Planetary Health Check – A Scientific Assessment of the State of the Planet

This inaugural annual report represents a crucial step in monitoring and safeguarding Earth’s stability resilience, and life-support functions — what we refer to as “Planetary Health”. Our recently established and fast-growing international science partnership, called Planetary Boundaries Science(PBScience), will work on advancing the Planetary Boundaries (PBs) framework by integrating
new data and methodologies while fostering innovative science communication.

The PBs framework analyses and monitors the nine PB processes and systems that scientifically are proven to regulate the health of our planet. Each of these processes, such as Climate Change or Ocean Acidification, is currently quantified by one or two different control variables. The 2024 Planetary Health Check report reveals that six out of nine PB processes have breached the safe PB levels, with all six showing trends of increasing pressure in all control variables, suggesting further boundary transgression in the near future.