National Environmental Performance on Planetary Boundaries : A study for the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

Abstract

Environmental problems are becoming increasingly global. The links between human drivers and impacts in the environment cross geographical scales and country borders. Since the revision of the Swedish national environmental objectives in 2010, the overarching goal of Swedish environmental policy has recognised this fact. The "generational goal" now addresses the importance of limiting Sweden's impact abroad. At the same time, Sweden has limited means and legal competence (rådighet) to shape global developments that influence its own environmental objectives. How to evaluate the generational goal, and where and how to direct our limited capacity to influence global development are therefore important questions for Sweden's international environmental policy work.This report examines whether and how the planetary boundaries framework (Rockström et al. 2009a) offers tools and perspectives on how to work with the two-way interaction between Swedish and global environmental pressures and performance described above. The planetary boundaries concept was presented in 2009 and provides a novel synthesis of the most pertinent global environmental challenges by analysing the risk of crossing critical thresholds in the behaviour of the Earth system's processes. Nine challenges were identified, seven of which were possible to quantify at the time, by identifying control variables (e.g., for climate change, atmospheric CO2 concentration) and setting specific boundary values (e.g., 350 ppm CO2). The criteria for identifying planetary boundary processes was that they can be associated with some kind of threshold, or "tipping point", beyond which the planet and its ecosystems might enter new states, some of which are likely to be less hospitable to our current societies, and that this process is possibly irreversible. Boundaries were then set at what was considered to be a "safe distance" from the estimated threshold, using the best available science and the precautionary principle.The planetary boundaries framework quickly became popular among various stakeholders, arguably because of its scientific grounding combined with its intuitive rationale and easily accessible visual presentation. A common request since its publication has been to downscale the planetary boundaries to the level of individuals, companies and countries, that is, what is required for each to stay within the "safe operating space". This report presents a first attempt to translate the planetary boundaries into a corresponding set of national boundaries. The purpose is to investigate whether the planetary boundaries framework provides a scientifically grounded approach to addressing problems of international environmental policy and comparing performance. Although many different sets of environmental indicators already exist for global problems, these metrics are seldom coupled with a scientifically derived measure of what can be considered good or bad performance above or below an absolute boundary. Instead, such indicators are typically only used to compare relative performance. The overarching goal of this report is to fill this gap.Based on the planetary boundary framework we investigate: (i) whether the planetary boundaries can be downscaled to nationally relevant boundaries; and, (ii) whether indicators and data are available that allow comparison of country performance (including that of Sweden) using these downscaled boundaries. If such a methodology is feasible, this provides new perspectives on and methods for how to analyse the international dimension of environmental policy and how to set policy priorities. Finding that this is indeed feasible, the report analyses four related policy questions: How is Sweden performing on the generational goal to not increase environmental problems beyond its borders? Can the legal competence deficit of Sweden in relation to its national environmental objectives be quantified? Which countries should be prioritised for bilateral cooperation with Sweden? How do existing international environmental agreements match with planetary boundaries, and which agreements should be prioritised for Swedish engagement?Methodology and suggested downscaled planetary boundariesWe first analysed the relevance of downscaling the planetary boundaries in the context of Sweden's national environmental objectives (NEOs) and Swedish environmental policy and found that there was sufficient similarity between these two sets of environmental targets (see Figure S1). We then developed and proposed different options for down-scaled boundaries and presented indicators to measure national performance of the Earth system processes wherever this was feasible (see table S1). Data from international databases and peer-reviewed analyses of large sets on countries were used to enable comparisons between countries (see Figure S2). These results were then used as a basis for responding to the four policy questions.Methodological issues and limitations The methodological work of this research project takes as a strict starting point the control variables and boundary values proposed in the original planetary boundaries framework. This means that we did not look for a wider set of relevant indicators around a planetary boundary, but only those which best matched the original control variable. The methodology developed is therefore subject to the same criticisms of individual boundary definitions that have previously been voiced. One such constraint is the lack of spatial differentiation of the planetary boundaries. For example, the land use boundary states that, globally, no more than 15% of ice-free land must be converted to cropland, but does not specify which land would be more or less harmful to convert. This is critical in the context of mounting food security and agricultural challenges connected to providing food for a growing population. This universal approach becomes a limitation when examining the performance of individual countries, in particular given their very different environmental resource endowments and geographical conditions. Despite these problems, we argue that the most relevant approach is to downscale the planetary boundaries to per capita shares of the global safe operating space. We choose this approach because it provides an answer to the hypothetical question: What if the whole world's population had the same level of resource use as, for example, Sweden? Would the global planetary boundaries then be transgressed? However, we do not consider the fairness of such a crude distribution of this safe space, and future work needs to explore such concerns in order to increase the relevance of the analysis. Hence, while the methods and boundaries presented in this report offer a first attempt to develop scientifically grounded approaches that attribute the contributions of individuals to global environmental problems, the results should be interpreted with care. According to the data presented below, less developed countries now perform well, and in per capita terms use sustainable amounts of resources with respect to the boundaries. In contrast, highly developed countries and some emerging economies transgress several of their national boundaries, although there is a less clear pattern for some others (e.g., biodiversity loss). In general, the performance of highly developed countries including Sweden is worse if consumption "footprints" rather than strictly territorial emissions/resource use are considered. The clear pattern associated with level of income for many of the boundaries cannot be ignored in the light of calls for the "right to develop" within the shared environmental space, and suggests that consumption patterns in highly developed countries need to be dealt with. Finally, the data used in this report are in several cases taken from publicly available sources such as the international databases. These are often based on self-reporting, which limits data quality. It is beyond the scope of this work to coherently address this, and results should therefore be treated with caution.Responding to the policy questionsThe first policy question was to explore whether the planetary boundaries framework can be used to identify and measure the extent to which Swedish efforts to achieve domestic environmental objectives cause increased environmental and health problems beyond Sweden's borders. Consumption-based indicators were compiled on performance for several boundaries, and we believe that these are relevant for addressing and assessing the generational goal, since they capture the environmental effects of the Swedish economy not just domestically but also abroad. We believe that the planetary boundaries framework can contribute to existing work in two important ways. First, it is a comprehensive framework that captures many major global environmental challenges, as opposed to a more data-driven and single-issue approach. Second, it establishes absolute per capita boundaries, thereby allowing measurement of the absolute performance of countries rather than simply their relative performance. The second policy question was whether the planetary boundaries framework and its indicators can help to characterise and quantify Sweden's legal competence deficit in relation to some of its NEOs. Reviewing all the bar charts and graphs presented in chapters 4 and 5 suggests that Sweden's contribution to the planetary boundaries is in most cases minor in absolute terms. This means that Sweden's competence to hand over to the next generation a situation where most environmental problems have been resolved is limited. The methodological approach piloted here allows a quantification of the deficit for only one national environmental objective: Reduced Climate Impact. The deficit was over 99% at the global level. We found that it was a worthwhile analytical exercise and that the planetary boundaries framework in general is amenable to visualising environmental challenges in terms of numbers and graphically. However, the planetary boundaries framework cannot add much when it comes to more regional challenges, such as the eutrophication of a regional sea or regional transboundary air pollution.In response to the third policy question, the analysis presented in this report can potentially be used to identify sets of countries with similar challenges and as a source of information to inform discussions on priorities in bilateral environmental cooperation. Interpretations based on this first analysis should, however, be made with care, and the results are more robust when comparing performance across several boundaries and for a group of countries, as opposed to focusing on individual boundaries and individual countries. Using the downscaled boundaries and indicators selected in this report, performance data for 61 countries were generated and some general performance patterns were identified, such as richer countries generally performing much worse. However, it was also recognised that the selection of priority countries for bilateral cooperation will necessarily involve many other considerations, such as political relations, the level of economic development, key Swedish leverage opportunities, and so on. Finally, with regard to our fourth policy question, the analysis of how well the planetary boundaries are matched with international environmental agreements suggested that agreements are in place for all but one boundary, but that their implementation has not been successful. There is no lack of global environmental goals, nor is their level of ambition found wanting, as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) found in a recent report. The problem is rather the limited progress on existing goals. Our detailed assessment of existing international environmental agreements led to an effort to distinguish between the policy gap and the implementation gap for each planetary boundary. Overall, our analysis suggests that there are four important paths for future engagement in international environmental agreements and international cooperation more broadly: (i) to reduce implementation deficits in relation to existing targets and commitments; (ii) to highlight the global scale and implications of problems currently being addressed regionally; (iii) to extend the rationale for acting from human health effects to effects on ecological and Earth system resilience, but also connect these two; and (iv) to pursue tools for international cooperation, other than merely relying on formal international environmental agreements such as voluntary initiatives (some of which involve non-state actors) and capacity building efforts targeted at developing countries to support their implementation of international agreements and targets.ConclusionsUsing planetary boundaries as a basis for comparing the performance of countries, the main conclusion is that, in general, it is most important to work with developed countries and countries with rapidly growing economies. These countries have higher absolute and per capita impacts on the environment globally, and thus a bigger responsibility for progressive action on, e.g., mitigating climate change. For future work and the application of the methodology presented below, we recommend analysis that tracks the development of performance over time, as this would enable the identification of countries with negative trends and fast rates of change in performance, as well as more in-depth exploration of equity issues.A further recommendation is that additional consumptive-based indicators, covering each of the planetary boundaries, can be used to complement the existing indicators to assess whether Sweden meets its generational goal. The tentative methods and results on, e.g., consumptive land use and the threats to biodiversity driven by consumption provided in this report are concrete examples.A third recommendation is that if the "competence deficit" is to be reduced, Sweden must act more proactively and assertively in negotiations around international environmental agreements. Many of the national environmental objectives depend on international action and the analysis of national performance presented below suggests that Sweden's performance is of minor importance in many cases. The review of international environmental agreements shows that much of the legal infrastructure is in place to address planetary boundaries, but that the level of ambition and implementation effectiveness need to be strengthened. However, it should also be emphasised that legally binding agreements are only one of many routes to take. Sweden could expand bilateral cooperation with key countries to improve their domestic performance on key issues. Voluntary initiatives involving nonstate actors could be pursued as an alternative to legally binding agreements. Finally, a strategy could be pursued to identify the "co-benefits" of environmental action at both the local and, ultimately, the global level. The new Climate and Clean Air Coalition, in which Sweden is a key player, embraces this kind of approach.