All publications and documents

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were conceived at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 2012 (Rio + 20), and adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. They are part of a larger framework, namely the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Since then, many countries round the world have been engaging in respect of…

Extensive land uses to meet dietary preferences incur a ‘carbon opportunity cost’ given the potential for carbon sequestration through ecosystem restoration. Here we map the magnitude of this opportunity, finding that shifts in global food production to plant-based diets by 2050 could lead to sequestration of 332–547 GtCO2, equivalent to 99–163% of the CO2 emissions budget consistent with a 66%…

Soil phosphorus (P) loss from agricultural systems will limit food and feed production in the future. Here, we combine spatially distributed global soil erosion estimates (only considering sheet and rill erosion by water) with spatially distributed global P content for cropland soils to assess global soil P loss. The world’s soils are currently being depleted in P in spite of high chemical…

Nature‐based solutions (NbS) to climate change currently have considerable political traction. However, national intentions to deploy NbS have yet to be fully translated into evidence‐based targets and action on the ground. To enable NbS policy and practice to be better informed by science, we produced the first global systematic map of evidence on the effectiveness of nature‐based interventions…

A new international scenario-based modelling study suggests that ambitious action can reverse the trend of terrestrial biodiversity loss resulting from habitat conversion. This requires an integrated portfolio of measures including area-based conservation, restoration of degraded land and a transformation of the food system. The study, from an international modelling consortium including PBL, is…