The Earth System Governance Project[1] is a long-term, interdisciplinary social science research programme originally developed under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.[2] It started in January 2009.

The Earth System Governance Project currently consists of a network of ca. 300 active and about 2,301 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.[3] Since 2015 it is part of the overarching international research platform Future Earth.[4] The International Project Office is hosted at Utrecht University, The Netherlands.[5]

Aims

The Earth System Governance Project aims to contribute to science on the large, complex challenges of governance in an era of rapid and large-scale environmental change. The project seeks to create a better understanding of the role of institutions, organizations and governance mechanisms by which humans regulate their relationship with the natural environment.[1] The Earth System Governance Project aims to integrate governance research at all levels. The project aims to examine problems of the "global commons", but also local problems from air pollution to the preservation of waters, waste treatment or desertification and soil degradation. However, due to natural interdependencies local environmental pollution can be transformed into changes of the global system that affect other localities. Therefore, the Earth System Governance Project looks at institutions and governance processes both local and globally.[6]

The Earth System Governance Project is a scientific effort, but also aims to assist policy responses to the pressing problems of earth system transformation.[7][8]

Conceptual framework

Main article: Earth system governance

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.[1]

The Earth System Governance Project organizes its research according to a conceptual framework guided by five sets of research lenses according to their 2018 Science and Implementation Plan:[9]

These centre around four contextual conditions:

Origin and history

In 2001, the four then active global change research programmes (DIVERSITAS, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, World Climate Research Programme, and International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change) agreed to intensify co-operation through setting up an overarching Earth System Science Partnership. The research communities represented in this Partnership contend in the 2001 Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change[10] that the earth system now operates "well outside the normal state exhibited over the past 500,000 years" and that "human activity is generating change that extends well beyond natural variability—in some cases, alarmingly so—and at rates that continue to accelerate." To cope with this challenge, the four global change research programmes have called "urgently" for strategies for Earth System management.[1]

In March 2007, in response to the 2001 Amsterdam Declaration, the Scientific Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), the overarching social science programme in the field, mandated the drafting of the Science Plan of the Earth System Governance Project by a newly appointed Scientific Planning Committee. The Earth System Governance Project builds on the results of an earlier long-term research programme, the IHDP core project Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC).[11][12] In 2008, the Earth System Governance Project was officially launched.

In 2009, the Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project was published.[1] In the science and implementation plan, the conceptual problems, cross-cutting themes, flagship projects, and its policy relevance are outlined in detail. The Science Plan was written by an international, interdisciplinary Scientific Planning Committee chaired by Prof. Frank Biermann, which drew on a consultative process that started in 2004. Several working drafts of this Science Plan have been presented and discussed at a series of international events and conferences, and numerous scholars in the field, as well as practitioners, have offered suggestions, advice, and critique.[2]

Since then, the project has evolved into a broader research alliance that builds on an international network of research centers, lead faculty and research fellows. After the termination of the IHDP in 2014, the activities of the Earth System Governance research alliance are supported by an international steering group of representatives of the main Earth System Governance Research Centres and the global group of lead faculty and research fellows.[13]

Since 2014 first discussions were held at the Conferences around new directions and a new Science and Implementation Plan. In 2016 lead authors were selected and invited. After reviewing by the Earth System Governance community, the final plan was launched at the 2018 Utrecht Conference.[9]

In 2015 the Earth system governance Project is part of the overarching international research platform Future Earth.[4]

Global research network

For its activities and implementation, the Earth System Governance Project relies on a global network of experts from different academic and cultural backgrounds. The research network consists of different groups of scientific experts. The Earth System Governance Project operates under the direction of a Scientific Steering Committee. The role of the Scientific Steering Committee is to guide the implementation of the Earth System Governance Science Plan.[14]

An important element in the project organisation is the global alliance of research centres that brings together the University of Ghana; the University of Brasília; Utrecht University; the German Development Institute; the CETIP Network; VU University Amsterdam; the University of Amsterdam; the Australian National University; Chiang Mai University; Colorado State University; Lund University; the University of East Anglia; the University of Oldenburg; the Stockholm Resilience Centre; the University of Toronto; the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Yale University. In addition, strong networks on earth system governance research exist in China, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, and Russia.

Conferences

Since 2007, the Project has organized major scientific conferences addressing the topics of governance and global environmental change, including:

Publications

There are four major publication series of the Earth System Governance Project.

The Journal Earth System Governance was launched in 2019.[29]

The book series on earth system governance by the MIT Press is about the research objections of earth system governance. Interdisciplinary in scope, broad in governance levels and the use of methods, the books are aimed at investigating earth governance systems and finding conceivable amendments. They are hence addressing the scientific community and professionals in politics.[32][33]

The Earth System Governance Project is also collaborating with Cambridge University Press to summarize the research conclusions of 10 years Earth System Governance Project.[48]

The Cambridge Elements series on Earth System Governance focuses on current governance research relevant for practitioners and scientists. The series is aimed at providing ideas for policy improvements and analyses of socio-ecological systems by interdisciplinary and influential scholars.[54]

Research

The Earth System Governance Project organizes Task Forces, international networks of senior and early career scholars with a series of working groups focused on particular ideas or idea clusters. There are currently seven Task Forces:

Affiliated projects are the Norms of Global Governance Initiative (NGGI),[66] Innovations in Climate Governance (INOGOV),[67] Improving Earth Systems Governance through 'Purpose Ecosystems',[68] Governing the EU's Climate and Energy Transition in Turbulent Times (GOVTRAN),[69] Global Goals,[70] Environmental Governance in the Intermountain West: A study group of the Environmental Governance Working Group,[71] CROWD_USG: Crowdsourcing Urban Sustainability Governance,[72] and Behind the Scenes: Mapping the Role of Treaty Secretariats in International Environmental Policy-Making.[73]

Projects are the ReSET Programme 'Governance of Global Environmental Change',[74] Governance 'of' and 'for' the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG),[75] Future Earth FTI 'Bright Spots: Seeds of a Good Anthropocene',[76] Future Earth Cluster 'Extreme Events and Environments from Climate to Society' (E3S),[77] Europe's approach to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals: good practices and the way forward,[78] Climate-Smart Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa,[79] and the BBNJ Initiative.[80]

Policy influence

In 2011, the Earth System Governance Project launched an initiative on International Environmental Governance. This initiative aims to provide a forum for discussion of current and ongoing research on international environmental governance and the institutional framework for sustainable development, in the period leading up to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, also known as Rio + 20. In addition, the initiative aims to target decision-makers and to contribute not just to a better understanding but also to actual improvements in international environmental governance towards an institutional framework that enables sustainable development.[81]

In 2012, 33 leading scholars from the Project wrote a blueprint for reform of strengthening earth system governance, which was published in Science.[82]

In 2014, the Project's chair Frank Biermann was invited to speak in the United Nations General Assembly.[83]

Context

There is widespread support for the Earth System Governance Project in the scientific community, which is reflected in the size of the research network and in various publications by experts.[84][85] However, criticisms of the Earth System Governance Project have also been made.

In an internal report of the International Human Dimensions Programme it is stated that the steering group of the Earth System Governance Project is too much dominated by experts from OECD countries. Since then, the Earth System Governance Project has actively sought ways to involve experts from different regions of the world.[86]

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.[87] 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.[88] This interpretation of the novel concept, however, has been rejected by other scholars as being too narrow and misleading.[89]

Related projects

See also

References

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