Vorlesung: Transformation Pathways for a Prosperous and Equitable Landing Within Earthʼs Safe Operating Space

Seven of the nine planetary boundaries that regulate the stability, resilience and life-support on Earth are breached. The aggregate assessment by scientists in the 2nd Planetary Health Check (2025) is that humanity is in danger of triggering irreversible (negative) changes to the Earth system (Earth is on aggregate outside of the safe operating space), but has not (yet) reached a point of systemwide high risk of drifting permanently away from the Holocene-like conditions that have prevailed throughout the development of human civilisation on Earth. This gives us a window (though rapidly closing) to transform the world back within Earth‘s safe operating space, „before it is too late“… The conclusion ,though, is that the journey back to „safety“ is not linear, it is exponential, i.e., we need to transform in all socio-economic sectors that impact on the planetary boundaries. In this talk I will focus on the two most urgent transformations with thelargest potential positive impact on bringing the world back within safe planetary boundaries, namely (i) the global food system transformation and (ii) the global energy transformation.

Vorlesungssprache ist englisch.

Veranstaltungsort: Universität zu Köln, Hörsaal B (Hörsaalgebäude)