Earth-Targets beyond two-degrees - establishing risk and turning evidence into action for biodiversity, freshwater, land use, and the ocean.

Four of the top five global risks in the World Economic Forum's 2017 Global Risk report are environmental ones; ten years ago, none of them were. The Global Commons - land, water, ocean and atmosphere, and the ecosystems and species they support - are being stretched and it is now clear that we need a development path that integrates the health of both people and the planet. To do that, we need science-based targets that clearly define safe levels of human impact on earth systems beyond climate - for freshwater use, biodiversity loss, ocean use, and land use change. A first step in defining these targets is to synthesize and translate the best available science into a clear picture of risk and consequences for each system under study. This process should provide a framework to spur innovation, focus decision-making, and spur action by key actors.

Here we present a global effort, involving a core group of partners (Global Environment Facility, International Union for the Conservation of Nature, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Stockholm Resilience Centre, World Resources Institute and World Economic Forum) and Future Earth, responding to this challenge. The research networks represented by Future Earth and IUCN together encompass a wide spectrum of global change research communities from around the world, and these organizations will collectively establish an Earth Commission and convene working groups that will produce integrated scientific assessments of the science needed to establish global quantitative estimates for safe levels of human alteration of key earth systems. In parallel with this work, the core group will build a network to integrate the commission findings into intergovernmental and policy processes and engage the private sector, building on the work led by WRI, WWF, and others to mobilizing hundreds of businesses to set science-based targets for addressing climate change. The goal is to develop the methodologies, guidance, tools, training, and other resources that can collectively drive this kind of action for these other earth systems.