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Earth system governance is a paradigm that builds on earlier notions of environmental policy and nature conservation, but puts these into the broader context of human-induced transformations of the entire earth system. The integrative paradigm of earth system governance has evolved into an active research area that brings together a variety of disciplines including political science, sociology, economics, ecology, policy studies, geography, sustainability science, and law.[1]
Definition
[edit]The concept of earth system governance is defined as: "the interrelated and increasingly integrated system of formal and informal rules, rule-making systems, and actor-networks at all levels of human society (from local to global) that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating, and adapting to global and local environmental change and, in particular, earth system transformation, within the normative context of sustainable development."[2]
Development
[edit]The new paradigm of earth system governance was originally developed in the Netherlands by Professor Frank Biermann in his inaugural lecture at the VU University Amsterdam, which was published later in 2007[3] Based on this pioneering contribution, Biermann was invited by the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change to develop a long-term comprehensive international programme in this field, which became in 2009 the global Earth System Governance Project.
Key researchers who have applied the earth system governance framework in their work include Michele Betsill (co-founder of the Earth System Governance Project), John Dryzek, Peter M. Haas, Norichika Kanie, Lennart Olsson, and Oran Young.
In 2012, 33 leading scholars from the Project wrote a blueprint for reform of strengthening earth system governance, which was published in Science.[4]
Critique
[edit]The idea of earth system governance has also been criticized for being too top-down, for placing too much emphasis on global governance structures. According to Mike Hulme, earth system governance represents an attempt to "geopolitically engineer" our way out of the climate crisis.[5] He questions whether the climate is governable and argues that it is way too optimistic and even hubristic to attempt to control the global climate by universal governance regimes.[6] This interpretation of the novel concept, however, has been rejected by other scholars as being too narrow and misleading.[7]
The Earth System Governance Project
[edit]The Earth System Governance Project is a research alliance that builds on a network of research centers and researchers studying earth system governance. It is a long-term, interdisciplinary social science research alliance originally developed under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.[8] It started in January 2009.[9]
The Earth System Governance Project currently consists of a network of about 300 active and about 2,300 indirectly involved scholars from all continents. The global research alliance has evolved into the largest social science research network in the area of governance and global environmental change.[10] Since 2015 it is part of the overarching international research platform Future Earth.[11]
The secretariat, called International Project Office, is hosted at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.[12]See also
[edit]- Climate governance
- Earth System Governance Project
- Earth system science
- Environmental governance
- Global governance
- Planetary boundaries
- Sustainability science
- Sustainable development
References
[edit]- ^ Kotzé, Louis J.; Kim, Rakhyun E. (2019). "Earth system law: The juridical dimensions of earth system governance". Earth System Governance. 1: 100003. doi:10.1016/j.esg.2019.100003. ISSN 2589-8116.
- ^ [1] Archived 7 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine Biermann, Frank, Michele M. Betsill, Joyeeta Gupta, Norichika Kanie, Louis Lebel, Diana Liverman, Heike Schroeder, and Bernd Siebenhüner, with contributions from Ken Conca, Leila da Costa Ferreira, Bharat Desai, Simon Tay, and Ruben Zondervan. 2009. Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth System Governance Report 1, IHDP Report 20. Bonn, IHDP: The Earth System Governance Project.
- ^ Frank Biermann. 2007. ‘Earth system governance’ as a crosscutting theme of global change research. Global Environmental Change. Volume 17, Issues 3-4, August–October 2007, pp. 326-337.
- ^ [2] Biermann, F., Abbott, K., Andresen, S., Bäckstrand, K., Bernstein, S., Betsill, M. M., ... & Gupta, A. (2012). Navigating the Anthropocene: improving earth system governance. Science, 335(6074), 1306-1307.
- ^ [3] Mike Hulme. 2008. The Conquering of Climate: Discourses of Fear and Their Dissolution. The Geographical Journal. Vol. 174, No. 1
- ^ [4] Mike Hulme. 2008. Governing and adapting to climate. A response to Ian Bailey’s Commentary on ‘Geographical work at the boundaries of climate change’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.
- ^ Frank Biermann. 2014. Earth System Governance: World Politics in the Anthropocene. MA: MIT Press.
- ^ [5] Archived 13 February 2019 at the Wayback Machine IHDP Annual Report 2009
- ^ Biermann, Frank, Michele M. Betsill, Joyeeta Gupta, Norichika Kanie, Louis Lebel, Diana Liverman, Heike Schroeder, and Bernd Siebenhüner, with contributions from Ken Conca, Leila da Costa Ferreira, Bharat Desai, Simon Tay, and Ruben Zondervan (2009) Earth System Governance: People, Places and the Planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth System Governance Report 1, IHDP Report 20. Bonn, IHDP: The Earth System Governance Project. Archived 7 November 2014 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ [6] John Dryzek. 2014. Institutions for the Anthropocene: Governance in a Changing Earth System. British Journal of Political Science.
- ^ "ESG — Earth System Governance | Future Earth". Retrieved 18 July 2024.
- ^ "International Project Office". Earth System Governance. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
External links
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