The Planetary Health Check 2026 provides an updated assessment of the nine Planetary Boundaries and finds that seven are transgressed, all with worsening trends, meaning humanity has pushed Earth outside of its Safe Operating Space. The report stresses that these pressures do not act in isolation, with climate, ecosystems, freshwater, land, oceans, and nutrient cycles interacting through complex feedbacks, so that damage in one area can weaken resilience elsewhere and increase the risk of self-reinforcing or irreversible change. It highlights emerging concerns including weakening land carbon sinks, degradation of seafloor ecosystems, and poorly understood threats from plastics, PFASs, and other novel entities, while noting that only atmospheric aerosol loading and stratospheric ozone depletion remain within their global boundaries. The report argues that the window for reversing these trends is closing rapidly but remains open, calling for urgent, ambitious, and decisive action across all sectors of society to return humanity to living within the Safe Operating Space.
Planetary Health Check 2026
Author(s)
Levke Caesar, Boris Sakschewski, Lauren Seaby Andersen, Yuge Bai, Govindaswamy Bala, Nina Bednarsek, Tim Beringer, Arthur Beusen, Maik Billing, Benjamin Leon Bodirsky, Svetlana Botsyun, Johanna Braun, Denise Breitburg, Heindriken Dahlmann, Fabrice DeClerck, Donovan P. Dennis, Miriam L. Diamond, Jonathan F. Donges, Xinyu Dou, Sam Dupont, Shivani Ehrenfeucht, Axel E. Eriksson, Simon Fahrländer, Ingo Fetzer, Helen S. Findlay, Daniel J. Ford, Thomas Frölicher, Véronique Garçon, Jacob Geersen, Dieter Gerten, Nicolas Gruber, Tim Heckmann, Willem Huiskamp, Annika Jahnke, Samantha Joye, Jonas Kaiser, Niklas H. Kitzmann, Dana Kühnel, Nicole C. Laureanti, Chaohui Li, Zhu Liu, Sina Loriani, Josef Ludescher, Sabine Mathesius, Nele Matz-Lück, Jens Daniel Müller, Nicholas J. Murray, Clara Nicolai, Friederike Otto, Alex Pielaet, Dimitry Pokhotelov, Kasra Rafiezadeh Shahi, Emmanuel Raju, Karoline Ramin, Lukas Röhrich, Masoud Rostami, Christian Schmidt, Anna Shalin, Jamie D. Shutler, Norman J. Steinert, Fabian Stenzel, Heicko Stuckas, Luisa Teixeira, Thejna Tharammal, Liad Ben Uri, Vili Virkki, Zhanyun Wang, Katrin Wendt-Potthoff and Johan Rockström.
Publication Date
21 September 2026
Publisher
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
DOI / URL