Cutting global nitrogen emissions by one-third for balanced and achievable SDGs by 2030

Zhou, Y., Zhang, X. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1961-3339, Zou, Y., Cheng, L., Xu, X., Chen, Y., Zhan, J., Tu, H., Xu, J., Deng, O., Pradhan, M., Gweyi-Onyango, J., Masso, C., & Gu, B. (2026). Cutting global nitrogen emissions by one-third for balanced and achievable SDGs by 2030. One Earth 9 (2) e101562. 10.1016/j.oneear.2025.101562.

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Abstract

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 is becoming difficult as global progress lags. Nitrogen is key to food security and environmental sustainability, making its management crucial for advancing multiple goals within the timeline. Here, we introduce an SDG-driven framework to evaluate nitrogen management under sustainable shared socioeconomic pathways. We show that meeting balanced and achievable targets, defined as an average nitrogen-related SDG index score above 75 with individual target scores exceeding 60, requires reducing global nitrogen emissions by 50 million tonnes (Tg) by 2030, 32% of 2020 levels, entailing decreases of 30 Tg in the atmosphere and 20 Tg in aquatic ecosystems. Existing technological strategies can deliver only half of the required mitigation, even with investments of $176 billion that yield economic benefits of $291 billion. This highlights that technologies alone are insufficient, and meaningful progress toward the SDGs depends on integrating mitigation techniques with broader socioeconomic transitions.

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