Nature
PUBLISHED
As the climate around the world changes more rapidly than has been predicted, it now looks like we’ve reached another bleak milestone.
Out of nine “planetary boundaries” that have been identified by scientists as necessary for life on Earth to flourish, we have now breached seven of them. These include climate change, damage to nature, land use change, water cycle disruption, overuse of fertilizers, pollution, and – for the first time – ocean acidification.
The only two we are yet to breach are the loss of the ozone layer and air pollution, with the report noting that while both of these have actually been improved in recent years, there is a growing risk from atmospheric aerosols in some parts of the world.
“The diagnosis is unambiguous. Pressure is rising across every Planetary Boundary already outside the safe operating space,” explained Boris Sakschewski, lead author of the Planetary Health Check 2026, which has been published by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, in a statement.
“It means that the risk of large-scale, persistent and potentially irreversible change is increasing, while our margin for error in tackling these problems is shrinking.”
This is clearly a concern for anyone who likes to live on a healthy, sustainable planet. But the report also emphasizes that none of this is inevitable.
We know what the science is telling us and we have the solutions needed to fix each and every one of these problems. What we need is the political and societal will to do something about it.
Global impacts unfolding
The consequences of the planet’s systems spinning out of kilter have been felt on every continent. The past 12 months have seen an unprecedented string of environmental emergencies.
In Europe, many countries experienced their hottest ever summer this year, with temperatures hitting 48.4C in Sardinia, Italy. This unleashed wildfires that raged across France and Spain, while many countries are still reeling from drought.
The result has been not only damage to agriculture and homes, but also loss of life. In Germany alone, it is thought that up to 14,000 people died as a result of the 2026 heatwave.
Monsoon floods hitting Pakistan in 2025 are thought to have affected over 6.9 million people in the region, as heavy rainfall combined with glacial meltwaters to cause rivers to surge and trigger devastation downstream.
This was followed by the tragic Nepal-Tibet floods in 2026, in which the collapse of a glacier in the Himalayas triggered flash flooding that destroyed entire communities and killed at least 1,300 people.
“Communities in Nepal are paying with their lives for a crisis driven by fossil fuel emissions thousands of miles away,” Dr Friederike Otto, a climate science professor at Imperial College London, told the Guardian at the time.
“When warming destabilises the roof of the world, no amount of local adaptation can fully shield vulnerable people downstream from this scale of destruction. Without much faster action to transition to zero fossil fuel emissions we will inevitably see more disasters of this scale occurring in the years to come.”
And things are unfortunately only expected to ratchet up, as scientists have been watching a “super El Niño” develop off the eastern coast of the Americas. This year’s weather front is expected to be significantly more powerful than anything we have seen in recent years.
Biodiversity linked to climate
The report also underlines the indelible links between climate change and biodiversity loss. Often treated as separate issues, it has become increasingly clear that they are two sides of the same coin.
It states that “protecting and restoring nature is necessary to have a chance of a safe climate landing for humanity,” highlighting how the continued deforestation of the Amazon rainforest risks upending one of the planet's largest carbon sinks, which has so far been buffering us against ever more severe rises in carbon emissions.
It also shines a spotlight on the seafloor. The epitome of out of sight, out of mind, the seafloor actually plays a significant role in Earth’s systems, and yet we have been destroying it at an alarming rate.
“Fishing techniques like bottom trawling produce long-lasting damage: Every year, 1–2% of the seafloor is trawled, with some of the most productive and diverse ocean regions being targeted most frequently,” the report states.
Add to that the ever-growing interest in the deep sea by the mining industry, the report says, and the overall impact that all this will have on the planet simply cannot be quantified.
Fight to save the planet
There are, however, reasons for hope. While the crisis we are currently facing is enormous, the report is clear that it is not insurmountable.
We have shown with the ozone layer that collective action is possible, while we already have the tools we need to tackle the issues of carbon emissions, damage to the natural world, pollution, and more.
“We do not have the luxury of time, but we do have the knowledge, capacity and solutions to change course,” said Johan Rockström, PIK Director and co-author of the report.
“Accelerating action to return to the safe operating space across all Planetary Boundaries is essential to protect lives and livelihoods, and to deliver on the promise of shared future prosperity.”
We have survived on this planet, living within the boundaries of sustainability, for hundreds of thousands of years. It is now up to us to bring ourselves back within those guardrails within the next few decades.
The full report can be found here.
