Question

How do planetary boundaries affect our approach to Sustainable Development. if you have any research papers or any information , I would be grateful.

Answer 1

The idea of planetary boundaries was designed to establish a secure operating area for humanity that carries a low risk of damaging Earth's life-support structures to such an degree that they can no longer sustain economic growth and human development. As discussed in this article, planetary boundaries don't place a cap on human growth. Instead they provide a safe space for creativity, growth and development in an increasingly populated and affluent world in search of human prosperity.

Boundaries establishing a secure global level of depletion of non-renewable fossil resources, such as electricity (coal, oil, gas) and fossil groundwater; boundaries establishing a secure global level of usage of the living biosphere, including habitat degradation, biodiversity conservation and the use of renewable resources, such as land use; boundaries offering a secure global level of Earth's power

Sustainable Development (SD) approaches the planetary limits in a new way: not by an open resource battle, nor by a contraction of high-income rates, nor by kicking off the lader. We are proposing that the world should live within the limits of the earth through the introduction of new sustainable technology and new game laws. We contend that an organized and inclusive mechanism would result in significantly better outcomes for all parts of the planet.

Critically, specifics of these changes need to be worked out for each area, including their costs, based on renewable energy endowments, existing infrastructure, population distribution, etc. Far less is known about how such transitions can be achieved in Upper Middle Income Countries, but it seems likely that their de-carbonization approaches would contain elements that are largely similar.

The rich world is lucky to have reached first a high income standard. Countries with low and middle incomes can not continue to expand to ensure that the environment stays within planetary boundaries.
Contract and converge: Rich countries need to substantially lower their living standards, and developing countries can grow until they converge at low-income countries. Economic growth will need to stop at that point.

Governance transformation will be one of the most difficult yet important challenges. Public policy decisions must be made on the basis of scientific evidence in an age of planetary boundaries. Lack of transparency and accountability on the part of local and national governments also exacerbates environmental degradation. When public institutions are weak or corrupt, when they do not respect the rule of law, then the public goods tend to be massively underprovided for sound environmental management. Improving local, regional, and national governance is, of course, very complicated, and takes a long time.