The broad context of this Fennia Panel is the contemporary ‘planetary turn’ identified by critical scholars, specialists from various fields, NGOs, intergovernmental bodies, politicians, and civil society actors across the world. It refers to what geographers often call ‘scale jump’, that is, a shift of spatial attention. In this case, the jump is perhaps most importantly from scales such as ‘global’ and ‘transnational’, to the planetary perspective. While the shift may first seem semantic, those attentive to the current environmental situation of the globe see it fundamental. Whereas ‘globalization’ draws attention to the global mobilities of people, goods and ideas, with strong emphasis on the economy and the capitalist world order, ‘transnationalization’ stresses the changing connections and disruptions between states, primarily political power relations between them, but acknowledging also cultural and social dimensions of the constantly transforming relational world. Both concepts are often coupled with the idea of ‘translocalization’ where scalar attunement is toward cities, city-regions, and other regions and localities that together form economically, politically, socially, and culturally significant spatial configurations.  

Diverting from these, the planetary turn urges us to see the world as a living environment consisting of fragile ecosystems that humans, among other species, are completely dependent on. A concern broadly shared by ‘planetarists’ is that tipping points in the human-induced destruction of the planet are close if not already at hand. Brought together with the translocal perspective, this worry gets an urban face. The over-consumption of the world’s resources takes place in urban centers, making the production of carbon emissions an urban matter, similarly to nature loss that actually happens most alarmingly beyond urban agglomerations. Major urban areas are connected through worldwide city-regional networks, driven by capitalist logics with an obvious northern-western tilt, and leaving other areas disconnected and depriving. Currently, the whole planet is made to serve the increasingly rapid urbanization, which is leading to the collapse of ecosystems in various locations, to irreversible climate change with earth-shattering consequences, and to deepening inequalities between places and people. To stop and reverse this development, a radical change from globalization and transnationalization towards planetary balance and justice is needed. It needs to build on viable ecosystems and socially just environmental sustainability, through urban change. The panel discusses these and other aspects of the ‘planetocene’ from urban perspectives.