Solutions for the Planet’s Interlinked Challenges

Watercolor illustration of natural images with the text Solutions for the Planet's Interlinked Challenges

Series Overview

The world is facing an unprecedented array of interconnected environmental, social, and economic crises. Threats to biodiversity, food security, water, climate, and health are intertwined, yet policies often address each in isolation. Actions taken to solve individual problems in parallel may undermine one another through trade-offs or unintended consequences.

There is a pressing need for holistic, whole-system solutions that consider the interlinkages between sectors, domains, regions, and scales. The IPBES Nexus Assessment offers a range of “nexus” approaches or response options for policymakers and other decision-makers, addressing multiple drivers across sectors. Coming out at the same time, the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment has compiled a large set of case studies which delve into the deeper, systemic change required to fully address the underlying challenges we’re facing.

In this seminar series, we will explore the connections between these two timely assessments. Through the entry point of each dimension of the nexus, we will consider how the response options available to decision-makers in each sector can support synergistic benefits across the nexus and minimize trade-offs, and reflect on the incremental versus transformative changes required to effectively address these pressing global challenges.

Seminar One

Intro

January 29, 2025 | 7:00 AM PT/10:00 AM ET

An introduction and overview of each assessment, and how they are connected. Speakers will evaluate the potential roles for different actors and how to lift barriers they may face, including economic implications, social acceptability, alignment with political priorities, and technical capacities.

Speakers:

  • Taylor Ricketts, Director, Gund Institute for Environment
  • Lucas Garibaldi, Professor, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro

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Seminar Two

Health

February 25, 2025 | 11:00AM PT/ 2:00 PM ET

Human health is valued universally as an important metric of the quality of life, the quality of what we do, and how we assess. Health systems and health policies interact with other elements of the nexus and can strengthen the response to climate change, both on the mitigation and the adaptation front. This seminar will focus on how poor outcomes for other nexus sectors translate to poor human health.

Speakers:

  • Ro McFarlane, Discipline Lead in Public Health, University of Canberra
  • Lynne Shannon, Principal Researcher, Marine Sustainability Lab, University of Cape Town

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Seminar Three

Climate

March 26, 2025 | 7:00 AM PT/10:00 AM ET

A stable climate underpins the continued functioning of all other benefits across the nexus. While climate change mitigation or adaptation actions often have positive impacts on other parts of the nexus, some can have potential negative impacts, especially those that impact ecosystems or lead to competition for land, water, and other resources. This seminar will focus on how producing energy has impacts on all nexus elements, so transitioning to low carbon energy and energy demand management will be necessary.

Speakers:

  • Pete Smith, Professor of Soils & Global Change, University of Aberdeen
  • Iago Otero, Researcher, Interdisciplinary Centre for Mountain Research, University of Lausanne

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Seminar Four

Food

April 30, 2025 | 7:00 AM PT/10:00 AM ET

Access to food and to live free from hunger, malnutrition, and food insecurity is a fundamental human right. Achieving this requires ensuring that all people have physical, socio-cultural, and economic access to healthy and sufficient food. This seminar will focus on the response options considered ranging from production-based approaches to governance and dietary approaches.

Speakers:

  • Fabrice DeClerck, Chief Science Officer, EAT

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Seminar Five

Water

May 28, 2025 | 7:00 AM PT/10:00 AM ET

Water exists in multiple physical and chemical forms and takes a multitude of roles while moving through a given landscape. It is attached to different values in a variety of worldviews, and can be described using diverse knowledge systems, all of which have consequences for describing and responding to nexus. This seminar will focus on analysis of response options including consideration of interactions between freshwater, terrestrial, and marine ecosystems while also incorporating nature’s contributions to people.

Speakers:

  • Maria Santos, Professor of Earth System Science, University of Zurich
  • Sebastián Villasante, Director, EqualSea Lab, University of Santiago de Compostela

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Seminar Six

Biodiversity

TBD

Biodiversity is at the core of the nexus and is affected by all other dimensions. It also supports all other dimensions, through nature's contributions to people. This seminar will focus on biodiversity as the first and most fundamental nexus element and consider response options that include nature-based solutions and sociocultural approaches.

Speakers:

  • Samantha Hill, Head of Science, UNEP-WCMC