RAS question
According to the State of India's Environment 2026 report, how many of the 9 planetary boundaries have been breached?
Correct answer: (C) 7.
According to the State of India's Environment 2026 report, seven of the nine planetary boundaries have been breached.
Explanation
In the State of India's Environment 2026 report's planetary boundaries framework, human pressure has pushed Earth's life-support systems beyond their safe zone. The CSE and Down To Earth release says researchers identify nine such boundaries. By 2024, six had already been breached: climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, freshwater change, modification of biogeochemical flows and introduction of novel entities. Ocean acidification then became the seventh breached boundary. Therefore, seven of the nine planetary boundaries have been breached, not merely the earlier count of six. In 2025, extreme weather events occurred on 99% of days and caused 4,419 deaths, illustrating the broader scale of climate stress.
Why the other options are wrong
- (A) Five understates the count because six boundaries were already beyond the safe zone before ocean acidification became the seventh.
- (B) Six reflects the earlier 2024 count, but the SOE 2026 update adds ocean acidification as the seventh breached boundary.
- (D) Eight overstates the count because seven of the total nine planetary boundaries had been breached, leaving two not counted as breached here.
Concept
Planetary boundaries form an environmental science framework that links climate change, biodiversity, water, pollution and sustainable development. Current environment reports can revise older boundary counts when fresh evidence places another Earth-system process beyond the safe zone.