On 18 February, 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme released “Making Peace with Nature: A Scientific Blueprint to Tackle the Climate, Biodiversity and Pollution Emergencies”. The report points out that: 1) climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental pollution have become the three global environmental emergencies; 2) The relationship between human beings and nature faces multiple challenges, such as social and economic development pressures exacerbating environmental risks, unfulfilled global commitments to curb environmental degradation, and environmental risks threatening sustainable development goals; 3) We should carry out the reform based on the sustainable development goals, speed up the response to the global environment crisis, optimize resource environment and economic system, improve the environmental friendliness and sustainability of food-energy-water system, protect human health and the earth’s health coordinately, thus promote the harmonious coexistence and sustainable development of human-nature system. Combining with the latest progress of global environmental assessment, the report emphasizes that socio-economic and environmental sustainable development is still an important research topic in the future, and has the following implications for scientific research in the fields of socio-ecological system and sustainable development in China: 1) Innovating the integrated research of socio-ecological systems and exploring their spatiotemporal evolution characteristics under different development paths and climate change scenarios. 2) Focusing on the support of scientific research for policy-making and its linkage with major international agendas, and exploring and innovating China’s solutions for sustainable development.