This chapter explores epistemic and organizational developments during the 1980s in fields such as climate and Earth system science, which today underpin global environmental governance. Operating within wider scientific networks and coordinating with organizations like United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and the Rockefeller Foundation, Stockholm-based individuals and institutions played decisive roles in international processes that took place at the interface of science and politics, also resulting in new institutions. The chapter explains how the Beijer Institute, led by Gordon Goodman, and Bert Bolin’s Meteorological Institute at Stockholm University helped orchestrate pivotal meetings in Villach, Austria, and Bellagio, Italy, that directly contributed to the 1987 Brundtland Report, provided impetus for the establishment of the IPCC in 1988, and increased the political stakes of climate change. The foundational stories of several Stockholm-based science and sustainable development-oriented institutions established during this period – the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme, the Stockholm Environment Institute, and the re-constituted Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics – are also elaborated.