Environmental limits and Swiss footprints based on Planetary Boundaries

The goal of this study is to develop recommendations for a set of footprint limits for a Green Economy, by translating the environmental limits of our planet (“Planetary Boundaries”) to the context of Swiss demand (i.e. consumption). The proposed limit values serve as a rough orientation on a sustainable level of resource consumption from a scientific point of view; they are not meant as directly applicable political targets. We conclude that Switzerland should, as a priority, act on its footprints related to Climate Change, Ocean Acidification, Biodiversity Loss and Nitrogen Losses. This suggestion is based on the importance of these environmental processes for the good functioning of the global Earth system, the current global pressure on them as well as on the Swiss contribution to these pressures.

[1]  F. Chapin,et al.  Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity , 2009 .

[2]  Manfred Lenzen,et al.  International trade drives biodiversity threats in developing nations , 2012, Nature.

[3]  S. Suh.  Handbook of input-output economics in industrial ecology , 2009 .

[4]  Timothy M. Lenton,et al.  Periodic mid‐Cretaceous oceanic anoxic events linked by oscillations of the phosphorus and oxygen biogeochemical cycles , 2003 .

[5]  G. Powell,et al.  Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Life on Earth , 2001 .

[6]  Richard J. Matear,et al.  Southern Ocean acidification: A tipping point at 450-ppm atmospheric CO2 , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[7]  N. Georgescu-Roegen.  The Entropy Law and the Economic Process , 1973 .

[8]  E. K. Pikitch,et al.  Trophic Downgrading of Planet Earth , 2011, Science.

[9]  William E. Rees,et al.  Ecological Footprints and Appropriated Carrying Capacity: What Urban Economics Leaves Out , 2017, The Earthscan Reader in Rural–Urban Linkages.

[10]  Carolien Kroeze,et al.  Global river nutrient export: A scenario analysis of past and future trends , 2010 .

[11]  F. Chapin,et al.  A safe operating space for humanity , 2009, Nature.

[12]  P. Ehrlich,et al.  IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH , 1971, Science.

[13]  Henry Shue,et al.  Global Environment and International Inequality , 1999 .

[14]  Richard M. Bailey,et al.  Tracking sustainable development with a national barometer for South Africa using a downscaled “safe and just space” framework , 2014, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[15]  M. Friedl,et al.  A new map of global urban extent from MODIS satellite data , 2009 .

[16]  William E. Rees,et al.  Ecological footprints and appropriated carrying capacity: what urban economics leaves out , 1992 .

[17]  Scott C. Doney,et al.  Ocean Acidification: Present Conditions and Future Changes in a High-CO2 World , 2009 .

[18]  F. Chapin,et al.  Approaches to defining a planetary boundary for biodiversity , 2014 .

[19]  Scott C. Doney,et al.  Ocean acidification: the other CO2 problem. , 2009, Annual review of marine science.

[20]  Neo D. Martinez,et al.  Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere , 2012, Nature.

[21]  P. Olsson,et al.  Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Resilience – Governance for a Future with Global Changes : Background report for the scientific workshop »Biodiversity, ecosystem services and governance – targets beyond 2010« on Tjärnö, Sweden, 4-6 September 2009. , 2009 .

[22]  R. Betts,et al.  Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing. Chapter 2 , 2007 .

[23]  A. Hoekstra,et al.  Past and future trends in grey water footprints of anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to major world rivers , 2012 .

[24]  N. Ramankutty,et al.  Characterizing the Spatial Patterns of Global Fertilizer Application and Manure Production , 2010 .

[25]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Reconsideration of the planetary boundary for phosphorus , 2011 .

[26]  J. Meadowcroft.  Exploring negative territory Carbon dioxide removal and climate policy initiatives , 2013, Climatic Change.

[27]  Atul K. Jain,et al.  Global Carbon Budget 2018 , 2014, Earth System Science Data.

[28]  Martin Jenkins,et al.  The natural fix? The role of ecosystems in climate mitigation: a UNEP rapid response assessment. , 2009 .

[29]  C. Weber,et al.  Growth in emission transfers via international trade from 1990 to 2008 , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[30]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet , 2015, Science.

[31]  D. Meadows,et al.  The limits to growth. A report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind. , 1972 .

[32]  G. Daily,et al.  Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity , 2012, Nature.

[33]  J. Hansen,et al.  Assessing “Dangerous Climate Change”: Required Reduction of Carbon Emissions to Protect Young People, Future Generations and Nature , 2013, PloS one.

[34]  S. Seitzinger,et al.  Assessing planetary and regional nitrogen boundaries related to food security and adverse environmental impacts , 2013 .

[35]  M. Wackernagel.  Ecological footprint and appropriated carrying capacity : a tool for planning toward sustainability , 1994 .

[36]  A. Bouwman,et al.  Human alteration of the global nitrogen and phosphorus soil balances for the period 1970–2050 , 2009 .

[37]  T. Koellner,et al.  Land use impacts on biodiversity in LCA: a global approach , 2013, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[38]  Ben Collen,et al.  Establishing IUCN Red List Criteria for Threatened Ecosystems , 2010, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[39]  Christoph Heinze,et al.  Multiple stressors of ocean ecosystems in the 21st century: projections with CMIP5 models , 2013 .

[40]  Jarrett E. K. Byrnes,et al.  A global synthesis reveals biodiversity loss as a major driver of ecosystem change , 2012, Nature.

[41]  W. Barthlott,et al.  Global patterns of plant diversity and floristic knowledge , 2005 .

[42]  R. Kasperson,et al.  Two types of global environmental change: Definitional and spatial-scale issues in their human dimensions , 1990 .

[43]  S. Giljum,et al.  The Global Resource Footprint of Nations. Carbon, water, land and materials embodied in trade and final consumption, calculated with EXIOBASE 2.1 , 2014 .

[44]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis , 2013 .

[45]  Nathan Fiala,et al.  Measuring sustainability: Why the ecological footprint is bad economics and bad environmental science , 2008 .

[46]  Elke Stehfest,et al.  Exploring global changes in nitrogen and phosphorus cycles in agriculture induced by livestock production over the 1900–2050 period , 2011, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[47]  Corinne Le Quéré,et al.  Carbon emissions from land use and land-cover change , 2012 .

[48]  F. Joos,et al.  Imminent ocean acidification in the Arctic projected with the NCAR global coupled carbon cycle-climate model , 2009 .

[49]  D. Friot.  Environmental Accounting and globalisation. Which models to tackle new challenges? Applying Economics-Environment-Impacts models to evaluate environmental impacts induced by Europe in China, and EU carbon tarifs , 2009 .

[50]  J. Lamarque,et al.  Nitrogen and sulfur deposition on regional and global scales: A multimodel evaluation , 2006 .

[51]  A. Hoekstra,et al.  Humanity’s unsustainable environmental footprint , 2014, Science.

[52]  S. Winter,et al.  An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change.by Richard R. Nelson; Sidney G. Winter , 1987 .

[53]  S. Pfister,et al.  Assessing the environmental impacts of freshwater consumption in LCA. , 2009, Environmental science & technology.

[54]  Allison M. Leach,et al.  The global nitrogen cycle in the twenty-first century , 2013, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[55]  F. Chapin,et al.  EFFECTS OF BIODIVERSITY ON ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING: A CONSENSUS OF CURRENT KNOWLEDGE , 2005 .

[56]  P. Ehrlich,et al.  IMPACT OF POPULATION GROWTH , 1971, Science.

[57]  M. Sutton,et al.  The European Nitrogen Assessment: Sources, Effects and Policy Perspectives , 2011 .

[58]  Corey J A Bradshaw,et al.  Synergies among extinction drivers under global change. , 2008, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[59]  D. Cordell,et al.  The story of phosphorus: Global food security and food for thought , 2009 .

[60]  Philippe Ciais,et al.  Update on CO2 emissions , 2010 .