MOBILIZING FOR CHANGE

Breaking Boundaries documentary launch climate-action website

The producers and partners behind the Netflix documentary on the Planetary Boundaries launch website on how consumers can reduce their own emissions

Story highlights

  • Documentary follows the scientific discovery of the nine planetary boundaries which was led by centre professor Johan Rockström
  • The new website provides simple steps people can take to reduce their own emissions and encourage others to do the same
  • "It is important to provide incentives for this group of consumers to do more,” says Johan Rockström

In advance of the UN’s 2021 climate summit, the producers of Netflix’s Breaking Boundaries and partners are launching a climate-action website. The new site, backed by a campaign with TikTok influencers, provides science-backed steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Breaking Boundaries documentary, first streamed in June this year, focuses on the planetary boundaries framework developed by an international team of scientists led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

The new website provides simple steps people can take to reduce their own emissions and encourage others to do the same. The website is built around the Count Us In initiative which provides 16 ways people can act on climate change.

The climate steps were informed by Project Drawdown’s research which identified the most material individual and household actions that, at scale, have the potential to reduce roughly 25-30% of the total global emission reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change.

We know that the richest 10% - primarily the world’s middle classes and wealthy elites - are responsible for 40–60% of greenhouse gas emissions. So it is important to provide incentives for this group of consumers to do more.

Johan Rockström, co-founder of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research

Enormous interest

In 2009, Rockström led a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists to identify the nine processes that regulate the stability and resilience of the Earth system in the Holocene state - the last 10,000 years. In 2015, the scientists concluded four boundaries had already been transgressed: climate, biodiversity, forests and biogeochemical cycles (use of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers).

Since then, the planetary boundaries framework has generated enormous interest within science and policy.

On June 4 2021, the framework achieved a much broader public audience when it became the subject of a documentary film called Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, produced by Silverback Films and released on Netflix.

Now, with the climate summit approaching in Glasgow, the Breaking Boundaries filmmakers have launched a climate action website in partnership with non-profit Count Us In to share the most important climate steps people can take - alongside governments, business and communities - to meaningfully tackle climate change.

“When we combine science and storytelling we see immense potential to inspire people to take action,” said Owen Gaffney, an associate producer on the Breaking Boundaries documentary and a writer and analyst at Stockholm Resilience Centre and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Read more about the initiative here

Published: 2021-10-28

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