Can We Transform our Planetary Future? The New IPBES Transformative Change Assessment

Humanity is facing multiple interconnected and accelerating global environmental crises (including climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution). These crises are converging in ways that now pose existential threats by undermining the conditions necessary for human survival and for meaningful cultural and spiritual lives. In response to continued warnings of rapidly deteriorating conditions for life on Earth, “transformative change” is now regularly being emphasized as imperative for securing sustainable futures. Such statements appear across science and policy communities, in multilateral environmental agreements, and in the work of both business and non-governmental organisations.

Following three years of work involving over 100 authors from all around the world, in December 2024, the almost 150 member governments of IPBES negotiated and accepted their commissioned thematic assessment on transformative change. In this talk, Prof. Fern Wickson (coordinating lead author of chapter 1 of the report), will introduce IPBES and present key content from their new report on transformative change. This will include the meaning of transformative change, the challenges and barriers involved, and the approaches and strategies identified for bringing it into being. She will then share some reflections and lessons learned from dancing between science and policy within the IPBES context and invite attendees into conversation about to approach interrelationships between science, ethics and politics in ways that enable transformations towards flourishing futures for all life on Earth.