Humans Have Blown Past 6 of 9 ‘Planetary Boundaries’: Governments Alone Won’t Fix This
A boy drags possessions through the flooded streets of Manila in the aftermath of a typhoon. Credit: ADB
By Audrone Telesiene
KAUNAS, Lithuania, Jul 21 2025 (IPS)
Nearly ten years after the Paris Agreement — a legally binding commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions — the gap between climate goals and government actions remains stubborn.
The consequences are real: 2024 saw 150 extreme weather events, leading to the highest number of new population displacements recorded in the past 16 years, raised food prices, and hundreds of billions in damages. March 2025 was the warmest March on record in Europe.
Climate stability is only one of nine planetary boundaries critical for long-term human thriving. While governments have shown that international cooperation is possible — the Montreal Protocol on ozone-depleting substances being a notable success — most environmental indicators are moving in the wrong direction.
Audrone Telesiene
This trend isn’t new, and predates the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and rollbacks of environmental regulations in other countries. Political commitments are too often insufficient and frequently allusive.
Safeguarding our planet must therefore go beyond governments. Change requires decisions at every level: mayors, business leaders, civil society, youth, Indigenous Peoples, faith communities, and households all have roles to play.
Even daily choices — what we eat, how we travel, how we manage waste— shape environmental outcomes. These decisions reflect distinct knowledge systems that can strengthen policy both technically and socially. Nature itself may also be seen as a stakeholder in decision-making: recognizing its dynamics leads to better outcomes.
The UN Environment Programme’s Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7), to be launched at the 7th UN Environment Assembly (in December 2025), will highlight this broader, behavior-focused approach. It is asking: How can we engage stakeholders effectively?
Fortunately, there are already inspiring examples. Consider Costa Rica as a case of transformational shifting of some of our deepest societal values. The country aligns its national budget with public and planetary health, at the expense of GDP-based decisions.
High investments in health and education helped generate high-levels of well-being, longer life expectancy, with forest cover increasing from 21 per cent in the 1980s to 50 per cent and almost all electricity coming from renewable energy sources.
In Rosario, Argentina, civic participation drives urban transformation. Participatory budgeting has improved informal settlements and established a thriving urban agriculture movement. Involving citizens enhanced equity, created jobs, and improved food security.
In recent years, Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Lima, and São Paulo have recognized waste pickers as essential service providers. This has improved recycling and waste management of plastic pollution, while promoting dignity and justice for marginalized communities—advancing the circular economy in the process.
In Andhra Pradesh, India, millions of farmers are part of the Zero Budget Natural Farming initiative, reviving traditional, chemical-free agricultural practices. It’s one of the world’s largest agroecological transitions in the making.
With almost 6 out of 10 humans living in cities, the climate leadership of networks like C40, including nearly 100 mayors – is an important solution.
Crises have sparked innovation too. During the COVID-19 pandemic, London’s food insecurity was exposed, catalyzing the formation of resilient networks of urban food governance, including zero-waste ones.
Ecological transformation must now happen at unprecedented speed. But for it to succeed, it must be co-produced by society—embracing diversity in demography, as well as in the knowledge systems we draw from, including Indigenous wisdom, the arts, and science.
We already have many of the technologies needed: we know how to boost crop yields, decarbonize economies, and nourish more people with fewer resources, with much less land, water and other resources.
Notwithstanding the declining support for environmental protection among certain governments, the cases above attest to our ability to develop participatory processes towards a more sustainable future. They prove that meaningful, inclusive progress is possible.
The crisis of climate change, the crisis of nature, land degradation and biodiversity loss, and the crisis of pollution and waste – the terrifying trajectory of crossing our planetary boundaries – underscores the urgency of equitable inclusion.
Let’s not leave transformation to governments alone. The responsibility – and the power – is shared.
Audrone Telesiene is a lead author of the 7th edition of the Global Environment Outlook (GEO-7) and a professor of sociology and communication sciences at Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania.
IPS UN Bureau