for extraction from agriculture, households and industry, andsystems can lead and powerincreasing
the shift
to sustainability
pollution, require both cross-sectoral and sec7.2.1 Approaches for transforming food and water systems
tor-specific interventions that improve water use efficiency,
increase storage, reduce contamination, minimize disruption
Sustainable food systems work with nature, adapt to aand restore aquatic habitats and natural flow regimes. Water
warming world, minimize environmental impacts, eliminate
used for irrigated agriculture will remain the largest consumphunger and improve human health. Sustainable food protive use of water, so sustainable water futures will include a
duction is vital to protecting nature and human well-being. It
range of solutions to manage irrigation water demand andcan be achieved through a range of overlapping approaches,increase agricultural water use productivity. Increased water
including conservation agriculture, organic farming, agrouse productivity in agriculture could be achieved throughecology, integrated pest and nutrient management, soil andcrop breeding and shifts in crop planting.24 This will include
water conservation, conservation aquaculture, sustainablegrazing, agroforestry, silvopastoral systems, irrigation maimproved irrigation techniques such as micro-irrigation, monagement, small or patch systems and practices to improve
isture conservation methods such as rainwater harvesting,animal welfare. Sustainable agriculture requires a reduction
which may include using indigenous and local practices, andin nitrogen and phosphorus imbalances to reduce pollution
maintaining vegetation and mulch cover.25 Drought-resilientof freshwater, groundwater and coastal zones. Ensuring theecologically appropriate plants and other agroecological andadaptive capacity of food production requires measures toecosystem-based adaptation practices will also be importconserve the diversity of genes, varieties, cultivars, breeds,
ant.26 Some adaptation options can become maladaptive due
landraces and species, which also contribute to diversito their environmental impacts, such as irrigation causing soil
fied, healthy and culturally relevant nutrition. In addition tosalinization or overextraction leading to groundwater deplesustainable practices, climate-smart agriculture requires thetion, so response options should be tailored to the context.27
development of crops that are more tolerant of heat, drought,
Improved management of urban and other water uses willsalinity, pests and disease.
also be necessary. Investment in wastewater treatment aswell as in distribution and supply infrastructure are necessaSustainable agriculture requires strategies and technolory for equitable access to clean water.28 Renewable energy
gies to increase the productivity of land and the nutritionalsources can be made less water-intensive with present
value of food while reducing water use intensity and thetechnology, and existing hydropower dams can be managed
release of pollutants. Sustainably intensifying agriculture
to integrate ecological water requirements. Increased water
while reducing water scarcity requires more efficient use ofstorage can be achieved through policies that implement
water, increasing water storage and avoiding salinization.
a mix of groundwater recharge, integrated management ofTechnologies to increase the yield of nutritious food need tosurface and groundwater, wetland conservation, low-impact
be adapted to specific agroecological zones to conserve soils
dams and decentralized (for example, household-based)
and reduce fertilizer application, such as reactive nitrogenrainwater collection.29
and phosphorous. Genetically modified organisms could
potentially increase the efficiency of food production withcrop varieties that are tolerant of pests, diseases, drought,
floods and salinity. However, biosafety and social considerations must be taken into account (see Section 2.3.2). Organic
farming and other forms of agroecology may make a significant contribution to the food system transformation, althoughfurther research is needed to increase yields. In some cases,sustainable intensification and precision agriculture may be
the best approaches, while organic or agroecological systems
may be appropriate elsewhere. Managing pollution fromagricultural chemicals will be critical, as will reducing waste
by limiting post-harvest and consumer losses.23

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7. Transforming economic, financial and productive systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability

Technical assistance and economic incentive programs
can encourage sustainable farm practices and reducepre- and post-harvest losses of food. Technical assistanceis important to enable farmers to adopt more sustainable
practices, especially for smallholders. Policies with incentives
for sustainable practices include standards, certification
schemes and payments for ecosystem services such as
direct payments through agri-environmental schemes.30 Agricultural losses can also be reduced by developing real-time
plant disease diagnostics, supported by a global surveillancesystem, to monitor and contain crop disease outbreaks Limiting post-harvest losses requires investments in rural roads,
electricity infrastructure, storage and cooling systems.

monitoring, and improving water use efficiency, synergistically
improve agricultural producer livelihoods and reduce water
stress.33 Environmental farm programs and agri-environment
schemes, water efficiency requirements, and water pricing
and incentive programs, such as water accounts and payment for ecosystem services programs, can also help relieve
water stress.34,35

Measures are needed and available to protect pollinators.
Given the worldwide decline in the populations and diversityof wild pollinators and the seasonal colony loss of western honey bees in some regions, it is important to maintain healthy pollinator communities. This can be achieved
through agroecological farming practices, strengthening
existing diversified farming systems, and investing in ecological infrastructure by protecting, restoring and connecting
patches of natural and semi-natural habitats in agriculturallandscapes. These measures need to be complemented by
reducing the effects of pesticides, particularly insecticides
such as neonicotinoids, on pollinators through integrated pest
management. Honeybees also need to be protected from a
broad range of parasites, including Varroa mites, by placing
greater emphasis on hygiene and control of pathogens.31

Sustainable food production from freshwaters and the oceans requires improved management, planning and policy
action. Fisheries management, spatial planning (including
the implementation and expansion of marine protectedareas) and policy action are needed to address drivers of
decline in aquatic ecosystems such as climate change andpollution. Pathways to sustainable fisheries entail conserving,
restoring and sustainably using marine ecosystems; rebuilding overfished stocks (including through targeted limits oncatches or moratoria); reducing pollution; managing destructive extractive activities; eliminating harmful subsidies andillegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; adapting fisheries
management to climate change impacts and reducing the environmental impact of aquaculture. For example, ending overfishing and rebuilding depleted resources may result in an
increase of as much as 20 per cent in potential yield, provided
that the transitional costs of rebuilding depleted stocks canbe addressed.36 Marine protected areas (including no-takezones) have demonstrated success in biodiversity conservation when managed effectively and can be further expanded
through larger or more interconnected protected areas or new
protected areas in currently underrepresented regions andkey biodiversity areas. Integrated marine and coastal planning
are important. Additional tools could include both non-market
and market-based economic instruments for financing sustainable use and conservation, including for example payment
for ecosystem services, biodiversity offset schemes, blue carbon sequestration, cap-and-trade programmes, green bonds
and trust funds, new legal instruments, such as the proposedinternational, legally binding instrument on the conservationand sustainable use of marine biological diversity in areas
beyond national jurisdiction under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and halting harmful subsidies,
especially those aimed at maintaining capacity.

Policy instruments to achieve water system sustainability
include water reallocation at the basin scale and educationand incentives to increase water use efficiency in agriculture. Integrated water resource management has moderate
mitigation potential, with no adverse impacts on challenges
related to climate change mitigation and adaptation, desertification and food security.32 Drought resilience policies,
including drought preparedness planning, early warning andInequalities, especially regarding income and food subsistence for local communities and small-scale artisanal
fisheries, need to be addressed to advance sustainability.
For local communities, reduced, declining and unequal access to marine resources may, in a complex interaction withother factors, be a source of conflict. Adding to the risk fromoverfishing, tropical regions face critical challenges due tointeractions with climate change (with fish stocks projected to

Small-scale farmers, in particular women farmers, need tobe empowered to embrace sustainable practices. Smallscale agricultural producers are at the heart of the challengeof food security. They therefore need access to informationand technology, gender-sensitive and participatory researchand extension services, financial and legal services, markets,
added-value opportunities, access to and control over landand production inputs (including high-yielding, water-efficient,and pest- and disease resistant crops, and fertilizers), andgroundwater and irrigation services. Reliable and affordable
insurance for small-scale farmers to withstand and recoverfrom environmental shocks is also needed.

122Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

move poleward), and intense coastal development. Equitable
will require data gathering and monitoring, including in cosharing of fish resources is a ubiquitous challenge worldwioperation with indigenous peoples and local communities.
de that often translates into competition between industrial
Promoting community-based and multiple-use integrated
fisheries and small-scale artisanal fisheries. It is therefore
water resource management and encouraging transboundary
critical to foster well-managed
small-scale
fisheries
using
water governancealso be necessary.39 A viable policy
Transforming economic, financial
andwill
productive
selective and non-destructive gear to promote employment,
framework is needed to ensure environmental flows to deltas
systems can lead and powerinthe
shift to sustainability
lower fossil fuel consumption and reduce fisheries’ footprint
order to prevent seawater intrusion.40
on the oceans.

77.2.2 Using consumer habits, corporate standards and government action to reshape food and water systems
Changing consumer behaviour is critical to transforming
food and water systems. Changing the dietary habits of consumers in developed countries by reducing the demand foranimal products would improve human health and reduce thepressure on land, water, biodiversity and the climate system.
Changes in consumer behaviour must be based on increasing
consumer and retail awareness of the environmental andhuman health consequences of different purchasing patterns
and may require legislation that helps reconcile supply byretailers and food manufacturers with demand. For water,
it will be critical to change incentives, for instance throughwater pricing to discourage non-essential use and through infrastructure to encourage behaviour change, and to increaseawareness and knowledge among consumers.37
Regulatory changes, incentives, changes to subsidies andcorporate action are all part of reshaping the interlinked
food and water systems. Key policy tools for transforming
water and food systems include government regulation, economic incentives, standards (including voluntary standards,
certification and labelling schemes, and supply chain agreements), the removal of distorting agricultural subsidies andintegrated landscape planning. Regulatory mechanisms areneeded to address the risks of co-option and lobbying, wherecommercial or sectoral interests work to maintain high levelsof demand, monopolies and continued use of pesticides
and chemical inputs. Agricultural commodity chains can be
regulated by involving all private stakeholders along the chain
to establish sustainability standards that transform the entire
sector. Other measures include multisectoral cooperation oncoastal management, corporate social responsibility measures, construction standards and eco-labelling. For water, policy instruments include: setting and enforcing environmental
laws, regulations and standards; collaborative initiatives with
communities and with the corporate sector and use of economic instruments such as appropriate water pricing, improved
investment and financing, and new market instruments suchas wetland mitigation banking and payments for ecosystemservices.38 Achieving sustainable food and water systems

7.3 Transforming to low-carbon energy systems withaccess to clean energy for all is possible
Universal access to clean energy requires a rapid transition
to low-carbon systems in both the production and use ofenergy. Improving access to affordable and modern energy(SDG 7), preferably clean energy, coupled with innovation andefficiency gains, is vital to achieving equitable and sustainableeconomic growth while limiting global warming. Clean energy
will also reduce poverty and indoor and outdoor air pollution
and provide critical services such as communications, lighting and water pumping. Achieving this goal while combatingclimate change involves a rapid transition to low-carbon
energy systems encompassing both production and consumption. Investments in the energy transition need to growfive- or sixfold between now and 2050 to limit warning to 1.5°C as aspired to in the Paris Agreement.41 Renewable energy
technologies such as wind and solar, along with improved
energy efficiency in buildings and elsewhere, will be key.
Since 2000, progress with respect to access to modern
energy services has been made in all regions, but billions ofpeople still lack such access. Progress on access to modern
energy has been made especially in Asia, while in sub-Saharan Africa, population growth largely outpaced the advances made, with these trends projected to continue towards
2030.42 More than 800 million people still do not have accessto electricity, 43 and some 3.8 billion are exposed to household
air pollution from burning of solid fuels such as traditional
biomass, kerosene and coal44 – fuels that also contribute toclimate change. Striking global inequality in access to energy
services is reflected in adverse impacts on development andhealth. In 2019, air pollution is estimated to have contributed
to about 6.5 million deaths worldwide, and one third of these
deaths are attributed household air pollution.45
To achieve universal access to clean fuels and technologies, the affordability, availability and safety of fuels andpractices for cooking, heating and lightning need to be
improved.46 Achieving universal access to electricity requires
expanded generation capacity and distribution networks, aswell as access to more efficient and affordable appliances,with a focus on poor, remote communities. Clean cooking

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7. Transforming economic, financial and productive systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability

and universal access to electricity improve health and reduces greenhouse gas emissions if traditional fuels are replaced by electricity (especially if it is generated renewably) or
natural gas.
It is possible to transform the energy system to provide
clean and affordable energy for all. Analyses show thatenergy efficiency and sufficiency, increasing the share of renewable energy, and electrification all play a key role in providing
access to modern energy services.47 Today’s reliable, affordable and resilient energy options are driving a new paradigm ofheterogeneity. Distributed solutions today offer increasinglycompelling economics for those without access to traditionalenergy carriers, suggesting a fundamental reconsideration of
infrastructure policies, energy access solutions and economics that does not rely on uniform – or old and outdated –assumptions about energy systems and embraces a portfolioof solutions versus singular approaches.
Transforming the energy system is key to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Key components of a strategy totransform the energy system include mitigating energy
demand, decarbonization of the power system, further electrification of energy supply and phasing out fossil fuel use inother sectors. Mitigating energy demand (either by efficiency
improvements or changes in human activity) is essential. It
not only leads to direct emission reductions, but it also limits
the volume of energy supply, which reduces the environmental impacts associated with energy supply beyond those ofclimate change.
Falling costs for the generation of renewable energy andenergy storage are bringing higher mitigation targets withinreach. In the last decades, the cost of photovoltaic solar
cells, wind turbines and batteries has fallen significantly. As
a result, in some cases renewable electricity is as cheap togenerate as fossil-fuel based alternatives. This development
has resulted in rapid growth of renewable energy capacity, atrend that can help create a net-zero power system, althoughfurther developments to overcome system integration issues
are needed.48
Smaller-scale renewable-based energy systems are
becoming increasingly economically attractive. Small-scale systems offer rapid scalability and applicability to serve
growing energy demands. They can power critical services
such as communications, lighting, and water pumping andpurification, enabling healthier, productive lives, better education and reduced child labour. Utility-scale variable renewablesystems offer the potential to substantially reduce local air
pollution, drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, and pro-124

vide reliable energy at low cost. Application of the appropriate
mix of these heterogeneous energy systems offers developing countries another opportunity for leapfrogging. Much ascell phones and wireless communications have transformed
communications in developing countries, distributed, affordable, and clean energy systems offer a compelling opportunity
to leapfrog traditional energy paradigms.49
Achieving a sustainable energy system will require transformative change in the underlying drivers that determine
investment decisions and behaviour. The technologicalchanges discussed above will only be implemented if the underlying drivers of day-to-day decisions are changed. This caninvolve policies like carbon pricing and legislation, but alsosocial and behaviour change, for instance in terms of mobility
patterns. Governments must develop laws and policies thatenable greater public and private investments in generationand distribution, while also encouraging more responsibleenergy consumption. Government policy and incentives can
speed the phase-out of fossil fuels in power generation andtransportation, including by supporting the development of
renewable energy storage and electric vehicles. Large-scale renewable energy installations on land, watercourses andin the ocean require careful planning to avoid or minimize
adverse effects.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

1

TWI2050 2020

2

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, 40

3

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

4

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, C2, 23

5Ouyang et al. 2020

6Brundtland Commission 1987

7

Arrow et al. 20128

UN University and UNEP 2012, Inclusive Wealth Report 20129UN University and UNEP 2014, Inclusive Wealth Report 201410

NEP 2018, Inclusive Wealth Report 2018

11

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, B5

7Transforming economic, financial and productive
systems can lead and power the shift to sustainability

12

IPBES 2019b, GA, 6

13

GSDR 2019, 4.2

14

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.4.1.1

15

TWI 2050 2020

16

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 17

17

TWI 2050 2019, 5

18IPCC 2018a, SR 1.5, 2.5.2.2

19

CBD 2020b, GBO-5, Target 3

20

CBD 2020b, GBO-5, Target 20

21

Mudaliar and Dithrich 201922

Brundtland Commission 1987

23

IPCC 2019b, SRCCL SPM, Figure SPM.3

24

IPBES 2019b, GA, 3.3.2.1

25

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.3, 3.6.1

26

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.4.2, 3.6.1, 3.7.2

27

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4

28

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2.4

29

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2.4

30

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2.1, 5.4.2.1

31

IPBES 2016a, Pollinators Assessment, SPM, C

32

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 6.3.6

33

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.4.3, 7.4.6, 7.5.6, 7.4.8, 7.5.6, 7.6.3

34

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 3.8.5

35

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2.4

36

UN 2016, World Ocean Assessment I, Summary Part V.C

37

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.4.1

38

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2.4, 6.3.4

39

IPBES 2019b, GA, 6.3.4

40

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 4.9.7

41

IPCC 2018b, SR 1.5 SPM, C.2.6

42

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21.3.3

43

IEA 2020

44

HEI 2020

45

HEI 2020

46

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 23.3.2

47

TWI 2050 2020, Box 1

48

IEA 2020, World Energy Outlook49

TWI 2050 2020, 2.3

125Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

8
Keeping the planet healthy is key
to providing health and well-being for all

People‘s health and well-being are strongly influenced by environmental factors. This section identifies actions that can betaken to reverse environmental declines that threaten humanhealth. It also examines the role of environmental factors
and natural resources in promoting peaceful societies before
addressing how making cities more sustainable can promote
human well-being.

8.1 Reversing environmental decline reduces threats
to human health and well-being
The ensemble of environmental issues that threaten
human health and exacerbate inequalities within and between countries must be addressed. Policies and technologies are needed to limit the impacts on human health fromclimate change (e.g. vector- and water-borne diseases, heatstress mortality, extreme weather events, less nutritious
foods), air pollution (e.g. cardio-vascular and respiratory
diseases), loss of biodiversity and illegal wildlife trade (e.g.
zoonotic and vector-borne diseases), water pollution (e.g.
diarrhoea and cholera), and exposure to chemicals (e.g. poisoning from mercury, lead and pesticides). The policies andtechnologies required are addressed in more detail below.
Substantial improvements in global human health andwell-being (SDG 3) can be achieved through transformative changes. They include a shift to sustainable land
management and environmental stewardship. A transformation of energy and transport systems to create a
low-carbon economy promises large benefits for humanhealth, including through reduced pollution (SDG 7). Transformative changes focus action on high-level determinantsof the health of people and the environment as well as thedrivers of environmental change. A shift to sustainable
land management is essential to safeguard human healthand nutrition as well as livelihoods and other componentsof well-being. Reduced environmental impacts, which
can be achieved through innovative technology, policy or
institutional and cultural changes, are required to maintainthe valuable ecosystem services upon which human lives

depend (SDG 12).1,2 Eliminating the use of fossil fuels cansignificantly reduce outdoor air pollution, which is projected
to contribute annually to 4.5 million premature deaths by
2040 and 7 million premature deaths by 2050, 3 while also
reducing the adverse health impacts from human-induced
climate change (SDG 13). Access to clean and modern
energy can reduce mortality and morbidity among the about 3.8 billion people who still rely on solid fuels for heating
and cooking (see Section 7.3).
New forms of governance and cooperation that areinclusive and participatory can generate sustainableimprovements in the health of people and nature. Improved coordination and collaboration between governments,
individuals, civil society, the private sector and scientists canbreak cycles of intergenerational poverty and inequality byemphasizing the value of investing in the well-being of people (SDGs 11, 16 and 17). Such new forms of governance andcooperation are needed to provide better education, healthcare, nutrition, water and sanitation, and energy access,which are all critical to maintaining healthy individuals.4 An
example is cooperation between herders, health officials,
human and veterinary doctors, ecologists and anthropologists in the management of zoonotic diseases.5 Addressing
inequalities and poverty can also help to achieve long-term
environmental sustainability with benefits for health.6
Preventing environmental degradation saves lives. Environmental stewardship is key to a preventative approachto health care, which is in turn key for long-term health outcomes. A preventative approach can be achieved throughintersectoral approaches, local community-based interventions, judicious legal and policy frameworks, rapid detection
programmes, adequate financial resource allocation andready-to-use rapid-response intervention plans. Large-scale approaches based on multidisciplinary efforts, such as
One Health, encompass the opportunities and challenges
pertaining to the interconnections of the human-animalenvironment interface.7 The primary aim is optimal healthoutcomes for all three sectors: human health, animal health127

8 Keeping the planet healthy is key to providing health and well-being for all

and environment health. Through the surveillance of “hotspots” for emerging diseases by considering behaviours,
practices, and biological and ecological factors, successful
detection, management and control of emerging infectious
diseases, such as zoonoses, is possible. This must happen
at a local level for best results. 8 By protecting the environment and increasing understanding of risks of emerging
infectious diseases, countries will be better equipped toprevent, prepare for, and respond to (the threat of) an outbreak (see Box 8.1).9
Box 8.1 Avoiding pandemics and the transition to asustainable world
The COVID-19 pandemic, which was still unfolding at thetime of the completion of this report, illustrates why thetransformation to a sustainable future needs to be accelerated. Science plays a pivotal role in informing policies
that can drive this transformation, and a key area thatneeds to be better understood is the interaction between
society and nature.
The emergence of new infectious diseases in humans,
animals and plants can be exacerbated by human activities. Activities that contribute to ecological degradation
can increase the risk of zoonotic-origin disease fromwildlife through increased human contact with pathogens and changes in pathogen ecology. These activities
include climate change, land-use change and fragmentation, agricultural intensification, deforestation, and legal
and illegal commercial wildlife trade. In particular, thecreation of new habitat edges at the interfaces between
humans and wildlife increases the risk of pathogens
spilling over from their wildlife hosts into human populations and their livestock.10
The risk of zoonotic-origin epidemics and pandemics
can be reduced by managing such human activities andby applying a holistic One Health approach.11,12,13
A One Health approach recognizes how human, animal,
plant and environmental health are intrinsically connected and profoundly influenced by human activities.
COVID-19 has delivered a shock to humanity that could
spark a paradigm shift towards a healthier and moresustainable future. Governments around the world areinvesting trillions of US dollars to catalyse economic
recovery. This is an opportunity to build back better by
ensuring that the social and economic measures put
in place by countries to emerge from the crisis aim at
moving away from unsustainable practices and accele-

128

rating the transformation towards the implementation of
all the SDGs.
SDG 17 calls for “Partnerships for the Goals,” to ensure that all SDGs are implemented with science-based
decision-making, sound governance and a sense of
responsibility of individuals. To achieve transformation,society must overcome sectoral silos, entrenched power,
and economic interests, eliminate harmful drivers andperverse incentives, while promoting resilience andadaptation. There is a need for cooperative, multilateraland engaged democratic action at all levels of society,in every country, and at the international level. As partof this effort, promoting and operationalizing the One
Health approach is paramount to secure human healthin this changed world, including by preventing andimproving the response to future pandemics. COVID-19
has shown the exorbitant cost of inaction and provides
a critical learning opportunity. Transformative change
towards preventing pandemics needs to occur now.
Preparedness, including via policies for reducing risks of
disease emergence such as from land use and wildlife
trade, closing of critical knowledge gaps, and engaging
all sectors of society, is essential.14

8.2 Promoting peaceful societies is key to reducing
environmental degradation
Conflicts represent a major impediment to the transformation
to sustainability. Conflicts can destabilize social systems withadverse environmental impacts, which in turn may cause oraffect other conflicts. Those conflicts undermine governance,in turn generating further shifts in threats to ecosystems in a
harmful socio-ecological feedback loop. For instance, urban
development challenges, particularly in the Global South, thatare difficult even in peacetime, are much more complex andproblematic in conflict or post-conflict settings.15,16
Resolving conflict over natural resources requires understanding of the values of local stakeholders. At the
local and regional levels, when there are conflicts overnatural resources, it is important to adopt approaches andmethods to understand the underlying values of different
stakeholders and the social-cultural contexts in which they
operate. To understand conflicting values, it is important
to work in local contexts because cultural, ecological,
economic and social values are intertwined, and priorities
may vary greatly in different geographical regions. Thisputs emphasis on cultural significance rather than culturalvalues and emphasizes how people establish significant
meaning around components of nature.17

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

8.1. Pathogen spillover events
Pathways of pathogens

BIOSPHERE

Habitat destruction and encroach
ment leads to changes in:• Reservoir host diversity,
distribution and density

INTERFACE

Increasing wildlife – human –livestock interfaces lead toincreased:• Contact rates• Prevalence and severity of
infection in reservoir hosts• Opportunities for novel
pathogen evolution• Pathogen shedding rate

• Wildlife displacement• Vector distribution diversity,
survival and biting rates• Human contact with pathogens(such as through trapping,wood collection and other uses)• Risks of spreading pathogens
rapidly over long distances
through transport
infrastructures

URBAN AREAS

Increases in wildlife value tradechain and markets leads to:• Increased wildlife use,butchering, consumption andtrade• Increased pathogen contact• Regional and global spreadthrough human travel andtransportation of, wildlife,
livestock and products• Increased exotic pet trade

Figure 8.1: Possible pathogen spillover events in the wildlife – human – livestock interfaces.

Stakeholder involvement is central to lessening conflicts
over climate change adaptation. Stakeholder involvement
in decision-making, including community-based approaches, can reduce the risk of conflict over how to adapt to
the impact of climate change. For instance, stakeholder
involvement reduces informational and normative uncertainty; helps to build consensus on criteria for monitoringand evaluation; can empower stakeholders to influence

adaptation and take appropriate actions themselves by
sharing knowledge and responsibility in participatory
processes; can reduce conflicts and identify synergies
between adaptation activities of various stakeholders, thus
improving overall chances of success; and can improve thelikely fairness, social justice, and legitimacy of adaptation
decisions and actions by addressing the concerns of all
relevant stakeholders.18,19

129

8 Keeping the planet healthy is key to providing health and well-being for all

Participatory approaches to spatial planning can lessen
conflicts over resources. At the regional level, participatory
approaches to spatial planning and zoning, including land-use
planning, water use planning, ecosystem modelling, marine
spatial planning, integrated coastal zone management, andintegrated watershed management can lessen the conflicts between economic actors competing for resources.20
Measures to prevent and reduce conflict include supporting
co-management regimes for collaborative water management, fostering equity between water users (while maintaining minimum flows for aquatic ecosystems) and promoting
transparency and access to information.21
Multilateral agreements addressing transboundary issues
are key to protecting the global commons. At the international level, multilateral agreements addressing transboundary
issues are key to the protection of the global commons, andadaptive governance involving a wide range of institutions
and stakeholders can help ensure their sustainable management. Building upon and enhancing existing international
agreements can further strengthen the protection of global
commons and help establish partnerships for solving conflicts and for the sustainable management of commons.22

8.3 Making cities and communities sustainable iscritical
Rapid urbanization makes the design of environmentally andsocially sustainable cities critical. The share of people living
in urban areas is projected to increase from 54 per cent in2015 to 78 per cent in 2050. Around 90 per cent of population
growth in cities is projected to take place in low-income countries, mainly in small and medium-sized cities in Sub-SaharanAfrica and South Asia (see Section 2.3.1). The expansion of
the world’s urban areas in the next two to three decades poseschallenges and represents opportunities to plan and design
sustainable cities.23,24,25 In rapidly growing and urbanizing
regions, climate mitigation strategies based on urban design,
spatial planning and efficient infrastructure can avoid the lockin of high emission patterns.26,27 In industrialized countries withcities characterized by urban sprawl, it is crucial to promote
more intensive and smarter use of space and regenerationof city centres.28 Urban systems transitions require deep andfar-reaching solutions, significant upscaling of investments29
and institutional capacity development.30 Integrated city-specific and landscape-level planning, nature-based solutions andresponsible production and consumption are key solutions.31
There are many actions and pathways available for building
sustainable cities. Numerous approaches and technologies
that address critical human needs while conserving and res-130

toring nature and ecosystem services have been developed.
These include: engaging in sustainable urban planning; encouraging densification for compact communities, especiallyin sprawling cities; regional planning to mainstream biodiversity, nature and ecological restoration; promoting sustainable production and consumption; promoting nature-based
solutions; promoting, developing, safeguarding or retrofittingwith soft infrastructure for water management while improving hard infrastructure to address biodiversity outcomes; 32,33
promoting ecosystem-based adaptation within communities;
maintaining and designing for ecological connectivity within
urban spaces; increasing urban green spaces and improving
access to them; increasing access to urban services for
low-income communities; and promoting urban agriculture toincrease local food supply.34,35
Effective governance, policy alignment, strong capacities
and financing are key for urban climate adaptation.
Effective multilevel governance, the alignment of policies andincentives, strengthened local government and community
adaptation capacity, synergies with the private sector andappropriate financing and institutional development are vitalto cities’ ability to adapt to climate change. Enhancing the capacity of low-income groups and vulnerable communities andtheir partnerships with local governments can be an effective
urban climate adaptation strategy. Examples of adaptation
mechanisms include large-scale public-private risk reduction
initiatives, economic diversification and government insurance for the non-diversifiable portion of risk. In some locations,especially at the upper end of projected climate changes,
responses could also require transformative changes such as
managed retreat.36,37
Stakeholder engagement, participatory and integrativeplanning, alternative business models and incentives forurban conservation are key to creating sustainable cities
and communities. Key means for implementing sustainable
cities and communities include stakeholder engagement
and participatory and integrative planning, which can enable
rapid, systemic transitions and resilience in communities.38,39
Encouraging alternative business models and incentives forurban conservation are also important.40 Sustainable solutions at urban and city scale are most effective when alignedwith wider economic and sustainable development, and whenlocal and regional governments and decision makers aresupported by national governments and effective multilevelgovernance.41,42 Shifts toward sustainability in urban areas are
expected to be most effective when policy instruments arebundled; successful strategies involve packages of mutually
reinforcing policies.43,44

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

1

GSDR 2019, Box 1-8

2

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 8

3

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 21

4

GSDR 2019, 2.5.2

5

GSDR 2019, 3.3.1

6

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5

7

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, Box 6.1

8

UNEP 2016, Frontiers

9

FAO, WHO, OiE 2019, 5

10

IPBES 2020, ES

11

CBD 2018

12

UNEP 2020c, IV

13

IPBES 2020, 5

14

IPBES 2020, 5

15

GSDR 2019, 1.2.1

16

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 7.6

17

IPBES 2019b, GA, 4.4.1.1.2

18

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 4.4.1, Cross-Chapter Box 9, Box 4.3

19

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, 6, 6.1.2.1, 6.4.4.3, 6.3.2.2, 6.3.5.1, 6.4.5

20

WRI 2019, 23, 303

21

IPBES 2019b, GA, 4.17, 4.7.1

22

GSDR 2019, 2.10

23

IPCC 2014f, AR5 WGIII SPM, 12.2, 12.3, 12.4, 12.8

24

IRP 2018, 3.1

25

UNEP 2019a, GEO-6, 2.4.4

26

IPCC 2014c, SYR, 4.5

27

IPBES 2019b, GA, 5.3.2

28

IRP 2018, 3.3.4, 6.2

29

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5

30

IPCC 2014f, AR5 WGIII SPM, 4.2.5

31

IPBES 2019a, GA, SPM, 39

32

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Table 1

33

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, A6.5

34

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Table 1

35

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, Table TS.1, Cross Chapter box 4, 5.6.5

36

IPCC 2014d, AR5 WGII SPM, B-2, 8.3–8.4, 24.4, 24.5, 26.8, Box 25-937

IPCC 2014c, AR5 SYR, 4.5

38

IPCC 2014a, AR5 SYR SPM, 6.3.5.3, 4.5

39

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 3.5, 4.4, 4.5

40

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, Table 1, 6.3.2.1

41

IPCC 2018a, SR1.5, 4.3.2, 4.3.3, 4.4.1, 4.4.2

42

IPCC 2014c, AR5 SYR, 4.5

43

IPCC 2014f, AR5 WGIII SPM, 8.4, 12.3, 12.4, 12.5, 12.6

44

IPCC 2019c, SRCCL, TS.7, 7.3.1, 7.4.7, 7.4.8, 7.5.6, Cross-Chapter Box 10

131Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

9
All actors have a part to play in transforming
humankind‘s relationship with nature

All actors have a role to play in the transformations needed to achieve a sustainable world. This section identifies
the actions that different actors can take, individually andcollectively.
At the heart of the transformative changes needed fora sustainable future are informed, fair and participatory
governance systems, where all relevant stakeholders
have a voice. Polycentric systems of governance allow for
information flow as well as collaborative planning, participation and coordination. Because governance systems
are not merely the product of governments but rather ofall societal actors, realizing governance systems suited forsustainability will require coordination amongst many different actors, including those who frequently don’t cooperate.
This will mean a move towards a new norm of transcending boundaries of responsibility and authority (between
individuals as well as between and within organizations,
agencies and sectors) in pursuit of the common objectiveof transformative change for vibrant, sustainable futures.1,2
The post COVID-19 era may provide an opportunity forstimulating such collaboration.
All actors have individual, complementary and nested
roles to play in bringing about cross-sectoral and economy-wide transformative change with immediate and longterm impact (table 9.1). Governments initiate and lead inintergovernmental cooperation, policies and legislation thattransform society and the economy. Such transformations
enable the private sector, financial institutions, non-governmental organizations, scientific and educational institutions
and media, as well as individuals, households and civilsociety groups, to initiate and lead transformations in their
domains. Table 9.1 lists potential actions sector by sector
for a range of actors that can bring about transformative change toward sustainability. This structure has beenchosen so that each actor can see the actions they shouldtake, recognizing that actions within one sector can havesynergistic effects on other sectors, and that some actions
are relevant to more than one sector.

Knowledge-based cooperation that harnesses human,societal and technological ingenuity will unveil new possibilities and opportunities in the transformation to a sustainable future. Multiple actors will need to cooperate withineach transformation, for example in further developing theframework for using inclusive wealth in decision-making, orin developing policies and strategies to integrate biodiversity
conservation and restoration into the many uses of terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems (see Sections 6 and
7). There are also a number of actions that are not specificto a single sector, so that many of the actors (in particulargovernments and the private sector) need to consider them,in addition to the sector-specific actions listed in table 9.1 foreach actor. These general actions include: transforming decision-making to be pre-emptive, inclusive, integrated, robust
to uncertainty and executable; and eliminating the negativeenvironmental effects of production, resource extraction,
construction and other activities by transforming supply
chains and development processes (see Sections 5, 6 and 7).
The media and social networks play a critical role in informing
the public about the interconnected nature of pressing issues
and the role that environmental degradation plays in exacerbating societal issues, thus stimulating public awareness andpolitical support for meaningful solutions. The media canalso hold governments and businesses to account, comparing promises with actions taken. Social networks can be
designed and managed to showcase reasonable dissent andprosocial norms and expose false claims. Cooperation and innovation on this scale by all actors can generate new possibilities and opportunities for social and economic developmentin the transformation to a sustainable future.

133

9 All actors have a part to play in transforming humankind‘s relationship with nature

Table 9.1 Actors and actions to transform humankind‘s relationship with nature
ActorsExamples of key actions to be taken

Governments –legislature, judicial
and executive
branches at national,
subnational andlocal level

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Establish mechanisms and approaches for cross-sectoral coordinationof assessments, policies, legislation, enforcement and financing, including throughintegrated approaches such as a One Health policy for human and animal health andthe environment.
b) Climate change Adopt plans and goals consistent with the Paris Agreement fortransitioning to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, cutting emissions by 45 percent by 2030 compared with 2010. Put a price on carbon, phase out fossil fuel finance andend fossil fuel subsidies, stop building new coal power plants and advance adaptation andresilience to climate change.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop policies and strategies to integratebiodiversity conservation and restoration into the many uses of terrestrial, freshwaterand marine ecosystems, as well as expanding and improving protected areas. Drasticallyreduce deforestation and systematically restore forests and other ecosystems as the
single largest nature-based opportunity for climate mitigation.
d) Health and well-being Recognize a healthy environment as a basic human right and provide
health and well-being for all. Comply with obligations under the chemicals conventions.
Implement and enforce chemicals and waste policies, adopt reuse and recycling standards
and develop strategies to meet WHO guidelines for air pollutants. Invest in communitybased family planning and assist women to access financing and education.
e) Cities and settlements Design and develop socially and environmentally sustainable cities
and settlements by embracing nature-based solutions, promoting enhanced access toservices such as clean water and energy and public transport, and making infrastructure
and buildings sustainable.
2.
a)

b)

c)

134

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift
toward sustainability
Accounting for nature Reform national economic, financial, planning and tax systems
to include natural capital (using inclusive wealth as a measure of sustainable economic
performance) and environmental costs (by internalizing externalities) in decision-making.
Integrate the goals of carbon neutrality, land degradation neutrality and conservation of
biodiversity into all economic and fiscal policies and decisions.
Subsidies and markets Reform subsidies to eliminate harmful environmental and social
effects including by ending fossil fuel subsidies. Establish carbon taxes, carbon pricing,markets for carbon trading, and schemes for offsetting of nature and payments for ecosystemservices. Regulate to establish a level playing field in national and international markets.
Investments Invest in economic activities, research and development – nationally andthrough international development assistance and transfer of technology – that enhance
the stock of natural assets and advance the shift towards sustainability and a low-carbon
economy. Provide funding for developing countries to meet their obligations under themultilateral environmental agreements and SDGs.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Governments –legislature, judicial
and executive
branches at national,
subnational and local
level(continued)

3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Develop and implement policies to provide sustainable access to affordable andnutritious food, clean energy and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Integrate sustainable production and management of food and water
within terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. Make agriculture, forestry, fisheries,
aquaculture and resource extraction biodiversity-positive. Promote sustainable agriculturalintensification, agroecological practices and conservation of genetic resources. Stop
overfishing. Promote healthy diets and reductions in food and water waste. Restrict
groundwater extraction and advance appropriate water pricing and the use of agricultural,
forestry and fisheries certification standards.
c) Energy Develop energy efficiency regulations, renewable energy targets, sustainablebioenergy strategies and infrastructure for electric vehicles.

Intergovernmentalorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Facilitate international cooperation in science-policy interfaces and advanceUN system-wide efforts including by promoting synergies among scientific assessments
and multilateral environmental agreements through norms, implementation, financing,
capacity-building and technological cooperation.
b) Climate change Build a global coalition for carbon neutrality consistent with the Paris
Agreement for transitioning to net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and cutting
emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010. Advance adaptation, especially inleast developed countries.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Advance international cooperation on
addressing the biodiversity emergency, including through relevant multilateral environmental
agreements. Promote ambitious post-2020 targets and actions for biodiversity and land
neutrality. Support the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration focused on preventing,halting and reversing the degradation of forests, land and other ecosystems worldwide.
Make own international activities and operations sustainable.
d) Health and well-being Facilitate international cooperation on protecting the health of theplanet in order to provide health and well-being for all. Advance a One Health approach andstrategies to meet WHO guidelines for air pollutants. Continue to promote the coordination andimplementation of existing chemicals conventions and strengthen the science-policy interface
for chemicals and waste. Implement monitoring and surveillance and early warning systems.
e) Cities and settlements Promote sustainable urban planning, nature-based solutions forclimate and biodiversity in urban areas, retrofitting of blue and green infrastructure, andaccess to urban services including clean energy and water.
2.
a)Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift
toward sustainability
Accounting for nature Facilitate international cooperation on frameworks for natural
capital accounting, reform of measures and models of economic growth including throughthe use of natural capital and inclusive wealth in decision-making, and reform of tradesystems to make them more fair and environmentally sustainable.

135

9 All actors have a part to play in transforming humankind‘s relationship with nature

Intergovernmentalorganizations(continued)b) Subsidies and markets Promote a circular economy, elimination of environmentally
damaging fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies, harmonization of environmental taxes
such as carbon taxes, cooperation on carbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature andpayments for ecosystem services. Support private sector initiatives to create sustainableglobal supply chains.
c) Investments Facilitate cooperation on international development assistance, capacitybuilding and transfer of technology that help enhance the stock of natural assets in recipient
countries and advance their shift towards sustainability and a low-carbon economy.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Facilitate international research and cooperation on improving access to affordable
and nutritious food, clean energy and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Promote and facilitate sustainable policies, technologies and management
within agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy systems, including through sustainablefisheries, agricultural intensification, agroecological practices and multifunctionallandscapes. Advance the use of agricultural, forestry, aquaculture and fisheriescertification standards and labelling. Encourage healthy diets, and reductions in food andwater waste. Support cooperation on water management including through freshwater
treaties and assist the development of agreements for the protection of genetic resources
for agriculture and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use.
c) Energy Support the transition to a low-carbon economy, both in the production anduse of energy.

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Financialorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Finance international and cross-sectoral cooperation, capacity-building andtechnological cooperation that address environmental challenges and human well-being.
Disclose climate-related financial risk, and the use of natural resources and the impact of these
activities on the environment. Align operations with the net-zero carbon emissions objective
and sustainability principles.
b) Climate change Multilateral, regional and national development institutions as well as privatebanks should commit to align their lending to the global net-zero carbon emissions objective.
Asset owners and managers should decarbonize their portfolios and join initiatives including
the Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance and the Net-Zero Asset Owners
Alliance. Multilateral and national development banks should commit to increase the shareof adaptation and resilience finance to at least 50 per cent of their climate finance to support
activities such as early warning systems, and climate-resilient infrastructure and agriculture.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop and promote innovative financing
mechanisms for the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, including through payments
for ecosystem services. Support the expansion and better management of protected areas
and other effective area-based conservation measures and activities aligned with the UN
Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
d) Health and well-being Support One Health and disease prevention initiatives and strategies
to meet WHO guidelines for air pollutants. Support health research, especially in developing
countries. Provide financing for improved waste management.
e) Cities and settlements Develop and promote innovative financing for sustainable infrastructure.
Support sustainable urban planning and investments in low-carbon infrastructure, including
mass transportation, congestion charges, nature-based solutions and green and blue spaces.
2.

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Promote and use natural capital accounting and inclusive wealth indecision-making, including lending and grant-making policies. Promote the internalization of
externalities in prices and a circular economy.
b) Subsidies and markets Promote the elimination of environmentally harmful subsidies. Facilitatecarbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature and payments for ecosystem services. Develop
environmental and social risk registers for all financial transactions.
c) Investments Facilitate a major shift away from investments in environmentally unsustainable
activities and toward economic activities that enhance the stock of natural assets. Fund thetransition to a circular, green and low-carbon economy. Funding should flow to resilience,
adaptation and just transition programmes. Fund research and development nationally andthrough international development assistance.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Fund programmes that improve access to affordable and nutritious food, clean energy
and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Finance sustainable intensification and ecological intensification of agriculture,and sustainable fisheries, and stop supporting unsustainable activities such as deforestation.
Advance the use of agricultural, forestry, aquaculture and fisheries certification standards andlabelling and encourage healthy diets, and reductions in food, water and energy waste. Support
the development and use of certification standards for agriculture, fishing, aquaculture, forestry
and water use.
c) Energy Finance low-carbon energy production and use, and stop supporting unsustainable
activities, such as fossil fuel energy.

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Private sector

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Help develop and comply with strong environmental legislation that levels theplaying field so that firms cannot gain competitive advantage by externalizing costs thatare then borne by society. Implement certified and traceable sustainable practices along
the complete supply chain. Disclose climate-related financial risk, use of natural resources
and the impact of activities on the environment. Practise corporate social responsibility.
b) Climate change Adjust business models and align them with the global net-zero carbon
emissions objective and sustainability practices in all sectors, including in shipping andaviation. Investors should demand information from companies on the resilience of thosemodels.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Develop and promote innovative publicprivate partnerships for financing and engaging in the conservation and restoration of
biodiversity, including through the use of payments for ecosystem services. Implement
sustainable land management practices for agriculture and forestry. Engage intransformative landscape governance networks. Develop sustainable global supply chainsfor deforestation-free agricultural commodities.
d) Health and well-being Comply with environmental standards to protect human health.
Move industries to a sustainable and circular business model by reducing waste andresource use and encouraging sharing, reuse and recycling. Promote and support plastic
free/environmentally friendly packaging. Conduct transparent risk assessments of the
impact of chemicals on the environment and human health. Increase the use of green
chemistry, invest in waste recycling and set high standards for waste disposal.
e) Cities and settlements Engage with and support government in sustainable urban
planning, public transport, energy-efficient buildings and partnerships to enhance accessto urban services.
2.

Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Use natural capital in decision-making and develop environmental
and social risk registers for all projects and investments.
b) Subsidies and markets Engage in carbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature, andpayments for ecosystem services. Promote behaviour change in customers. Further
develop and implement social and environmental standards for corporate operations.
c) Investments Shift investments and operations away from unsustainable industries, suchas fossil fuels. Invest in innovation, environmentally sound technologies and move towards
a circular economy.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Develop and invest in systems to produce, store and distribute affordable andclean power and water and healthy food to all.
b) Food and water Provide modern food storage and distribution services that minimize
waste. Promote the development and use of food certification standards and productlabelling. Invest in sustainable intensification in agriculture, fisheries and aquaculture.
Develop climate-resilient crops and livestock breeds as well as alternatives to harmful
agricultural inputs, including to fertilizers and pesticides.
c) Energy Develop, invest in and use low-carbon energy technologies and distribution
networks.

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Non-governmentalorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Support education, promote youth movements and engage communities
in citizen science. Participate in community-led initiatives to promote sustainableconsumption and production. Help hold societal actors accountable for their environmental
promises, commitments and responsibilities. Support the training of the next generationof leaders.
b) Climate change Promote and align activities and operations with the net-zero carbon
emissions objective. Implement mitigation, adaptation and resilience programmes andprojects, including through nature-based solutions.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Support and implement efforts forthe conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity. Develop localregional-national conservation programmes. Participate in community-led initiatives toconserve nature. Engage in transformative landscape governance networks. Support
the development and management of protected areas and other effective area-based
conservation measures.
d) Health and well-being Raise awareness on chemical safety and take a greater rolein the SAICM chemicals management processes. Work with communities and local
municipalities for the safe disposal of waste.
e) Cities and settlements Campaign for and support sustainable urban planning andimproved access to urban services and community initiatives, especially for the urban
poor.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Promote the use of natural capital accounting, and initiatives for thetransformation to a sustainable and circular economy.
b) Subsidies and markets Engage in carbon trading, schemes for offsetting of natureand payment for ecosystem services Promote behavioural change in consumption andproduction, including among their own members and wider society.
c) Investments Advocate for policies and regulations that promote investment in sustainable
development.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Advocate for and implement programmes and projects for improved access toaffordable and nutritious food, clean energy and safe water for all.
b) Food and water Develop and implement initiatives for the ecological intensification andsustainable use of multifunctional landscapes. Promote dietary transitions and reductions
in food, water and energy waste. Assist in improving certification standards.
c) Energy Participate in community-led initiatives to shift toward cleaner fuels, increaseenergy-efficiency, conserve energy and develop sustainable bioenergy strategies.

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9 All actors have a part to play in transforming humankind‘s relationship with nature

Individuals,
households,
civil society andyouth groups, andindigenous peoples
and local communities

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Foster social norms and behaviours that embody sustainability principles
by exercising voting and civic rights and holding governments and the private sector
accountable for their actions. Review and comment on local and national policies. Engage
in initiatives that promote sustainable consumption. Engage in education and citizenscience initiatives.
b) Climate change Make climate-friendly everyday choices on travel and consumption that
contribute to the net-zero carbon emissions objective. Engage in local adaptation andresilience initiatives, including through nature-based solutions.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Engage in local and national conservation
and restoration efforts, transformative landscape governance networks and awarenesscampaigns to influence consumer behaviour.
d) Health and well-being Understand and promote the links between environment andhuman health. Participate in community-led clean-ups of waste in public spaces. Ensurematerials are recycled and waste is properly disposed of.
e) Cities and settlements Engage in participatory processes to advance sustainable urban
planning and initiatives to increase access to urban services, and promote nature-based
solutions and green and blue infrastructure.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Foster economic and financial transformations by supporting
initiatives to include environmental costs in the prices of goods and services.
b) Subsidies and markets Engage in carbon trading, schemes for offsetting nature, andpayments for ecosystem services. Support fair trade and companies with sustainableproduction models that provide services and products that foster societal well-being.
c) Investments Support shifts in investment towards those needed to achieve the SDGs, andaway from unsustainable industries, such as fossil fuels.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Support and engage in local production and distribution systems for healthy food,safe water and clean energy.
b) Food and water Consider what constitutes a healthy diet and also reduces environmental
damage. Adopt sustainable practices in community-based and small-scale foodproduction. Purchase sustainably produced food and reduce waste. Reduce wastingwater, and collect rainwater and use grey water.
c) Energy Support community-based energy production. Reduce energy consumption andchose clean energy when possible.

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Scientific andeducationalorganizations

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Develop analytical tools, including plausible futures models, using exploratory,target-seeking and policy-screening scenarios that account for the complex interlinkages
between environment and development. Further develop observational programs. Engage
in national and international scientific assessments. Develop environmental education
programs for all age groups. Raise public awareness through public engagements,
editorials, social media.
b) Climate change Assess the impact of climate change on socio-economic sectors, natureand human health at all scales. Assess the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of different
mitigation and adaptation policies and technologies.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Assess the impact of multiple drivers
on biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, and the efficacy and cost-effectiveness ofconservation and restoration activities, including nature-based solutions.
d) Health and well-being Promote education, information and awareness of One Healthapproaches. Assess interactions among environmental issues and their impacts on socioeconomic sectors and human health. Assess the implications of chemicals for humanhealth and the environment, and develop health surveillance and monitoring systems, andapproaches to prevent disease outbreaks, including pandemics. Assess the mental health
implications of green and blue infrastructure in urban environments.
e) Cities and settlements Support sustainable urban planning and development, including
the use of nature-based solutions. Promote education, information and awareness on
sustainable cities and settlements and their importance for human health.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Further develop the framework for natural capital accounting andthe relevant databases. Assess the costs and benefits of mitigating and adapting to climatechange, loss of biodiversity and ecosystem degradation, land degradation, and air andwater pollution at a range of spatial scales. Assess the implications of reforming measuresand models of economic growth. Promote education, information and awareness on
sustainable economic and financial systems.
b) Subsidies and markets Assess the environmental and distributional social impactsof reductions in harmful subsidies, and the reallocation of these resources to support
sustainable consumption and production.
c) Investments Assess the environmental and social impacts of switching investments fromunsustainable activities such as fossil fuels to sustainable activities.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Help develop and monitor systems and networks to produce and distribute cleanwater and energy and nutritional food. Support the development of certification processes.
b) Food and water Promote education, information and awareness on sustainability
within agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy systems. Assess the implications ofenvironmental degradation on agriculture and water resources. Develop temperature,
drought, pest and salinity resistant crops. Assess how to reduce the environmental
footprint of agriculture. Facilitate the conservation and sustainable use of genetic
resources. Develop water purification and desalination technologies.
c) Energy Develop low-carbon production and use technologies, and assess how to overcome
the barriers to market penetration of these technologies.

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Media andsocial networks

1. Address Earth’s environmental emergencies and human well-being togethera) Synergies Inform all actors about the relationships between environment and development
issues. Help hold societal actors accountable for their environmental promises,
commitments and responsibilities. Support campaigns for meaningful actions to addressenvironmental degradation. Counter disinformation and promote environmentally
responsible social norms.
b) Climate change Highlight the implications of climate change for people and nature, andthe opportunities for adaptation and mitigation.
c) Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation Highlight the importance of biodiversity
for human prosperity and well-being and the options for its conservation and restoration.
d) Health and well-being Spread understanding and awareness of One Health approaches.
Support campaigns for meaningful transformations in the health sector.
e) Cities and settlements Document the impact on people and nature of unsustainablesystems in urban areas and support campaigns for transformations in how cities andsettlements are planned and designed, including the supply of essential services.
2. Transform economic and financial systems so they lead and power the shift towardsustainabilitya) Accounting for nature Raise awareness of how current economic models and performancemeasures as well as the price of some goods and services fail to fully account for natural
capital and environmental costs, and how this skews investment toward unsustainable
activities. Support campaigns for meaningful transformations in economic and financial
systems.
b) Subsidies and markets Inform the public and other actors of the adverse consequencesof fossil fuel and agricultural subsidies that lead to environmental damage, and explore theimpact of redirecting the financing of subsidies to sustainable activities.
c) Investments Highlight government spending and private sector investments that are
unsustainable and those which are sustainable.
3.

Transform food, water and energy systems to meet growing human needs in an
equitable, resilient and environmentally friendly mannera) Access Highlight the inequitable access to safe and affordable food, clean water andclean energy, and ways to improve access.
b) Food and water Provide information and raise awareness of the need for more sustainable
practices in the agriculture-fisheries-forestry-water-energy systems. Support campaigns
for meaningful transformations in the agricultural, water and energy sectors. Provide
information on the health and environmental effects of different diets.
c) Energy Raise awareness of the benefits from and pathways for meaningful transformations in the energy sector.

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1

IPBES 2019a, GA SPM, D

2

GSDR 2019, 6.2

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Annex I:
Global environmental assessments used in this report

This report is an expert synthesis based on evidence from global environmental assessments. The analysis rests primarily
on key findings from a range of intergovernmental global environmental assessment reports, complemented with findings
from assessment reports from Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs) and UN bodies, as well as other reports
and, to a limited degree, additional high-impact peer-reviewed
literature and grey literature.

• The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessment reports:II

Intergovernmental global environmental assessments aredeveloped through processes involving Member States andexperts from around the world in the scoping, review andconsideration of each assessment, including line-by-line
consideration and approval of their Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs). The assessment reports that provided a coreevidence base for this report include:• Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Americas (2018)

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment reports:I• Special Report, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events andDisaster to Advance Climate Change adaptation (2012)• Assessment Report on Pollinators, Pollination and Food
Production (2016)• Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Africa (2018)• Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Asia and the Pacific (2018)• Regional Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Europe and Central Asia (2018)• Assessment Report on Land Degradation and Restoration(2018)• Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
Services (2019)• Synthesis Report, AR5 Synthesis Report: Climate Change
2014 (2014)

The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) assessment reports:III• Special Report, Global Warming of 1.5°C (2018)•

Global Environment Outlook-6 (GEO-6) (2019)IIhttps://www.ipbes.net/assessing-knowledge

III

https://www.unenvironment.org/global-environment-outlook/why-global-environment-outlook-matters/global• Special Report, Climate Change and Land (2019)• Special Report, The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing
Climate (2019)I

https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/

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Annex I: Global environmental assessments used in this report

Assessment reports prepared under the auspices ofMultilateral Environmental Agreements, United Nations
System entities and others are developed through a variety
of processes involving inputs from a range of contributors.
Depending on the circumstances, these processes may
include contributions by expert authors, advisors, reviewers,
staff and Member States. The broad range of assessment
reports referred to is presented in footnotes and in the listof references. Key reports include those prepared under the
auspices of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD); IV
Montreal Protocol (WMO/UNEP);V Ramsar Convention on
Wetlands;VI United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD);VII United Nations Environment Programme(UNEP) VIII (including the International Resource Panel IX andGlobal Chemicals Outlook X); United Nations General Assembly (including its Regular Process for Global Reporting andAssessment of the State of the Marine Environment, including
Socioeconomic Aspects XI); United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) (including its Global
Sustainable Development Report XII); Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO); International Energy
Agency (IEA); International Monetary Fund (IMF); United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP); World Bank; World
Health Organization (WHO) and other United Nations System
entities, regional bodies and non-governmental organizations.

IV

https://www.cbd.int/gbo/

Vhttps://ozone.unep.org/science/assessment/sap

VIhttps://www.global-wetland-outlook.ramsar.org/

VII

https://www.unccd.int/actions/global-land-outlook-glo

VIII https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/environment-under-review
IX

https://www.resourcepanel.org/

X

https://www.unenvironment.org/explore-topics/chemicals-waste/what-we-do/policy-and-governance/global-chemicals-outlook

XI

https://www.un.org/regularprocess/

XII

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/globalsdreport/

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Glossary

Adaptation
Adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment, including anticipatory and reactive adaptation, private and public adaptation, and autonomousand planned adaptation.; In human systems, the process ofadjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects inorder to moderate harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In
natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate
and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment
to expected climate.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
Anthropogenic activities removing CO2 from the atmosphere and durably storing it in geological, terrestrial, or ocean
reservoirs, or in products. It includes existing and potential
anthropogenic enhancement of biological or geochemicalsinks and direct air capture and storage but excludes natural
CO2 uptake not directly caused by human activities.
Carbon sequestration
The process of increasing the carbon content of a reservoir
other than the atmosphere.

Aerosol particles
A collection of airborne solid or liquid particles suspended
in air, with a typical size between a few nanometers to tensof micrometres (μm). Aerosol particles can reside in theatmosphere up to weeks. Aerosols may be of either natural or
anthropogenic origin.

Carbon stock
The quantity of carbon contained in a “pool”, meaning areservoir or system which has the capacity to accumulate orrelease carbon.

Billion109 (1 000 000 000).

Carbon tax
A levy on the carbon content of fossil fuels. Because virtually
all of the carbon in fossil fuels is ultimately emitted as CO2, acarbon tax is equivalent to an emission tax on CO2 emissions.

Bioenergy
Renewable energy produced by living organisms.; Energy
derived from any form of biomass such as recently livingorganisms or their metabolic by- products.
Biomass
Organic material above and below ground and in water, bothliving and dead, such as trees, crops, grasses, tree litter androots. In Section 2, used as the unit to measure ratios ofmammals on Earth in gigatons of carbon.
Bottom-up
Accumulating from the lowest level of a hierarchy or process
to the highest level.

Chikungunya
Chikungunya is a viral disease transmitted to humans by
infected mosquitoes. It causes fever and severe joint pain.
Other symptoms include muscle pain, headache, nausea,
fatigue and rash.
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
A group of chemicals containing chlorine, fluorine and carbon
atoms, highly volatile and of low toxicity, widely used in
the past as refrigerants, solvents, propellants and foaming
agents. Chlorofluorocarbons have both ozone depletion andglobal warming potential.

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Glossary

Circular economy
A circular economy is a systems-based approach to industrial
processes and economic activities that enables the resources
used to maintain their highest value for as long as possible.
Key considerations in implementing a circular economy are
reducing use, extending longevity, renewability, reusability,
reparability, replaceability, upgradability of resources andproducts.

Desertification
Land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas
resulting from various factors, including climatic variations
and human activities. It involves crossing thresholds beyond
which the underpinning ecosystem cannot restore itself but
requires ever-greater external resources for recovery.; When
individual land degradation processes, acting locally, combine
to affect large areas of drylands.

Climate change
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change definition
is “a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly
to human activity that alters the composition of the global
atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

Driver
The overarching socio-economic forces that exert pressureson the state of the environment.

Co-benefits
The positive effects that a policy or measure aimed at one
objective might have on other objectives, without yet evaluating the net effect on overall social welfare. Co-benefits,
also referred to as ancillary benefits, depend on, among otherthings, local circumstances and implementation practices.
Conservation
The protection, care, management and maintenance of ecosystems, habitats, wildlife species and populations, within or
outside of their natural environments, to safeguard the natural
conditions for their long-term permanence.
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Illness caused by the ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2’ (SARS-CoV-2), which was first identified amid
an outbreak of respiratory illness cases in East Asia, and firstreported to WHO on 31 December 2019. On 30 January 2020,
WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global health emergency and March 2020 a global pandemic.
Decarbonization
The process by which countries, individuals or other entities
aim to achieve zero fossil carbon existence. Typically refers
to a reduction of the carbon emissions associated withelectricity, industry and transport.
DengueAn infectious diseases caused by any one of four related viruses transmitted by mosquitoes. The dengue virus is a leading
cause of illness and death in the tropic and subtropics. As
many as 400 million people are infected yearly.

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Earth system
A complex social-environmental system consisting of interacting physical, chemical, biological and social components andprocesses. It determines the state and evolution of the planet
and life on it and the Earth ś interacting physical, chemicaland biological processes. The system consists of the land,
oceans, atmosphere, frozen water bodies, poles and livingorganisms including humans and their domestic species. It
includes the planet’s natural cycles and deep Earth processes(the carbon, water, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur and othercycles, and the energy balances).
Ecosystem
A dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism
communities and their non-living environment, interacting asa functional unit. Ecosystems may be small and simple, like
an isolated pond, or large and complex, like a specific tropicalrainforest or a coral reef in tropical seas. Ecosystems are
typically embedded in larger ecosystems.
Ecosystem degradation
A long-term reduction in an ecosystem’s structure, functionality,or capacity to provide benefits to people.
Ecosystem function (-ality)
The conditions and processes whereby an ecosystem
persists, maintains its integrity, and transforms materials
and energy. Ecosystem functions include such processes as
decomposition, primary and secondary production, nutrient
cycling and biogeochemistry, demography, migration andevolution.
Ecosystem restoration
The return of the structure, composition and function of an
ecosystem to some desired level, from a degraded state. The
desired level may be its inferred original or natural state.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Emerging infectious disease
Infections that have recently appeared within a population or
those whose incidence or geographic range is rapidly increasing or threatens to increase in the near future.
Emission pathway
The trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions over time; typically used to describe scenarios of future emissions during
the 21st century.
Environmental/material footprint
The effect that a person, entity of activity has on the environment. It can be measured, for example, as the quantity ofnatural resources that they use, the amount of harmful gasesthat they produce or the equivalent land area required toprovide those resources. In Figure 2.4, material footprint attributes all resources mobilized globally to the final consumer
according to country income.
Epipelagic
The uppermost part of the ocean that receives enough sunlight to allow photosynthesis, less than 200 meters.
EquityFairness of rights, distribution and access. Depending on context, this can refer to access to resources, services or power.
Exposure
The presence of people; livelihoods; species or ecosystems;
environmental functions, services, and resources; infrastructure or economic, social or cultural assets in places andsettings that could be adversely affected by a given stressor.
Feedback
A process in a system whereby a change in one part propagates through the system and ends up affecting the originating part, either by dampening the original change (negative
feedbacks) or amplifying or reinforcing it (positive feedbacks).
Feedbacks are responsible for system behaviors such as
non-linearity of change, equilibrium (or lack thereof) andtipping points.
Food security
Physical and economic access to food that meets people’s
dietary needs as well as their food preferences.
Food system
A set of activities and actors ranging from the production
to the consumption of food, including agriculture, foodtransformation, storage, distribution and waste disposal. It
encompasses food security and its components – availability,

access and utilization – and including the social and environmental outcomes of these activities.
Fossil fuelCoal, natural gas and petroleum products (such as oil) formed from the decayed bodies of animals and plants that diedmillions of years ago.
GenderGender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities and attributes
that a given society at a given time considers appropriate
for men and women. In addition to the social attributes andopportunities associated with being male and female and therelationships between women and men and girls and boys,
gender also refers to the relations between women and thosebetween men. These attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialization processes. They are context and time-specific andchangeable. Gender determines what is expected, allowed
and valued in a woman or a man in a given context. Genderis part of the broader socio-cultural context, as are otherimportant criteria for socio-cultural analysis including class,race, poverty level, ethnic group, sexual orientation, age, etc.
Global commons
Natural assets that are not owned by any particular person orentity, but are potentially used by all, such as the atmosphere,
he high seas, outer space and the Antarctic.
Global warming
Increase in the global mean near-surface air temperature,primarily caused by increasing concentrations of greenhousegases in the atmosphere.
Governance
The act, process, or power of governing for the organizationof society/ies. For example, there is governance through thestate, the market, or through civil society groups and localorganizations. Governance is exercised through institutions:laws, property-rights systems and forms of social organization.
Gross domestic product (GDP)The value of all final goods and services produced in a country in one year. GDP can be measured by adding up all of an
economy’s incomes (wages, interest, profits; and rents) or
expenditures (consumption, investment, government purchases) and net exports (exports minus imports).

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Glossary

Groundwater
Water that flows or seeps downward and saturates soil orrock, supplying springs and wells. The upper surface of thesaturated zone is called the water table.
Habitat
The natural home or environment of an animal, plant or otherorganism. It can also be used to refer terrestrial or aquaticareas distinguished by particular geographic, living and non-living features, entirely natural or semi-natural, in which someorganism exists.
HazardThe potential occurrence of a natural or human-induced physical event or trend or physical impact that may cause lossof life, injury, or other health impacts, as well as damage andloss to property, infrastructure, livelihoods, service provision,
ecosystems and environmental resources. In this report, theterm hazard usually refers to climate- related physical eventsor trends or their physical impacts.
Human health
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. It is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Human well-being
The extent to which individuals have the ability to live thekinds of lives they have reason to value; the opportunities
people have to pursue their aspirations. Basic components ofhuman well-being include: security, meeting material needs,
health and social relations.
Institutions
Regularized patterns of interaction by which society organizes itself: the rules, practices and conventions that structure
human interaction. The term is wide and encompassing, andcould be taken to include law, social relationships, property
rights and tenurial systems, norms, beliefs, customs andcodes of conduct as much as multilateral environmental
agreements, international conventions and financing mechanisms. Institutions could be formal (explicit, written, often having the sanction of the state) or informal (unwritten, implied,tacit, mutually agreed and accepted).
Invasive species
Introduced species that have spread beyond their area of
introduction, and which are frequently associated with negative impacts on the environment, human economy or humanhealth. Rarely, it can include native species that have recently
expanded their populations.

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Land degradation neutrality
A state whereby the amount and quality of land resources,
necessary to support ecosystem functions and services andenhance food security, remains stable or increases within
specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems.
Land degradation
A long-term loss of ecosystem function and services, causedby disturbances from which the system cannot recover
unaided.
Land use
The exploitation of land for various human purposes or
economic activities. Examples of land use categories include
agriculture, industrial use, transport and protected areas. At agiven moment, a given parcel of land has only one land cover(see definition), but can have many land uses.
Livelihood
The way someone gains the resources people needed
to provide for their needs, such as feed themselves and theirfamily, obtaining clothing and a place to shelter, obtain, etc. It
includes activities that earn the money that can be used forthese purposes, and has cultural dimensions (”a way of life”).
Livestock
Domesticated terrestrial mammals that are raised to provide
a diverse array of goods and services.
Mangrove
A tree or shrub that grows in chiefly tropical coastal swampsthat are flooded at high tide. Mangroves typically have numerous tangled roots above ground and form dense thickets.
Megacities
Urban areas with more than 10 million inhabitants.
Mitigation
In the context of climate change, a human intervention to
reduce the sources, or enhance the sinks of greenhousegases. Examples include using fossil fuels more efficiently forindustrial processes or electricity generation, switching to solar energy or wind power, improving the insulation of buildings
and expanding forests and other ‘sinks’ to remove greater
amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.
Nature-based solutions
Actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural
or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges
effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing humanwell-being and biodiversity benefitsMaking Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Natural resources
Materials or substances such as minerals, forests, waterand fertile land that occur in nature and can be used for
economic gain.

Pandemic
The worldwide spread of a disease. A pandemic occurs whena new highly-infective agent emerges and spreads around theworld, since most people do not yet have immunity.

Nutrients
The approximately 20 chemical elements known to be essential for the growth of living organisms, such as nitrogen,sulphur, phosphorus and carbon. There are small differences
between different groups of organisms regarding which elements they need, and in what proportions.

Particulate matter (PM)Another name for aerosol particles. Very small (typically lessthan 10 μm diameter) solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in the air; see also areosols.

Ocean acidification
Changes in the chemistry of the ocean that result in a reduction of pH. It occurs when atmospheric CO2 is absorbed by
the ocean and reacts with seawater to produce acid. Although
CO2 gas is naturally exchanged between the atmosphere andthe oceans, the increased amounts of CO2 gas into the atmosphere as a result of human activities in modern times (e.g.
burning fossil fuels) has results in seawater that is increasingly acidic.
One Health
An approach to health that recognizes the interconnections
between people, animals, plants and their shared environments. It is a collaborative, multisectoral and trans- disciplinary approach, working at local, regional, national and global
level, to achieve optimal health and well-being outcomes.
Organic agriculture
A production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the useof synthetic inputs.
Organizations
Bodies of individuals with a specified common objective.
Organizations could be, amongst others, political groups; governments; economic organizations, federations of industry;social organizations (non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
and self-help groups) or religious organizations (church andreligious trusts). It is not synonymous with institutions (seedefinition).
Ozone layer
A region of the atmosphere situated at an altitude of 10–50
km above the Earth’s surface (called the stratosphere) whichcontains most of the ozone in the atmospheric column, albeit
in dilute concentrations.

Pathogen/Pathogen shedding rate
A bacterium, virus or other microorganism that can cause
disease. Shedding rate refers to emission of pathogens
throughout the course of infection.
PeatlandA type of wetland with a very high organic carbon content (typically>20%) in the sediment. Peatlands currently cover about
3% of the global land surface. The term refers to both the peatsoil and the wetland habitat growing on its surface.
Permafrost
Soil, silt and rock that remains frozen year-round for two or
more years, occurring chiefly in polar or high altitude regions.
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs)
Chemical substances that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing
adverse effects to human health and the environment.
Pollutant/ Pollution
Any substance that causes harm when released into theatmosphere. The presence of minerals, chemicals or physicalproperties at levels that exceed the values deemed to define aboundary between good or acceptable and poor or unacceptable quality, which is a function of the specific pollutant.
Premature deaths
Deaths occurring earlier due to the presence of a risk factor
than would occur in the absence of that risk factor. Oftenthese risk factors are related to the environment, particularly
pollution.
Primary energy
Energy embodied in natural resources (such as coal, crude oil,sunlight or uranium) that has not undergone any anthropogenic conversion or transformation.

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Glossary

Private sector
The private sector is part of a country’s economy which consists of industries and commercial companies that are notowned or controlled by the government.
Projection
The act of attempting to produce a description of the future
subject to assumptions about certain preconditions, or thedescription itself, such as “population projections used inexisting assessments vary between 8.5 billion and 10.0 billion
people by 2050 and between 6.9 billion and 12.6 billion people
by 2100 (Section 2.1).”
Protected area
A clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicatedand managed, through legal or other effective means, toachieve the long-term conservation of nature with associatedecosystem services and cultural values.
Scenario
Scenarios are plausible descriptions of how future developments might evolve, based on a coherent and internallyconsistent set of assumptions about the key relationships
and driving forces (box 2.1).
Short-lived climate forcers (SLCF)
Short-lived climate forcers refers to a set of compounds that areprimarily composed of those with short lifetimes in the atmosphere compared to well-mixed greenhouse gases, and are also
referred to as near-term climate forcers. This set of compounds
includes methane (CH4), which is also a well-mixed greenhousegas, as well as ozone (O3) and aerosols, or their precursors, andsome halogenated species that are not well-mixed greenhousegases. These compounds do not accumulate in the atmosphere at decadal to centennial time scales, and so their effect on
climate is predominantly in the first decade after their emission, although their changes can still induce long-term climate
effects such as sea level change. Their effect can be cooling or
warming. A subset of exclusively warming short-lived climate
forcers is referred to as short-lived climate pollutants.
SourceAny process, activity or mechanism that releases a greenhouse gas, an aerosol or a precursor of a greenhouse gas or
aerosol into the atmosphere.
Sustainability
A characteristic or state whereby the needs of the present
population can be met without compromising the ability of
future generations or populations in other locations to meettheir needs.

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Sustainable agriculture
Sustainable Agriculture emphasizes methods and processes that improve soil productivity while minimizing harmful
effects on the climate, soil, water, air, biodiversity and humanhealth. It aims to minimize the use of inputs from nonrenewable sources and petroleum-based products and replacethem with those from renewable resources; and focuses on
local people and their needs, knowledge, skills, socio-culturalvalues and institutional structures. It aims to ensures that thebasic nutritional requirements of current and future generations are met in both quantity and quality terms, and to provide
long-term employment, adequate income and dignified andequal working and living conditions for everybody involvedin agricultural value chains. It further sets out to reduces the
agricultural sector’s vulnerability to risks such as adverse
natural conditions (e.g. climate) and socioeconomic factors(e.g. strong price fluctuations).
Sustainable development
Development that meets the needs of the present generation
without compromising the ability of future generations tomeet their own needs.
Synergies
These arise when two or more processes, organizations,substances or other agents interact in such a way that theoutcome is greater than the sum of their individual effects
considered independently.
System
A system is a collection of component parts that interact with
one another within some boundary.
Technology
Physical artefacts or the bodies of knowledge of which they
are an expression. Examples are water extraction structures,such as tube wells, renewable energy technologies and traditional knowledge. Technology and institutions are related.
Any technology has a set of practices, rules and regulations
surrounding its use, access, distribution and management.
Transformation
State of being transformed, or a fundamental change in thetechnological, economic and social organization of society,including world views, norms, values and governance. Transformation can also refer to a series of actions that explores
opportunities to stop doing the things that pull the Earth
System in the wrong direction and at the same time provide
resources, capacity and an enabling environment for all thatis consistent with the sustainable-world vision.

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

Transitions
Non-linear, systematic and fundamental changes of the composition and functioning of a societal system with changes instructures, cultures and practices.
Trillion
1012 (1 000 000 000 000).
Uncertainty
A cognitive state of incomplete knowledge that can result
from a lack of information or from disagreement about what
is known or even knowable. It may have many of sources,
including imprecision in the data, ambiguously definedconcepts or terminology, or uncertain projections of humanbehaviour. Uncertainty can be represented by quantitative
measures (for example, a probability of being correct) or by
qualitative statements (for example, reflecting the judgementof a team of experts).
Urbanization
An increase in the proportion of the population living in urban
areas.
VectorIn disease biology, the organism or vehicle that transmits
the disease-causing organism from the reservoir to the host.
Many vectors are bloodsucking insects and ticks, which ingest disease-producing microorganisms during a blood mealfrom an infected host (human or animal). Vectors can also be
an animal, such as a bat, or an inanimate object.
Vector-borne disease
Illnesses caused by parasites, viruses and bacteria that aretransmitted by mosquitoes, sandflies, triatomine bugs, blackflies, ticks, tsetse flies, mites, snails and lice.
Vulnerability
An intrinsic feature of people at risk. It is a function of exposure, sensitivity to impacts of the specific unit exposed (such asa watershed, island, household, village, city or country), andthe ability or inability to cope or adapt. It is multi-dimensional,
multi-disciplinary, multi-sectoral and dynamic. The exposure
is to hazards such as drought, conflict or extreme price fluctuations, and also to underlying socio-economic, institutionaland environmental conditions.

Water quality
The chemical, physical and biological characteristics of water,
usually in respect to its suitability for a particular purpose.
Water scarcity
Occurs when annual water supplies drop below 1 000 m³
per person, or when more than 40 percent of available
water is used.
Water security
The sustainable use and protection of water systems, protection against water related hazards (floods and droughts),
sustainable development of water resources and the safeguarding of (access to) water functions and services for humans
and the environment.
Water stressOccurs when low water supplies limit food production andeconomic development, and affect human health. An area isexperiencing water stress when annual water supplies drop
below 1 700 m³ per person.
Wetland
Area of marsh, fen, peatland, bog or water, whether natural
or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static
or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine
water to a depth that does not exceed 6 m at low tide.
Wildlife
Wild animals collectively; the native fauna (and sometimes
flora) of a region.
Zika virus
A flavivirus first identified in Uganda in 1947 in monkeys, transmitted primarily by Aedes mosquitoes, biting during the day.
Outbreaks of Zika virus disease have been reported in Africa,
Asia and the Americas. Most infected people develop mild
symptoms for 2–7 days, or no symptoms, but infection during
pregnancy can cause infants to be born malformations.
Zoonoses, Zoonotic diseases
Diseases that can spread between animals and people,
moving from wild and domesticated animals to humans andfrom humans to animals. The current COVID-19 pandemic isa zoonotic disease.

Water-borne disease
Illnesses that are transmitted through contact with, or consumption of, contaminated water.

153

Acronyms list

Acronyms list

GSDR

Global Sustainable Development ReportAR

Assessment Report

Gt

Gigatonne/gigaton, consistent with the source
material

CBD

Convention on Biological Diversity
GtCO2e

CFC

Chlorofluorocarbons

Gigatonnes of global annual CO2 equivalentemissions

CH4

MethaneHEI

Health Effects Institute

CLRTAP

Commission for Europe’s Convention on
Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution

HFCs

Hydrofluorocarbons

IEA

International Energy Agency

IFAD

International Fund for Agricultural Development

IIASA

International Institute for Applied Systems
Analysis

ILO

International Labour Organization

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IPBES

Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

CO2

Carbon Dioxide

CONABIO

Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Usode la Biodiversidad

DTU

Technical University of Denmark

EEA

European Environment Agency

EEAP

Environmental Effects Assessment Panel

EGR

Emissions Gap ReportES

Executive Summary

IPCC

FAA

Federal Aviation Administration

IPCC-TEAP IPCC-Technology and Economic Assessment Panel

FAO

Food and Agriculture Organization

IRP

International Resource PanelGA

Global Assessment

IUCN

International Union for Conservation of Nature

GBD

Global Burden of Diseases

KM

Key Messages

GBO

Global Biodiversity Outlook

LDRA

GCO

Global Chemicals Outlook

Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land
Management, Food Security, and Greenhousegas fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems

GDP

Gross domestic product
MEA

Multilateral Environmental Agreement

GEO

Global Environment Outlook
N2O

Nitrous Oxide

GEP

Gross Ecosystem ProductNASA

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

GLO

Global Land Outlook
NDC

National Determined Contribution

GMST

Global Mean Surface Temperature
NOAA

GRO

Global Resources Outlook

National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration

154

Making Peace with Nature: a scientific blueprint to tackle the climate, biodiversity and pollution emergencies

ODS

Ozone-depleting Substances

TEAP

Technology and Economy Assessment Panel

OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment

TWI 2050

The World in 2050

UEA

University of East Anglia

OiE

World Organisation for Animal HealthUN

United Nations

OPHI

Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative

UNCCD

United Nations Convention to Combat
Desertification

UNDESA

United Nations Department of Economic
and Social Affairs

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

UNEP

United Nations Environment Programme

UNFCCC

United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change

UNICEF

United Nations International Children‘sEmergency Fund

WCMC

World Conservation Monitoring Centre

WFP

World Food Programme

WG

Working Group

WHO

World Health Organization

WMO

World Meteorological Organization

WRI

World Resources Institute

WWF

World Wildlife FundPM

Particular Matter

SAICM

Strategic Approach to International Chemicals
Management

SDG

Sustainable Development Goal

SEEA

System of Environmental-Economic Accounting

SIDS

Small Island Developing States

SLCF

Short-lived climate forcers

SPM

Summary for Policymakers

SR

Special Report

SR 1.5Special Report on the impacts of global
warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels
and related global greenhouse gas emission
pathways, in the context of strengthening the
global response to the threat of climate change,sustainable development, and efforts toeradicate poverty

SRCCL

Special Report on Climate Change and Land

SREX

Special Report on Managing the Risks ofExtreme Events and Disasters to Advance
Climate Adaptation

SROCC

Special Report on the Ocean and Cryospherein a Changing Climate.

SSP

shared Socioeconomic Pathways

SST

Sea Surface Temperature

SYR

Synthesis Report

TAR

Third Assessment Report155References

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