this is now quantifying this this safe space but for the first time also doing it for justice so measuring the maximum allowed 00:15:33 of significant harm to people and the key take home here is the following in the outer ring here the red and green you see the safe boundary definitions 00:15:45 the blue lines are the assessment of justice so not surprisingly if we care about people the safe bound is about the stability of the planet but if we care about avoiding significant harm to hundreds of millions of people across 00:15:58 the world the climate boundary shrinks from 1.5 down to one degree

Within the Earth Commission, we aim to propose ‘safe and just Earth system boundaries’ (ESBs) that go beyond planetary boundaries as they also include a justice perspective and suggest transformations to achieve them3.

Since minimum access levels for the poor cannot be met within the ESBs without substantial reallocation of resources, we propose minimum access levels for all people. These levels provide the floor or foundation of a corridor, while the ESBs constitute the ceiling (Fig. 6). If resources, responsibilities and risks are allocated in a just manner (Fig. 1), we consider this a ‘safe and just corridor’.

The black line in Fig. 5 shows that redistribution is not enough; if everyone’s emissions are equalized at escape from poverty levels, then we would still overshoot the climate boundaries

Preserving ecosystem area is sometimes critiqued as ‘fortress conservation’ by environmental justice scholars, limiting access for poor or Indigenous people68. An ecosystem area boundary therefore requires careful consideration and involvement of the local communities, for example by not demanding that intact areas preclude human inhabitation and sustainable use and/or recognizing the role of Indigenous peoples and local communities in already protecting these areas.

Safe and just ESBs aim to stabilize the Earth system, protect species and ecosystems and avoid tipping points, as well as minimize ‘significant harm’ to people while ensuring access to resources for a dignified life and escape from poverty. If justice is not considered, the biophysical limits may not be adequate to protect current generations from significant harm. However, strict biophysical limits, such as reducing emissions or setting aside land for nature, can, for example, reduce access to food and land for vulnerable people, and should be complemented by fair sharing and management of the remaining ecological space on Earth4.

joint knowledge to identify safe and just ESBs

there are amazing people worldwide that are working to protect the local to Global Commons the next step is to involve businesses 00:11:44 countries cities and people worldwide to accept Earth system boundaries and the just Transformations we need to live within these boundaries

can we quantify safe and just Earth 00:04:20 system boundaries or an earth system corridor in 2019 the Global Commons Alliance created the Earth commission to answer this question

we need in this Century a safe and just Corridor for all people to exit the danger zone but also to ensure that all people have access to basic needs rights 00:04:07 uh rights to a water food energy and infrastructure

we're taking colossal risks with the future of civilization on Earth We're degrading life support system that we all depend on we're actually pushing 00:00:57 the entire Earth system to a point of destabilization pushing Earth outside of the state that has support civilization since we left the last ice age 10 000 years ago this requires a transformation to safe 00:01:11 and just Earth system boundaries for the whole world economy

2030 (UNGA, 2015) provides a global consensus on key justice principles of access and a starting point for an analysis of a safe and just corridor that aims to ensure that “no one will be left behind.

By identifying safe and just target ranges, the question arises: How can we achieve these targets and live within the corridor? Transforming toward a “just” world may be a pre-condition for being able to achieve a “safe” world. Leverage points to achieve such transformations are essential for governing our commons.

We propose that the stricter of the safe and just target ranges for each variable should define the safe and just corridor (Figure 2). Furthermore, we propose to identify a spread of safe and just targets corresponding to different physical risk tolerances and different understandings of environmental justice.

Second, a key question is how biophysically “safe” targets can be achieved while also meeting goals for human well-being and justice. For example, meeting the social goals of Agenda 2030 without widespread transformations may lead to crossing safe targets for the biophysical state of the Earth system (Sachs et al., 2019). Achieving biophysical targets, such as 1.5°C for climate or increasing ecosystem protection, can undermine well-being, if, for example, bioenergy competes with food production, or protected areas undermine local livelihoods (Hasegawa et al., 2020).

First, an “unsafe” world is likely to increase inequality, so “safe” would seem a necessary pre-condition for “just”—but not always a sufficient one. A “safe” target from a biophysical perspective may not be adequate to prevent large-scale risks to humans in specific contexts. For example, there are large risks for many human populations even with a 1.5°C climate target (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018).

Identifying safe ranges for these systems in isolation, for example as the planetary boundary framework has done (Rockström et al., 2009; Steffen, Richardson, et al., 2015), will not be enough to describe a safe corridor.

An integrated framework is needed that aligns safe and just Earth system variables while also accounting for sub-global scales and interactions between Earth system processes.

our goal of synthesizing a range of safe and just conditions rather than prescribing any specific solution.

An integrated people and planet perspective is required to guide human development and use of the global commons We outline an approach to defining a safe and just corridor for a stable and resilient planet supporting human development A conceptual framework for linking safe and just Earth system targets is proposed

safe as primarily referring to a stable Earth system and just targets as being associated with meeting human needs and reducing exposure to risks.

Keeping the Earth system in a stable and resilient state, to safeguard Earth's life support systems while ensuring that Earth's benefits, risks, and related responsibilities are equitably shared, constitutes the grand challenge for human development in the Anthropocene. Here, we describe a framework that the recently formed Earth Commission will use to define and quantify target ranges for a “safe and just corridor” that meets these goals.