Potsdam Institute on climate impacts: Seven out of nine eco-limits exceeded

afp | The health of our planet is increasingly in danger: As the Planetary Health Check for 2026 published on Monday by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows, the burden continues to increase at all seven planetary limits that have already been exceeded. “Record temperatures in the oceans, severe droughts, floods, forest fires and extreme heat show that the Earth system is under increasing pressure,” warn the authors.

Planetary boundaries are defined as interconnected Earth system processes that must operate within safe limits to maintain the stability and resilience of our planet. According to the information, seven of the nine planetary boundaries are now outside the safe area. The planetary limit for ocean acidification was most recently exceeded in 2025.

According to the current Planetary Health Check, all seven limits - climate change, biosphere integrity, land use change, change in the freshwater cycle, change in biogeochemical cycles, input of man-made substances and ocean acidification - have now been exceeded to a greater extent than ever before.

Only in terms of the ozone layer and global aerosol pollution in the atmosphere has the situation improved in the past decade, the authors explained. Despite global progress, aerosol levels in some regions are still outside the safe range.

“The diagnosis is clear: the pressure on all planetary boundaries that already lie outside the safe operating space continues to increase,” explained PIK researcher Boris Sakschewski, the lead author of the report. This increases the risk of “large-scale, long-term and potentially irreversible changes”. “At the same time, our scope to effectively address these problems is becoming ever smaller,” warned Sakschewski.

“We know what needs to be done and have the options and solutions to counteract it,” added PIK director and co-author Johan Rockström. It is now important to act quickly “in order to return to the safe operating space at all planetary boundaries”. “This is the only way we can protect our lives and livelihoods and ensure prosperity for everyone in the future,” explained Rockström.

This year, the report focused primarily on natural carbon sinks: vegetation and soils absorb a significant portion of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. However, repeated heat, droughts, fires and damage to ecosystems can reduce this uptake and ecosystems can thus turn from CO2 sinks to CO2 sources in some regions.

The authors therefore addressed the question of whether models that calculate carbon dioxide uptake on land may overestimate its resilience. “Our path to net-zero emissions relies on functioning carbon sinks,” Sakschewski said. “Current observations are a warning sign that our planet may be losing some of its ability to buffer the increasing stresses we are creating.”