The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are currently dominating debates on development policy worldwide. The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) has published a policy paper that recommends the inclusion of a comprehensive environmental goal entitled “safeguarding Earth system services” in the catalogue of new sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The aim of this goal is to bring development paths in line with ecological boundaries, so that human progress can be ensured. In order to operationalise this goal, the WBGU has recommended integrating six targets to protect the climate, the soils and biological diversity. The WGBU points out that compliance with ecological boundaries in the form of “planetary guard rails” is a prerequisite for poverty eradication and development. Taking them into account does not imply restrictions on the future development of the poorest 2 billion people. Rather, in the long term development will only be possible within these planetary guard rails.

“Consumption decisions and lifestyles of the middle and upper classes are causing the greatest threat to the natural life-support systems,” the policy paper has said, because of their high level of resource consumption or high per-capita CO2 emissions. Policy-makers therefore have a responsibility to create the necessary requirements for sustainable production and consumption patterns.