New research from the Earth Commission highlights planetary and human risks, showing pathways to a safe and just future
An interview with Prof. Joyeeta Gupta
3 Oct 2024 by The Water Diplomat

New research in the Lancet Planetary Health, co-authored by 60 leading natural and social scientists from the Earth Commission, published on the 11th of September, quantifies a corridor with safe and just planetary boundaries as the ceiling (published earlier in Nature) as well as the impacts of meeting minimum needs using the same units as the boundaries. Since we are already outside the boundaries and have not yet met minimum needs, this requires transformation. This transformation to move back within safe and just boundaries is a thought experiment to identify how serious the problem is. The paper also shows how these boundaries could be translated to businesses and cities and reviews the scholarship on transformation, while pointing towards a pathway that may enable humans to live within safe and just boundaries and just foundations. The task of the Earth Commission - an international, transdisciplinary group of scholars – is to conduct research towards science-based targets and transformations that are needed to protect critical elements of the health of the planet and its population.
The article refers to both ‘safe’ and ‘just’ boundaries for water, climate, biosphere, nutrients and aerosol pollution. For example, if 1.5℃ is a safe boundary as beyond that tipping points can be triggered leading to a hot house Earth, it is not just. Since 70 million are exposed to death from hot bulb temperatures at 1.0℃, to say nothing of the impacts of the extreme weather events, sea level rise, etc. the authors proposed 1.0℃ as a just boundary. Similar exercises were undertaken to asses whether the other boundaries were just.
The article then takes the SDGs and human rights as a starting point to identify four key basic needs – access to water, food, energy and infrastructure (a home and some transport). Based on scholarship, it identifies a level 1 access which is higher than survival but still quite minimum; and a level 2 which enables escape from poverty. Then each right is elaborated (e.g. what kind of food is needed), and the emissions of meetings these minimum needs is calculated. The trick then is to see if the boundaries and the floors can be calculated using the same units. For climate and some other domains this was possible, for others not yet. This enabled the identification of the corridor between the ceiling and the foundation.
A key problem was how to deal with the foundation. Does the foundation apply only to or all people who are below the minimum or to all people? Since the world is currently outside the boundaries, and has not met minimum needs, the decision was to include all people in the foundation. The space between is thus quite limited.
The next question was what should one take into account to use the resources in the corridor equitably? Resources and pollution are unequally distributed: not all human beings have the same protection from our biophysical surroundings, there are inequalities in human health and wellbeing, and some groups are more exposed to water stress, unsafe water sources, or exposed to weather extremes than others are. For example, roughly 9 million premature deaths are annually linked to exposure to air and water pollution. The pressures exerted on earth systems are also fundamentally unequal: for instance, the richest 10% of the global population consumes as much energy as the poorest 80% and is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the remaining 90%. The article refers to this form of (in)justice as intragenerational justice. Beyond this, the idea of justice also involves ‘interspecies justice’, i.e. looking at the needs of other forms of life (species) on earth which also require resources in order to contribute to the continued existence of the web of life. Furthermore, there is intergenerational justice, which refers to justice between past and present generations, such as the impact of the present generation on the stability of the climate for the next generation. In short, critical earth system resources must be better shared, and this can be achieved by following a pathway which secures minimum needs for everyone. The boundaries, foundation and governance draw heavily from the concept of Earth System Justice. The paper implicitly and explicitly shows that there is no safety without justice.
On the 24th of September, The Water Diplomat spoke to Earth Commission co-chair Joyeeta Gupta, who is Professor of Environment and Development at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, and lead author of the publication.
The Water Diplomat: How does this paper fit into the broader work of the Earth Commission?
Prof. Gupta: This is the main paper that sums up phase 1, and all the outputs of the underlying 22 papers. The concept of Earth System Justice underlies the analysis and was published in 2023. The safe and just boundaries were published first in the Nature paper in 2023. This paper adds the foundation for all people and calculates the corridor. We also worked on how the boundaries can be translated to business and cities. And finally we examined how governance systems need to change.
The Water Diplomat: There has been quite a bit of change in water governance over the last years, with the first UN water conference in 46 years in 2023, a UN system wide strategy on water has been defined, and in the last few weeks we’ve seen the appointment of the first UN envoy on water. In parallel, water has been included in the text on the climate agreements for the first time, and we have two major conferences on water in 2026 and 2028 coming up.
How could the results of your Earth Systems Boundaries research best be inserted into the emerging paradigm for water governance? How can the water sector, reading this article, integrate it into their work?
Prof. Gupta: In relation to water, our boundaries actually focus on changing the way we share or use existing transboundary waters, covered by bilateral and international agreements. None of those agreements really take into account these stringent boundaries. Our boundaries probably will annoy the upstream existing treaty negotiators, because we are saying that the flow of the water should not vary by more than 20% with respect to background levels. We may have to revisit whether the surface water boundary is indeed just, given that the background levels are from the pre-industrial era.
The just groundwater boundary is that extracted water should not exceed recharge levels. Local farmers or industries may find our groundwater boundaries quite difficult to accommodate, but such a boundary ensures there is water for future generations and that land subsidence and saltwater intrusion is avoided.
.The Water Diplomat: At the level of agreements on transboundary waters, there is a lot of effort involved to define transboundary flows, and recently there has been some work to include the requirements of human right to water into a transboundary context, so this touches on your work on minimum needs.
Prof Gupta: The human right to water and sanitation services is only about 50-100 L per day. If you add the that the water needed for food, energy and infrastructure, the human need for water increases. If transboundary agreements are also willing to incorporate the direct and indirect human right to water and sanitation services, this is a step in the right direction. Moreover, if water pollution is limited this reduces the exposure to harm from polluted water.
Maintaining our water flows requires us to also meet the climate boundary.
The Water Diplomat: Next month there will be the 10th meeting of parties in Ljubljana, what kind of conversation could you have in a setting like that, with regard to the boundaries?
Prof Gupta: I mentioned the earth system boundaries to a colleague in the UN in New York and he said that countries do not like this terminology. In the UNECE Water COP this may be less sensitive; but ultimately, we need to see if we can live within safe and just water boundaries and ambient standards.
The Water Diplomat: It’s true, there is a lot of careful diplomatic work and manoeuvring around this topic.
Prof Gupta: That is correct. Many bilateral and multilateral water agreements have resulted from tough negotiations. Revisiting these negotiations with new knowledge about water may strain these negotiations, not least because every 1℃ rise in temperature increases water vapour by 7% and leads to melting glaciers changing water flows drastically. So our safe and just Earth System Boundaries perhaps may seem unrealistic - but science is always ahead of people. If we miss the 1.5 ℃ boundary, and we continue towards a 2.7℃ increase, water flows will be so different, that we may have to develop a very adaptive system of water governance at transboundary and global level.
The Water Diplomat: The article speaks a lot about taking these global limits and translating them to the cities. How can cities and businesses support the work of the Earth Commission?
Prof Gupta: We say that for cities and businesses, targets have to be translated into ‘pressure units’ or targets. One has to take into account the water footprint of these businesses and cities and what they want to achieve. The targets are based on an allocation principle that ultimately depends on which of a number of ethical principles these actors choose. The idea is to make these actors very conscious of their water use and abuse and convince them to take action to reduce the pollution.
The Water Diplomat: Is it correct to say that there is the principle that you have a global allocation which gives you a budget that you can allocate to the sectors within the companies?
Prof Gupta: We do not propose a governing system for allocation. We propose for now self -allocation where industries and cities can choose their targets. These actors are apparently more committed to planting trees and protecting biodiversity. But this is a small part of all the action they need to take. We also see often there is an inconsistency between how they earn and how they spend. For instance, Amsterdam has embraced the doughnut policy. But Amsterdam also earns from the Port of Amsterdam and Schiphol. So, money is coming from a ‘dirty’ source, but spent possibly well. Consistency between earnings and expenditure is consistent.
The Water Diplomat: On the question how to accelerate SDG 6 implementation, from the point of view of the paper, do you have ideas about that acceleration?
Prof Gupta: The paper proposes reserving water for WASH services for all in order to prioritize the last first. Once you meet the minimum needs, the question is, do you have any water left for the rest, given the water boundary? Such water then needs to be allocated equitably and optimally in and ideal world. This may require implementing the principles of Integrated Water Resources Management and Adaptive governance.
However, I think there may be a lot of resistance from governments and industries. Unfortunately, they don’t take leadership and change the system. And now for instance the oil companies are being taken to court.
The Water Diplomat: Indeed, there is a lot of climate litigation currently taking place, in a sense that that helps to set the norms. The judiciary can establish what has been agreed on and tell governments and businesses to do their share.
Prof Gupta: Indeed litigation is becoming important and in some countries the judiciary is taking a proactive role where legislatures have failed to do so.