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![The authors co-chair the Earth Commission, which will spend the next three years compiling a high-level synthesis of knowledge on the processes that regulate the planet’s stability and underpin biodiversity and life-supporting land, water, and oceanic systems. It will also provide a scientific synthesis of the social transformations required to sustain the development of human societies within a safe planetary operating space. Photo: NASA. Earth from space](/sites/default/files/styles/listing_image_290x218/public/nasa_earth_sunrise.jpg?h=e85f6c07&itok=DyFlfq57)
Earth system alert
In response to growing public demand, policymakers and business leaders are increasingly uniting around shared commitments to reduce planet-warming greenhouse-gas emissions. But while phasing out fossil fuels is necessary, ensuring humanity's long-term survival will also require far-reaching…
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![Human activity has “significantly altered” 75 per cent of land and 66 per cent of oceans, mainly through food production. Photo: Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock. A shallow seagrass meadow surrounds a tropical island on the Mesoamerican barrier reef off the coast of Belize. Photo: Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock.](/sites/default/files/styles/listing_image_290x218/public/shutterstock_seagrass_global_commons.jpg?h=e85f6c07&itok=PN-pTEjT)
Three steps to meeting the climate and nature emergency
We must make the most of a super-year in 2020 for saving the global commons next year
There are growing calls to declare climate and nature emergencies. But are these justified? The latest scientific assessments on the state of Earth’s climate and biodiversity provide robust evidence.
The…