nobelprize.org our planet our future – solutions sessions On day three of the Nobel Prize Summit our partners will be hosting events that put our discussion themes into practice. For information on the summit’s Main Stage programme click here.
phys.org.news 29/4/2021 Humanity taking ‘colossal risk’ with our future say Nobels – by Marlowe Hood The failure to halt climate change, the destruction of nature and other intertwined global crises poses an existential risk to humanity, ten Nobel laureates said Thursday following the first-ever Nobel Prize Summit. Only profound changes in the way society produces, distributes and consumes almost everything—starting with energy—can forestall potentially catastrophic changes, they said in a joint statement, also signed by 20 other top thinkers. “We need to reinvent our relationship with planet Earth,” the statement said. “Without transformational action this decade, humanity is taking colossal risks with our common future.” … “The next decade is crucial: global greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut by half and destruction of nature halted and reversed.” The amount of CO2 humanity can emit and still cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius—our “carbon budget”—will be exhausted before 2030, scientists have calculated. Earth’s average global temperature has already gone up 1.2C compared to preindustrial levels. At the same time, energy needs are increasing: every week until 2050 Earth’s urban population will increase by about 1.3 million. The Nobel signatories included economists Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Oliver Hart from Harvard, biophysicists William Moerner from Stanford and Jacques Dubochet of Lausanne University, and astrophysicist Brian Schmidt of the Australian National University. There is no Nobel Prize for environmental or Earth science. “What we are doing amounts to an uncontrolled experiment on Earth’s life-support system,” said Earth system scientist Johan Rockstrom, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a signatory of the statement.
“We are the last generation with a reasonable chance of retaining long-term stability of critical parts of the Earth system.”
phys.org/news 22/3/2021 Major ‘State of the Planet’ report out in advance of first Nobel Prize Summit by Stockholm Resilience Centre “….The report concludes that inequality and environmental challenges are deeply linked. Reducing inequality will increase trust within societies. Trust is essential for governments to make long-term decisions, the report argues. Social media and access to reliable knowledge is also highlighted as a barrier to progress. The risks of the next generation of technologies are brought into focus throughout the report. …” more at phys.org
nobelprize.org What is the Nobel Prize Summit? 26 – 28 April 2021 The first ever Nobel Prize Summit – Our Planet, Our Future – will virtually bring together Nobel Prize laureates and other world-renowned experts and leaders to focus on this question: What can be achieved in this decade to put the world on a path to a more sustainable, more prosperous future for all of humanity? The summit will put the world’s best minds to work on finding solutions to help mitigate and adapt to climate change, reduce inequality – The summit is being hosted by the Nobel Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre/Beijer Institute. more at nobelprize.org
theguardian.com 21/3/2021 Climate fight ‘is undermined by social media’s toxic reports’ Scientists warn that Nobel summit and long-term decisions to save the planet are at risk from targeted attacks online …
“Climate change impacts are now hitting people harder and sooner than was envisaged only a decade ago,”
states the report, Our Future in the Anthropocene Biosphere. Given the vast scale of the problem, the report concludes that “modest adjustments” to our current industrial and agricultural practices are now going to be insufficient. “Transformative changes are now necessary,” it concludes.
