“Technological innovations
are leveraging and combining
developments in artificial intelligence,
biotechnology, nanotechnology, and other
areas, whereas the social innovations are
being driven by a much more informed,
demanding, and doubting society,
contributing to both co-creation
and consensus-based innovation.”
—Leena Srivastava
2021 Nobel Prize Summit:
OUR PLANET, OUR FUTURE
PROCEEDINGS OF A SUMMIT
Franklin Carrero-Martínez, Negin Sobhani,
Emi Kameyama, and Paula Whitacre, Rapporteurs
Committee on 2021 Nobel Prize Summit: Our Planet, Our Future
Global Sustainability and Development
Policy and Global Affairs
THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS
Washington, DC
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This activity was supported by Academia Sinica, Arizona State University, af Jochnick Foundation, Carl Bennet AB, Carnegie Corporation of New York under award number G-21-58294, Elsevier, JPB Foundation under award number 2020-1963, Peace Department, Porticus, Sea Change Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation under award number 00102256. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-09366-8
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-09366-X
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Suggested citation: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Nobel Prize Summit: Our Planet, Our Future: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26310.
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Proceedings published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine chronicle the presentations and discussions at a workshop, symposium, or other event convened by the National Academies. The statements and opinions contained in proceedings are those of the participants and are not endorsed by other participants, the planning committee, or the National Academies.
“Whether humankind has the collective wisdom
to navigate the Anthropocene to sustain a livable biosphere
for generations to come and for the rest of life with
which we share the planet is the most formidable
challenge facing our species.”
—Carl Folke
STEERING COMMITTEE ON NOBEL PRIZE SUMMIT:
OUR PLANET, OUR FUTURE
NOBEL PRIZE SUMMIT STEERING COMMITTEE
Peter Doherty* (NAS/NAM), Laureate Professor, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Melbourne
Jennifer Doudna* (NAS/NAM), Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology and Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
Ottmar Edenhofer, Director and Chief Economist, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor, Technical University of Berlin
Carl Folke (NAS), Director and Professor, Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director, Nobel Foundation
Jane Lubchenco (NAS), Deputy Director for Climate and the Environment, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Professor, Oregon State University
Marcia McNutt (NAS/NAE), President, National Academy of Sciences
William Nordhaus* (NAS), Sterling Professor of Economics, Department of Economics, Yale University
Paul Nurse* (NAS), Director, The Francis Crick Institute
Johan Rockström, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor, University of Potsdam
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (NAS), Director Emeritus, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Brian Schmidt* (NAS), Vice Chancellor, President, Chief Executive Officer, and Professor, Australian National University
Yuan Tseh Lee* (NAS), President Emeritus, Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica
Laurence Tubiana, Chief Executive Officer, European Climate Foundation
NOBEL PRIZE SUMMIT PLANNING COMMITTEE
Carl Folke (NAS) (Chair), Director and Professor, Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
David Dzombak (NAE), Hamerschlag University Professor and Head, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
Susan Hanson (NAS), Distinguished University Professor Emerita, School of Geography, Clark University
Vidar Helgesen, Executive Director, Nobel Foundation
Johan Rockström, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Professor, University of Potsdam
NATIONAL ACADEMIES STAFF
Franklin Carrero-Martínez, Senior Director, Global Sustainability and Development and Science and Technology for Sustainability Program
Negin Sobhani, Senior Program Officer, Global Sustainability and Development
Ann Merchant, Deputy Executive Director, Office of the Chief Communications Officer
Emi Kameyama, Program Officer, Science and Technology for Sustainability Program
CONSULTANT
Paula Tarnapol Whitacre, Principal, Full Circle Communications, LLC
___________________
*Nobel laureates.
“Let us make it our goal that our discussions
resonate with everyone on the planet and the
theme ‘Our Planet, Our Future’ rings true
to everyone, regardless of who they are,
where they come from, and
where they live.”
—Magdalena Skipper
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
On a train to the 2018 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, former Nobel Foundation CEO Lars Heikensten and then incoming director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Johan Rockström agreed to convene a global event bringing together “a selected group of laureates in a scientific dialogue on the global sustainability challenge for humanity.” In September 2018, Potsdam Institute leadership proposed a collaboration to U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) President Marcia McNutt to help contribute the scientific foundation for what later became known as the Nobel Prize Summit.
Shortly afterward, a steering committee, including the NAS president and other NAS and National Academy of Medicine members, was established to begin the planning process for the summit in partnership with the Nobel Foundation, NAS, the Potsdam Institute, and the Stockholm Resilience Centre/Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics. Starting in 2018, a core working group from these institutions met via teleconference on a weekly basis and also in person in June 2019, October 2019, and January 2020 to plan the summit. The October 2019 meeting included a selected group of world-leading experts, which helped set the scientific underpinnings for the event. The Nobel Prize Summit was originally scheduled for April 2020 at the NAS building in Washington, DC, but was postponed due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). To help set the stage for the summit, a virtual workshop on Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities for Sustainability Science was held in fall 2020, which allowed additional scientific experts to provide input to the summit and bring parts of the climate change and sustainability communities together based on six cross-cutting capacities of sustainability science (see Box 2-2 in Chapter 2). In January 2021, the committee launched the Nobel Prize Summit Webinar Series as a way to have additional, in-depth discussions ahead of the summit. In addition, a white paper on the Anthropocene biosphere was developed as the basis of planning the Nobel Prize Summit (see Chapter 2).
On April 26–28, 2021, the first-ever Nobel Prize Summit: Our Planet, Our Future was convened as a virtual event focused on pressing global challenges: climate change and biodiversity loss; rising inequality; and rapid societal transformation enabled by emerging and converging technologies. These three topics were selected in consultation with the summit steering committee and partner organizations to continue building trust in scientific reasoning while exploring transformative models for people and the planet on some of the most pressing existential challenges faced by humanity on Earth. The COVID-19 pandemic has awoken the world to the fact that some crises can only be solved on a global scale, and the themes addressed at the Nobel Prize Summit were deeply connected and linked to human health. This was a unique opportunity to examine challenges and opportunities for global sustainability science and evidence-based solutions by building a bridge between Nobel laureates and other world-leading scientists and experts, business executives, artists, and young leaders. Moving to a virtual format allowed the summit to reach a larger global audience with high-impact content, including 27,838 registered for the summit representing 210 countries and territories, more than 21,500 unique visitors to the platform during the 3 days, and 38 Nobel laureates actively engaging in the summit.
The Nobel Prize Summit would not have been possible without the sponsors of the summit, including Academia Sinica, Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, af Jochnick Foundation, Carl Bennet AB, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Elsevier, JPB Foundation, the Peace Department, Porticus, Sea Change Foundation, and Walton Family Foundation. Other partner organizations included DICCE, the Embassy of Italy in the United States, the Embassy of Sweden in the United States, the Global Solutions Summit, the Peace Department, PeaceTech Lab, Project Syndicate, S&R Foundation, and the Club of Rome. The planning sessions in October 2019 and fall 2020 were made possible by financial support from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s George and Cynthia Mitchell Endowment for Sustainability Science.
On behalf of the National Academies, we want to express our sincere appreciation to the summit executive team responsible for organizing the summit, namely, Owen Gaffney, Potsdam Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre/Beijer Institute; Holger Hoff, Potsdam Institute; Anna Sjöström Douagi, Nobel Foundation; and Negin Sobhani, the National Academies. The committee also recognizes the contribution of colleagues in the communications teams from the Nobel Foundation (Lena Abrahamsson, Ebba Bourghardt, Magnus Gylje, Rebecka Oxelström, and Maria von Konow), Potsdam Institute (Nadin Gaasch, Marie Kimbel, Juliane Otto, Jonas Viering, and Lila Warszawski), Stockholm Resilience Centre/Beijer Institute (Sturle Simonsen), and the National Academies (Jeffrey Fishman, Molly Galvin, William Kearney, David May, Ann Merchant, and Cortney Sloan) for their support and assistance with summit activities.
This Proceedings of a Summit was prepared by the rapporteurs as a factual summary of what was presented and discussed at the summit. The planning committee’s role was limited to planning and convening the summit. The statements made are those of the rapporteurs and do not necessarily represent positions of the summit participants as a whole, the planning committee, or the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. We wish to extend sincere thanks to all the members of the planning committee for their contributions in scoping, developing, and carrying out this project.
This Proceedings of a Summit was reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in making each published proceedings as sound as possible and to ensure that it meets the institutional standards for quality, objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this proceedings: Thomas Lovejoy, George Mason University; Kate Pickett, University of York; and Miguel Román, Universities Space Research Association. Although the reviewers listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the content of the proceedings, nor did they see the final draft before its release. The review of this proceedings was overseen by Frances Colón, Jasperi Consulting. She was responsible for making certain that an independent examination of this proceedings was carried out in accordance with standards of the National Academies and that all review comments were carefully considered. Responsibility for the final content rests entirely with the rapporteurs and the National Academies.
“We can no longer act incrementally,
we must act exponentially, collectively,
and in parallel.”
—Johan Rockström
CONTENTS
OUR PLANET, OUR FUTURE
Organization of the Summit and This Proceedings
MAIN STAGE: Introduction from the Partners
FROM THE SCIENCE SESSIONS: Close to the Tipping Point
MAIN STAGE: Our Planet: Its Health, Its People, Its Future
MAIN STAGE: Updating the Concept of “Think Globally, Act Locally”
MAIN STAGE: Four Dynamic Dialogues
From Sustainability to Stability
FROM THE SCIENCE SESSIONS: Scientific Underpinnings
White Paper on the Anthropocene
Six Cross-Cutting Capacities of Sustainability Science
Reflections from Journal Editors-in-Chief
MAIN STAGE: A Commitment to Cooperation
MAIN STAGE: Innovative Solutions
FROM THE SCIENCE SESSIONS: Science-Supporting Transformations
Science for Transformative Change
Mobilizing Political Will and Trust in Science
MAIN STAGE: A View to the Future
Connecting Science and Engineering
MAIN STAGE: Lessons from the Pandemic
MAIN STAGE: Reaching Beyond Science: Spirituality and the Arts
Paying Attention to “Inner Science”
Greek Tragedy with a Modern Lesson
Transformational Economics: Valuing Our Future
Roots of Change: Empathy as a Collective Responsibility
Our Planet: From Human Impact to Climate Action and Sustainable Industry Solutions
The Future of Sustainability Education
Start-up Solutions: How Social Enterprises Are Addressing 21st Century Challenges
From Results in the Lab to Results on the Ground
Online Disinformation and Human Rights
Smart Cities and New Green Solutions
A Call for an Intergovernmental Panel on the Information Environment
Critical Pathway: Implementing Comprehensive Design Models for People and Planet
Acting Today for an Ambitious Tomorrow
The Sustainable Development Goals and International Research Collaboration
FROM THE SCIENCE SESSIONS: Toward Sustainable Futures: Governance, Inclusivity, and Stewardship
FROM THE SCIENCE SESSIONS: Call for Action and Concluding Remarks
Appendix B Academic Science Sesssions Agenda
