Sustaining Earth’s life support systems – the challenge for the next decade and beyond

Integration, interdiscplinarity, and a systems approach mark the emerging ethos in IGBP as the Programme evolves rapidly into its second decade of international global change research. In late February in Cuernavaca, Mexico, the Scientific Committee of the IGBP held a landmark meeting in which it was decided that the strength and maturity of the Programme would allow an increased emphasis on the systemic challenges of Global Environmental Change. The strength has been made particularly apparent in the developing Core Project syntheses. This strength and capability of the IGBP at this point in time is extraordinarily valuable since the SC-IGBP also recognised that the challenges of Global Environmental Change demand a treatment of the full Earth System. It is simply a reality that a scientific understanding of the Earth System is required to help human societies develop in ways that sustain the global life support system. The core of the IGBP Programme for the next decade will be built around three interlocking and complementary structures: