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PLANETARY HEALTH & CLIMATE CHANGE
economic progress and Earth’s natural systems. It helps frame the big questions:
nonlinear and global, they can only be understood in a unified framework – just as we all share one common planet. A CRITICAL MOMENT Planetary health science now stands at a turning point. We have abundant global data and unprecedented computing power, yet our analytical tools lag behind. Traditional frameworks – disciplinary models or isolated studies – are too narrow to capture the web of interconnections between societies, economies and the biosphere. To address this gap, Peking University and international partners launched the Planetary Health Axis System in 2024, an artificial intelligence– driven platform designed as a ‘digital compass’ for sustainable development. PHAS systematically tracks the ecological footprint of human activity and assesses risks of crossing planetary boundaries. Built on four coordinate axes – human health, species health, environmental health and societal health – it integrates multidisciplinary science using AI for real-time global data analysis, currently monitoring some 48,000 key indicators. PHAS also introduces a paradigm shift in planetary health economics. Conventional human development models rely heavily on the growth of gross domestic product as a primary measure of success. These models are important, but they fail to fully address the increasing costs vis-à-vis planetary health boundaries. Global policymakers need new tools and metrics that embed GDP within a broader planetary economy – one that integrates multiple dimensions of well-being and sustainability. Beyond monitoring, PHAS provides visualisation, simulation and policy-lab functions. Governments and researchers can simulate interventions, explore scenarios and co-create solutions. Conceived as a global public good, PHAS seeks to guide humanity towards more optimised relationships between social and
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How will interconnected shocks – such as pandemics, climate extremes or conflicts – cascade across regions? What policy mixes yield the best outcomes for health and sustainability? Where are the hidden leverage points in the global system? How can human civilisation be charted within the safe operating zones of the planet?
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GORDON G LIU Gordon G Liu is the Peking University BOYA Distinguished Professor of Econom- ics and dean of the Peking University Institute for Global Health and Develop- ment, a fellow of the Chinese Academy of Medicine, and director of PKU China Center for Health Economic Research. He has served numerous distinguished roles in professional services, including the chair of the Academic Committee for PKU Educational Economics, co-organiser of the US-China Track II Dialogue on Health and associate editor for academic journals including Value in Health and Health Economics.
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A NEW DIGITAL COMPASS FOR PLANETARY HEALTH The formal launch of PHAS at the World Health Summit in Berlin in October 2025 will showcase its core system and preliminary results. Early findings demonstrate that it can replicate existing science with greater precision, while also uncovering new causal pathways relevant for policy. After Berlin, engagement events are planned in China, India, Geneva and other global hubs. PHAS is envisioned as a strategic platform for global collaboration, bringing together climate scientists, economists, epidemiologists, data scientists and others around a common modelling backbone. It is designed as a decentralised system, with regional hubs developing specialised modules connected to a shared core engine. Planetary health – by definition – transcends borders. PHAS may have been initiated at Peking University, but it is designed as a global public good, harnessing expertise worldwide to confront planetary health as humanity’s greatest challenge since the industrial revolution. Health is a political choice – and one of the most important choices is to promote genuine global collaboration, creating the space for science to do its work. ▪
BERNHARD SCHWARTLÄNDER Bernhard Schwartländer joined the Peking University Institute for Global Health and Development in March 2025 as co-chair of the Governing Board and Distinguished Research Professor of Global Health. In 2021–2025 he served as global health envoy of Germany’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Previously he served as assistant director-general and chef de cabinet at the World Health Organization, as well as WHO representative in China, and before that, held senior positions at UNAIDS, the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Germany’s National AIDS Program and the Robert Koch Institute. ghd.pku.edu.cn/English/
31 Health: A Political Choice – The Future of Health in a Fractured World
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