The Earth League, an international group of prominent scientists, provides insights into the changing Earth system and informs decision-making to support global sustainability. In its latest publication on One Earth titled “Living Beyond Limits: Consequences of Missing the Decisive Decade for Preserving Our Planet’s Life-Supporting Systems,” the group of scientists warns that humanity has already missed a critical decade for safeguarding Earth’s life-support systems. The Commentary also indicates that the consequences of this delay are now upon us.
Led by Peter Schlosser from the Global Futures Laboratory at Arizona State University and Johan Rockström from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, the authors argue that political inaction since the Paris Agreement has pushed the planet further into ecological overshoot, with global warming on track to exceed 1.5°C. They note that most of the planet’s safe operating limits have already been surpassed.
The Earth League members proposed the Commentary outline during the Annual Meeting in Hamburg, Germany. It was mainly developed as a follow-up to a previous scientific assessment published in 2016, titled “The World’s Biggest Gamble,” which discusses the risks involved if scientific knowledge is not applied to address the changing environment. An Earth League writing group of scientists from diverse locations around the globe contributed to the paper, making it a truly international and collaborative effort.
What The Earth League Commentary says:
Planetary limits have been breached.
The latest science on “boundaries” is synthesized and concludes that seven of nine key Earth system limits, including climate, biodiversity, land use, freshwater, and biogeochemical flows, are now transgressed. This means that humanity is operating outside the relatively stable conditions that underpinned the Holocene, raising the risk of triggering environmental responses that are not fully known.
The consequences of a missed decade are many.
The period from 2015 to 2025 was supposed to be the decisive decade to bend emissions and resource use onto safe trajectories, but “too little was done too late.” With emissions still high and ecosystems eroding worldwide, mounting risks to food security, water availability, and human health, especially for vulnerable regions already facing climate extremes and degradation of local ecosystems, have worsened. Cumulative social problems complicate the way climate change and related issues are addressed.
Missing the decisive decade shifts the global agenda from prevention to adaptation and management. Overshoot will be more complex and costlier to reverse than to avoid, because once critical ecosystems are pushed past thresholds, their recovery is uncertain or may take centuries. Authors warn of a future that was already known.
Call for radical course correction.
Despite the Commentary’s stark assessment, it frames this moment as a narrowing window for a radical course correction. It calls for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels, large-scale ecosystem restoration, and governance reforms that embed planetary boundaries and justice into economic decision-making. Authors state that only such systemic shifts can bring humanity back within Earth’s safe and just operating space, especially if researchers and decision-makers can come together.