Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta

Economics of Sustainable Development

Term Project - Planetary Boundaries

Submitted by

Yash Mehta (0477/57)

Aaditya Bhawsar (0431/57)

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Introduction
Planetary boundary is a way to establish the region where humans can affect the
ecosystem. These boundaries need to be determined as accurately as possible to ensure
humanity’s survival over the course of centuries and millennials. Moreover, the area
enclosed within these planetary boundaries must be governed properly. Certain systems
and mechanisms need to be put in place so as to prolong life and to maintain our
ecosystem.

For the purpose of this critical review the selected papers are-
1. "Approaches to defining a planetary boundary for biodiversity." by Mace, Georgina
M., et al.
2. "Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the links." by
Biermann, Frank.

Identification of Planetary Boundaries

Traditionally planetary boundaries were proposed as a mechanism for delimiting a “safe
operating space for humanity”. Various factors were defined to identify such planetary
boundaries. G. M. Mace et al. critiqued the established boundaries in “Approaches to
defining a planetary boundary for biodiversity.” [1]

They argued that previously proposed planetary boundaries such as atmospheric aerosol
loading, global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, freshwater use, biodiversity loss,
stratospheric ozone etc. do not scale well from a local to regional to global levels. They
propose that the earlier metrics of planetary boundaries lacked a well-established,
universal, scalable threshold and this will prevent these metrics from defining a safe
operating space for humanity in any effective capacity.

They propose a set of alternative boundaries that determine biodiversity loss and cater to
large-scale responses in our planetary system which is suitable for complex human
societies.

The proposed metrics to base the ideal set of planetary boundaries are as follows-

1. Measure of phylogenetic diversity representing the genetic library of life

In the long term over centuries to millennia’s humanity’s well-being and survival depends
on the biota’s ability to provide desired ecological support systems. It is difficult to predict
that which species to conserve because we don’t know what functional traits will be
needed in the long term. Hence, we should manage the risks and use some features of
species to predict how much they add to humanity’s “portfolio of biodiversity insurance”.
The future importance of a species depends on how much it adds to overall diversity of
unspecified functional traits. This is ultimately reflected in the phylogenetic diversity.

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2. Levels of functional diversity

Functional diversity consists of the distribution, range, value and relative abundance of the
functional traits that are present in an ecosystem. Ecosystem properties like primary
production, decomposition or detoxification are differentially affected by organisms with
different functional traits.

3. Biome condition and extent

Biodiversity boundaries should be related to the functioning of the Earth’s major biomes
(rainforest, savannah, coral reefs, etc.). These biomes regulate ecosystem services that
maintain key system processes on our planet, including the cycling of fresh water and
carbon. To maintain the functional diversity of ecosystems we must ensure the proper
functioning of these biomes.

The proposed metrics for planetary boundaries as described above better align with
humanity’s operating space. The authors say that while none of the previously used
planetary boundaries were scalable, here the first two could show threshold effects at
local and regional scales while the third could represent a global-scale planetary
boundary.

These three metrics offer information at differing timescales. The boundary based on the
genetic library relates to the long-term consequences for humans, where losses are
irreversible. Alternatively, the human benefits related to the biome extent and condition
metric should be relevant for millennia. Within the thousand-year time frames, however,
the benefits to people are relatively predictable. Here the functional traits boundary is
probably the most proximate and predictable because significant traits are known to man
as of now.

Governance of Planetary Boundaries

“Planetary boundaries and earth system governance” [2] highlight several aspects for the
governance of planetary boundaries. The paper also discusses the challenges in Earth
system governance. The journal talks about issues such as network governance,
institutional interactions and policy integration.

The idea of 'planetary boundaries is quickly becoming the topic of discussion for policy
makers in various meetings ranging from the UN High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability
to gatherings among researchers, scientists and religious leaders.

There are multiple reasons for this quick diffusion of planetary boundaries topic in these
meetings. In the first place, this concept catches numerous global environmental anxieties
inside one incorporated structure simultaneously as it offers fundamental evaluated
objectives to decision making. Second, it concentrates on the direness of political activity
through its accentuation on the dangers related with violating basic Earth systems "tipping
points” or "thresholds". The boundaries are recommended and set to be protected from
such dangers.

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The ramifications of Earth system limits for governance are difficult because of their
vulnerabilities, uncertainties and inadequately comprehended multi-level interactions. The
dangers related with the offence of tipping points has unmistakably invigorated a
conversation on the need to restructure global environmental governance. The urgency
and scale inferred by planetary boundaries require intense international institutional
changes and reforms.

The governance of planetary boundaries in an effective manner requires a comprehensive

comprehension of policies, networks, and institutions at multiple scales of social
organisation. Even well-planned global reforms could blow up and not result in anything
or result in substandard accomplishments without effective governance as mentioned
above.

The journal also explores international science-policy initiatives inspired by planetary

boundaries. A range of various empirical cases and theoretical methodologies for the
analysis of multilevel governance challenges related with ‘planetary boundaries’. The
journal explores many diverse theoretical approaches such as network approaches, ,
institutional and policy analysis, global regime theory, resilience thinking and theories on
polycentric governance. Additionally, the particular problems areas covered ranging from
land use, , to climate change, to biodiversity loss, to ocean acidification and to freshwater
availability.
A sample of international initiatives that explicitly build on the planetary boundaries
concept -
1. Global Environmental Outlook 5
2. European Environmental Agency (EEA)
3. UN High-Panel Level on Sustainability
4. Planetary Boundaries Initiative
5. UK Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology
6. Religious meeting “Ecology, Ethics and Interdependence”
7. Oxfam International [3]

The challenges that Earth system governance will face ahead are also highlighted in the
journal. Generally, these include investigating issues such as network governance,
institutional interactions and policy integration in settings where biophysical intricacy and
non-linear moves are the standard, rather than the special case.

One challenge is to improve the fit between Earth system governance and the elements of
the biosphere. The second challenge identifies with issues of political problems and
dissemination. As the idea of planetary boundaries proliferates through policy arenas, it
ought to be reminded that past endeavours to outline the environment challenge as far as
reasonable dissemination of limited spaces has been unable to achieve such a long way of
establishing a worldwide environment system that keeps humankind inside a 2-degree
target.[4]

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The Future techniques in international governance thus should consider the basic
exchange elements in the global framework. While mankind generally relies upon acting
inside a safe operating space characterised by the elements of the Earth framework, it is
frequently not seen as being inside the singular interest of nations to acknowledge a
reasonable weight sharing methodology for ensuring this space.

Conclusion
As showcased in "Approaches to defining a planetary boundary for biodiversity.", we must
constantly determine better metrics to identify planetary boundaries so as to ensure
humanity’s well-being well into the future.

The concluding remarks of “Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring
the links” should be that the governance of planetary boundaries might be all the more
productively sought after through a re-evaluating of the plan that thinks about more the
basic drivers of reasonable turn of events and developing a common advancement plan
which talks all the more straightforwardly to public interests.

References
[1] Mace, Georgina M., et al. "Approaches to defining a planetary boundary for
biodiversity." Global Environmental Change 28 (2014): 289-297.

[2] Biermann, Frank. "Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the
links." Ecological Economics 81 (2012): 4-9.

[3] http://planetaryboundariesinitiative.org/.

[4] Moomaw, William, and Mihaela Papa. "Creating a mutual gains climate regime through
universal clean energy services." Climate Policy 12.4 (2012): 505-520.