The Concept of Planetary Boundary on

Chemical Pollution (PBCP)

Dawit Firemichael
 Antarctic ice core
Modern humans appear in Africa
Methane CO2

CO2

Temperature

Methane

Loulergue, L.,et al Orbittal and millennial-scale features of atmospheric CH4 over the past 800,000 years, Nature, 2008.
Lüthi, D. et al High-resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650,000-800,000 years before present Nature, 2008.
 Antarctic ice core
Methane CO2

Beyond natural boundaries

Loulergue, L.,et al Orbittal and millennial-scale features of atmospheric CH4 over the past 800,000 years, Nature, 2008.
Lüthi, D. et al High-resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650,000-800,000 years before present Nature, 2008.
 Human Development and
Glacial-Interglacial Cycling

First migration of Modern humans Migrations of fully Great European

fully modern arrive in modern humans from Beginning civilizations:
humans out of Africa Australia South Asia to Europe of agriculture Greek, Roman

The Holocene

Source: GRIP ice core data (Greenland) and S. Oppenheimer, ”Out of Eden”, 2004
 IGBP Climate-change index
Arctic sea-ice minimum
Global carbon dioxide

Global surface temperature Global sea level

IGBP Climate-change index
The Great Acceleration – a planet under pressure
 Total real GDP Foreign direct investment
Population

Damming of rivers Water use Fertilizer consumption

US Bureau of the Census (2000) International database

IGBP synthesis: Global Change and the Earth System, Steffen et al 2004
Urban population
Paper consumption
Motor vehicles

Telephones International tourism

Shrimp farm production

Sources: WRI (2003) A guide to world resources, 2002-2004

IGBP synthesis: Global Change and the Earth System, Steffen et al 2004
Planetary response
Atmospheric CO2 concentration Atmospheric N2O concentration

Atmospheric CH4 concentration surface temperature

Etheridge et al. Geophys Res 101: 4115-4128

IGBP synthesis: Global Change and the Earth System, Steffen et al 2004
Ozone depletion
Tropical rainforest and woodland loss

Natural climatic disasters Fisheries exploitation

Source: FAOSTAT (2002) Statistical databases

IGBP synthesis: Global Change and the Earth System, Steffen et al 2004
Where are the thresholds
in the Earth system?
Since 2009,
the planetary boundaries
hypothesis has become a leading
framework

Authored by prominent earth scientists and published in Nature and

other scientific journals, the planetary boundaries hypothesis posits
that there are nine hard, global biophysical limits to human
development.
 The Concept of Planetary Boundaries
• Thresholds are defined as non-linear transitions in the functioning of
coupled human-environmental systems. Thresholds are intrinsic
features of Earth Systems (such as the ice-albedo feedback in the
case of sea ice). These are determined through current scientific
understanding.
• Boundaries are human-determined values of the control variable set
at a ’safe’ distance from a dangerous level (for processes without
known thresholds at the continental to global scales) or from its
global threshold. These boundaries are set using normative
judgments of how societies choose to deal with risk and uncertainty.
 Criteria and Process for Identifying Planetary
Boundaries

• Selection is determined from the definition of what constitutes

unacceptable human-induced global environmental change.
• Overall, the position of the boundary is a function of the degree
of risk the global community is willing to take. It also takes into
account the social and ecological resilience of the impacted
societies.
• Boundaries are identified by the time needed to trigger an
abrupt irreversible change.
 A Safe operating space for humanity
Ozone
Climate Change Depletion

Atmospheric Aerosol
Nitrogen
Loadingg

Ocean
Phosphorus
Acidification

Rate of Global
Biodiversity Loss Freshwater Use

Land System Chemical

Change Pollution

Rockström et al. 2009

Planetary Boundary for Chemical Pollution
• The “chemical pollution” planetary boundary is a placeholder
for all chemical pollution-related planetary boundary problems
that we are currently ignorant about.
• Our challenge is to confront our ignorance.
• What are the conditions that must be fulfilled for chemical
pollution to pose a planetary boundary threat?
 Planetary boundary threats

• We assume that society will react to manage known planetary

boundary concerns
• A planetary boundary threat exists when:
 We are ignorant of the existence of a boundary
 We cannot easily “un-cross” the boundary
The Three Conditions for chemical pollution to pose a planetary
boundary threat
1. The chemical or mixture of chemicals has a disruptive effect
on a vital earth system process.
2. The disruptive effect is not discovered until it is, or inevitably
will become, a problem at a planetary scale.
3. The effect of the pollutant cannot be readily reversed.
• Within the chemical pollution concept it is understood that
chemical substances released into the environment through the
antropogenic activity, can adveresely affect the Earth´s
biosphere, including a set of complex and interrelated
processes.
• Discussion on the global impact of chemical pollution and determination of
identification criteria for chemical substances which can be hazardous on a global
scale, is held for years. Some researches consider the human induced transfer of
chemical substances into the environment to be a global problem when these
chemical substances are:
1) environmentally stable,
2) can propagate for long distances,
3) supposed to have a significant impact on the processes of vital importance for the
survival of humankind occurring in the subsystems or in the global system of the
Earth.
• Other scientists suppose that to be hazardous on a global scale,
chemical substances must fit the following criteria
1. A chemical substance must have an adverse or under
investigated adverse effect on the processes of vital importance
for the survival of humankind occurring in the sub systems or
in the global system of the Earth.

2. An adverse effect of a chemical substance can not be found

until it becomes apparent on a global scale.
3. The exposure consequences are irreversible or virtually

irreversible

 Science into Policy: How scientists evaluate the “same”

chemicals data differently
 General approaches to assess the ecological footprint
of chemical substances

• Developing an approach to estimate hazards arising from chemical substances

basing on properties which can cause their global destructive effect, before the
above substances enter the environment and before the global problem arises,
becomes an actual scientific challenge.

• The value of an ecological footprint is one of the most general indicators of

environmental impact used in the global assessments of the anthropogenic
impact. The concept of the "ecological footprint" has been formulated in 1990s.

• Presently, development and application of the ecological footprint method to

assess the environmental impact gains the steadily growing importance both for
business and for the state
• Development of the methodology of the ecological footprint estimation is
directed on finding a balance between scientific certainty, on one hand,
and transparency for making political and economical decisions, on the
other hand.
• The basis for methodology of the ecological footprint of chemicals
estimation lays in three principles:
1. the "cradle to grave" principle
2. the principle of a "hazard and risk level analysis",
3. the precautionary principle.
"Ecological footprint is a quantitative measure describing the
ecological space necessary to dilute the man caused chemical
pollution up to the level below the specified boundary conditions”

 Advantages of such boundary conditions are that they may be

compared to the environmental quality standard which are
applied in the preventive chemical control or to the observed or
estimated impact on ecosystems.