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Joyeeta Gupta, professor of development at the University of Amsterdam, and Paul Ekins, professor of resource policy at University College London, are co-chairs of United Nations Environment’s sixth Global Environment Outlook: Healthy Planet, Healthy People. They talk to Nature Sustainability about drafting the new report.
The development of sewer systems hasn’t caught up with the urbanization speed in developing countries, with serious consequences for urban river water quality. The experience of urban river restoration in China can offer useful lessons to other countries in the Global South.
Planning and design expert Jinhyung Chon, deputy director of the OJeong Eco-Resilience Institute at Korea University and one of the directors of the Asia Resilience Center (ARC), tells Nature Sustainability about the making of ARC.
Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons put forward underdeveloped arguments that continue to be reflected in simplistic debates about the drivers and implications of demographic dynamics. It’s time to embrace the complexity that Hardin lacked in order to develop better-informed policy.
In order to address sustainability challenges, we posit that knowledge generation needs to move rapidly from a disciplinary linear ‘tree’ model to an interdisciplinary ‘web’ model. We show how such a shift is useful by looking at case studies in the context of water management.
Policymakers and investors have perceived securing soil organic carbon as too difficult, with uncertain returns. But new technical, policy and financial opportunities offer hope for rapid progress.
Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals requires examining the impacts of health interventions across multiple sectors and identifying regions where health–development–environment conflicts are most likely. Doing this is important for ending the epidemic of malaria by 2030 alongside achieving other SDGs.
Designing policies to maintain human wellbeing within the limits of planet Earth is a daunting task, but scholars and policymakers should embrace the challenge now.
