2024-01-22 20:00:00
An intact ice sheet on Greenland, tropical rainforests and permafrost in cold regions are essential for the earth’s habitability. They should therefore be legally protected as “planetary common goods” and managed supraregionally, explains an international team of experts with Austrian participation. This would enable “Earth system functions” that are critical for the climate to be effectively protected. The study was published in the scientific journal “PNAS”.
Currently, there are legally established “global commons” such as the high seas, outer space, Antarctica and the Earth’s atmosphere. They lie outside sovereign claims, meaning no country can dispose of them. “All states and people have a common interest in protecting and effectively managing them for the benefit of all,” explain the legal, political and earth scientists led by Johan Rockström from the University of Potsdam (Germany) in a press release. This should also apply to “critical biophysical systems that regulate resilience and condition and thus the quality of life on Earth,” according to the experts.
Changes in “earth system tipping elements” such as the Amazon rainforests, Greenland ice sheets and glaciers, permafrost, monsoon winds and ocean currents in the North Atlantic affect people around the world, they wrote. “They should be viewed as planetary commons that have been entrusted to the world and therefore require shared, coordinated control,” said Rockström.
These “earth’s critical regulatory systems are now being put under pressure by human activities to an unprecedented extent,” explain the researchers, who also include Nebojsa Nakicenovic from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg (Lower Austria) and the Vienna University of Technology heard: “Our existing global environmental law is not sufficient to ensure that planetary limits are not exceeded.” Therefore, there is an “urgent need for planetary commons as a new legal and governance approach that can protect critical Earth system functions more effectively,” they say.
Service:
1705960759
#Protect #climate #tipping #elements #planetary #common #goods
