Defining ‘science-based targets’

Setting targets for addressing major planetary concerns is an essential prerequisite for concerted global action (both inside and outside multilateral environmental agreements) and is necessarily a societal and political process, requiring negotiation and convergence among oftenconflicting interests. There is no such thing as a ‘scientific target’ applied in policy or business—operational targets are socio-political choices. However, this is not to say that targets cannot be ‘science-based’.

Navigating transformation of biodiversity and climate

This planet is the home of life, born into existence and transformed over 3.8 billion years into a continuous tapestry, covering all possible places from the deep ocean floors to mountain summits. Ours is a bioclimatic world in which every organism, from bacterium to blue whale, inseparably contributes to the climate and surface conditions of Earth. This tapestry, of which we are a part, is unraveling, with its delicate patterns and motifs denigrated to near invisibility, disappearing at a rate and magnitude that rivals that of the great mass extinction events of the past (2, 3).