This chapter describes the continued, still ongoing, trajectory of the Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework and how it has co-evolved with the “Anthropocene,” another concept with Stockholm roots. During the course of the second decade of the new century, ethical aspects were increasingly taken on board. Will Steffen, former Director of the Stockholm-based International Geosphere Biosphere Program (IGBP), was the lead author of a second PB article in Science in 2015. Like the first Nature article in 2009, a sizable share of the co-authors had institutional involvement or other affiliation with Stockholm. This new iteration developed the ethical challenges of sharing the “safe operating space” inside boundaries among regions, nations, and societal groups. Steffen was also a member of the Anthropocene Working Group appointed by the Stratigraphic Committee to make the case for Anthropocene as a new geological era. The chapter articulates the significance of the overlap between the PB and Anthropocene processes and debates. These drew considerable interest from scholars in the social sciences and humanities, which helped make both issues concerns of epistemology and Weltanschauung.

Why deal with sustainability last in a book about Green politics that has as its premise the need to place sustainability at the heart of global politics? The answer lies in the question. If the global economy, global security, development, the state and global governance had the achievement of sustainability as one of their overriding rationales and objectives, a separate set of policies, institutions and initiatives to undo, contain and offset the excesses of industrial society would not be necessary. There would be no need, in other words, for global environmental policies and regimes. The fact that they exist is an indictment of a system and a society living beyond its means and in unsustainable ways. This chapter develops Green critiques of unsusustainable development and more top-downmmethods of'managing' the environment before articulating Green visions of sustainability and ends with reflections on strategies involving law and protest to reform of the state and the pursuit of just transitions.