Environmental Outlook on the Triple Planetary Crisis

Executive Summary

The triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution poses a growing threat to the environment and the economy. While each of these challenges is pressing, interlinkages can magnify their cumulative impact while creating opportunities for synergistic action. This Environmental Outlook aims to inform an integrated policy approach that accounts for common drivers, pressures and mutually reinforcing impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

Key Findings

The three challenges have interlinked common drivers

Projections based on integrated biophysical and economy-wide modelling in this Outlook suggest that, under current policies, between 2020 and 2050:

• Global GDP is projected to more than double (from USD 126 trillion to USD 283 trillion), equivalent to 2.7% annual average growth. Large parts of Asia and Africa are projected to experience faster growth.

• Environmental pressures are primarily driven by growth in specific economic sectors, spurred by socio-economic trends of population and economic growth.

  • Agriculture will remain the main driver of land use change, responsible for 87% of land conversion. Intensification in agricultural production will mitigate but not prevent an increase in agricultural land.

  • Fossil fuel use is projected to increase by 16% (from 466 to 541 exajoules), with a shift towards natural gas. Amid ongoing electrification of the energy system, renewables power generation is projected to more than double (from 80 to 209 exajoules).

  • Primary materials use is projected to increase by roughly half (from 96 to 145 Gigatonnes) while global water withdrawal is expected to increase by 17%.

• Technological and behavioural changes will enable some decoupling between environmental pressures and economic growth. However, these factors are projected to slow – but not halt – global demand growth of energy, food, materials and water.

Environmental pressures underpinning the triple planetary crisis are set to intensify along several dimensions

As environmental pressures rise, climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution are set to worsen over time and reinforce each other. Modelling projections suggest that, under current policies, between 2020 and 2050:

• Global mean temperatures will continue to increase (from 1.2°C in 2020 to 2.1°C in 2050 above pre-industrial levels). Climate change is also projected to become the main driver of biodiversity loss before mid-century.

• The terrestrial mean species abundance index is projected to further decline (from 59.7 to 56.5). This is equivalent to the conversion of pristine habitat of more than 4 million km² into an area where all the original species have been lost.

• As regards pollution, the situation is mixed.

  • Concentrations of particulate matter and ozone are projected to decline in most regions, driven by reduction in emissions of precursor gases. Sulphur dioxide emissions, for instance, are projected to significantly decline in all regions (with a 64% decrease globally). This decline, however, will accelerate warming due to the cooling effect of sulphur dioxide.

  • Pollutant emissions to water and soil are projected to continue to increase, not least ammonia (with a 43% increase globally).

  • Mismanaged plastic waste is projected to increase from 83 to 138 million tonnes, leading to an increase in global plastic leakage to the environment from 22 to 37 million tonnes.

There is ample potential for more integrated policies, but much more needs to be done 

• The linkages among climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution may suggest that addressing one challenge automatically helps tackle the other two. However, interactions between policies underscore the potential for synergies and trade-offs. Failing to consider these interactions can result in policy gaps and missed opportunities from more integrated action.

• A first-of-its-kind stocktake of 20 national documents across 10 countries (Argentina, Australia, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, France, India, Indonesia, Japan, Peru, and Uganda) finds that:

  • Biennial Transparency Reports and National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans include relatively extensive discussions on the linkages between climate change and biodiversity in terms of their biophysical impacts.

  • Considerations of how climate change and biodiversity loss might affect the severity and extent of pollution are largely lacking.

  • Policies targeted at managing trade-offs – particularly for pollution – are sparse.

• Deep dives demonstrate opportunities for a more integrated approach for renewable energy expansion, management and expansion of protected areas, air pollution control and nutrient management.

Six policy levers can support the development of more synergistic responses

Three foundational levers can lay the groundwork for integrated policy approaches to fundamentally address the triple planetary crisis and its underlying drivers:

• Addressing key gaps in research and assessment through better targeting of research funding and by leveraging (inter)national scientific assessment processes on climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

• Strengthening the consideration of interlinkages between these three challenges in national reporting frameworks for multilateral environmental agreements. In addition, developing national approaches to tackle pollution comparable to those for climate change and biodiversity can help prevent blind spots.

• Aligning finance and resource allocation towards jointly addressing the challenges posed by the triple planetary crisis. Synergies can be promoted by embedding interlinkages in multilateral environmental and development finance, using national budgeting processes to incentivise collaboration across ministries and ensuring support measures are well-targeted.

Complementarily, specific considerations for clean energy, material resources and food systems can help enhance synergies and minimise the risks for trade-offs, while also addressing social and distributional concerns such as job and income losses, affordability, and access to food and energy:

• Better assessing and managing unintended impacts of the clean energy transition so that the adverse biodiversity and pollution impacts do not become an impediment to accelerated renewable energy expansion. Spatial planning and regulatory tools such as licensing and permitting, as well as better management of end-of-life fates, can help limit potential adverse impacts of renewables expansion on biodiversity and pollution control objectives. 

• Transitioning to a more resource-efficient and circular economy to address the significant environmental impacts of resource use on the triple planetary crisis. Action is needed across the materials lifecycle, including mainstreaming the circular economy within other policy domains, exploiting synergies with resource-intensive sectors, strengthening and realigning incentives, and leveraging demand-side interventions.

• Policies are needed to reduce the environmental footprint of food production and consumption. This is critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating ecosystem degradation from agricultural land use expansion and intensification, and alleviating nutrient pollution. Governments can consider revising regulations and safeguards with an aim to reduce emissions, shift diets and decrease food loss and waste.