As the United Nations climate change conference (COP-28) opens this week in Dubai, the ~70,000 expected participants will need to address the urgent triple planetary crisis – climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. According to the 2023 State of the Climate Report, written by leading scientists, 20 out of 35 vital signs of the planet have reached record extremes. This report provides further evidence that humanity is now endangering the conditions of life in our Earth system. 

At the center of the triple planetary crisis is the broken relationship between humanity and Nature. The view that Nature is at the service of humanity, as it has been reflected over centuries in our economic system, has led to the depletion of life on Earth and the disruption of natural cycles through production and consumption patterns that violate the Earth’s limits and break the ecological balance. 

The global answer to this crisis requires an urgent shift from a human-centered worldview to an Earth-centered or non-anthropocentric worldview. To this end, under a program called “Harmony with Nature”, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has promoted an Earth-centered worldview to sustainable development, including Earth jurisprudence and ecological economics (see below). 

Nature is finally gaining more prominence in the UN vocabulary, from the promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to ensure that “…economic, social and technological progress occurs in harmony with nature” to the recent plea in the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to ensure that “by 2050, the shared vision of living in harmony with nature [will be] fulfilled”.

Despite this growing awareness, the UN lacks a robust mandate to implement such a holistic approach and to efficiently address the deterioration of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and climate change. That is why multiple stakeholders – member states from the Global South, civil society, and academia – are advocating for the creation of a UN Earth Assembly. This multilateral space would have the mandate of mainstreaming the implementation of an Earth-centered paradigm across all sustainable development efforts. 

Latin American countries take the lead

Both Latin American countries and environmental and indigenous groups in this region have played leadership roles in advancing this new approach to planetary sustainability. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development – arising out of the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – is the first document to advance harmony with Nature as a multilateral principle. It affirms that “Human beings are at the center of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature”.

In the 2000s, the new Latin American constitutionalism,  especially in the Andean countries that share the indigenous philosophy of Buen Vivir (Living Well), provoked a juridical transformation, moving from a framework that separated humanity from Nature to the consolidation of an Earth jurisprudence. This approach is based on the knowledge and practice of indigenous peoples and recognizes the rights of Nature, e.g., that all life on Earth, both human and non-human, has the right to exist as a subject with rights. Currently, 40 countries have passed over 200 laws that recognize the rights of Nature, most of them in Latin America and Europe.

The advancement of Earth Jurisprudence in Latin America resulted in intergovernmental negotiations to advance the Harmony with Nature agenda in the UN. In 2009, the UNGA decided to observe the date of 22 April as International Mother Earth Day and, subsequently, convene annual dialogues on the “Harmony with Nature” principles under the auspices of the UN Harmony with Nature Program. The goal was two-fold: to advance a holistic approach to sustainable development through Earth-centered law and ecological economics and to develop new indicators to measure it. With that, the UN could strengthen measures to reinforce the link between human well-being and Earth’s ecosystem health and integrity.

Principles established at international levels

At the international level, though, the ideas that germinated in Latin America became part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, not only as a vision but as a specific target. Under Sustainable Development Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production – target 12.8 aims to ensure that, by 2030, “people everywhere have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable development and lifestyles in harmony with nature”. 

These initiatives supported important advancements in the ecological economics approach to sustainable development. Different from the idea of green economy – in which the environment is understood as a subpart of the economic system – ecological economics aims to embed production and consumption patterns within the ecological limits of the Earth. 

This approach requires changes in the way the UN measures sustainable development impacts. At least 20 indicators to evaluate the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals are based on gross domestic product (GDP). Contradictorily then, the 2030 Agenda is valuing environmental degradation, air pollution, and the depletion of natural resources. Currently, the mainstreaming of an Earth-centered approach to sustainable development requires going beyond GDP and devising new mechanisms based on the rights of Nature. 

There have also been more recent achievements. For example, in 2022, the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted at the COP-15 to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Canada “…recognizes and considers (…) rights of nature and rights of Mother Earth, as being an integral part of its successful implementation”. It includes Earth-centered measures to implement the framework, such as the collective management of natural resources and the inclusion of indigenous and local communities in preserving biological diversity. 

Besides, at COP-28 this year, experts from the Harmony with Nature Knowledge Network will present the recognition of the rights of Nature as a non-market mechanism to advance cooperation in climate action, following up on the decision taken last year at COP-27 in Egypt to find ways beyond the carbon credit market to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

Reform or rupture? Towards a United Nations Earth Assembly 

In his opening statement at the General Debate of the 78^th session of the UNGA last September, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated that it is time to “reform multilateralism for the 21^st century” and proposed a Climate Solidarity Pact to accelerate cooperation in climate action through creative ways in which wealthier countries can support developing countries with financial help and technology. Therefore, it is necessary to go beyond cutting greenhouse gas emissions: It is time to promote an Earth-centered global governance reform if we are to address the triple planetary crisis we now face.

The year 2023 kick started multilateral conversations on the first step to the promotion of an Earth-centered global governance, which is the creation of a high-level meeting, tentatively entitled “Earth Assembly”. Based on “evolving non-anthropocentric or Earth-centered paradigm”, the mandate of this new high-level meeting would be “reinforc[ing] multilateralism through the discussion of alternative holistic approaches based on diverse world views that may contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and beyond”.

Experts from the Harmony with Nature Knowledge Network have advocated for accelerating the negotiations on this meeting during the second Brazilian Forum for the Rights of Nature, held in Ilhéus-Bahia in October 2023.  This event laid the groundwork for the upcoming negotiations on the future Earth Assembly, and it should also be part of the negotiations of the Summit of the Future in September 2024, which aims to restore trust in the multilateral system and accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. One expected result of the Summit of the Future is safeguarding the future. Everyone’s future lies in the advancement of the Earth-centered approach to sustainable development. For that, the creation of a future UN Earth Assembly, as part of the reform of global governance, would strengthen the UN mandate to implement approaches to sustainable development that put Nature at its core.