Earth system governance
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Earth system governance (or earth systems governance) is a broad area of scholarly inquiry 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 in the 2009 Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project 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]: 22
Earth system governance is about the
- "human impact on planetary systems",[3]
- "societal steering of human activities regarding the long-term stability of geobiophysical systems" and "global stewardship for the planet based on non-hierarchical processes of cooperation and coordination at multiple levels".[3]
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.[4] 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.
Research areas
[edit]When scholars conduct research in earth system governance they theorize about it as analytical practice (explaining current politics), as normative critique (a critique of current systems of governance), and as transformative visioning.[3]
The research for earth system governance is currently mainly taking place via five sets of research lenses:[5]
- Architecture and agency
- Democracy and power
- Justice and allocation
- Anticipation and imagination
- Adaptiveness and reflexivity
Those centre around four contextual conditions: Transformations, inequality, anthropocene, diversity.
In 2012, 33 leading scholars wrote a blueprint for reform of strengthening earth system governance, which was published in the journal Science.[6]
Examples for complex and global challenges that earth system governance scholars investigate include for example as "ocean acidification, land use change, food system disruptions, climate change, environment-induced migration, species extinction, changing regional water cycles, as well as more traditional environmental concerns".[3]
Conceptual boundaries
[edit]The concept of earth system governance also has its conceptual boundaries: "Questions of international security, global communication, trade regulation, terrorism, or human rights, for instance, are less studied within the earth system governance research community."[3]
Critique
[edit]The idea of earth system governance has 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.[7] 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.[7] This interpretation of the earth system governance concept, however, has been rejected by other scholars as being too narrow and misleading.[8]
Andy Stirling criticized the earth system governance concept by saying: "No matter how much a governance model might emphasise ‘polycentric’ co-ordination (rather than top-down hierarchy), if it remains subordinated to a particular agency and specific ends, then the process is equally about control."[9] Ariel Salleh compared ESG with a “proto bio-political regime”.[10] She also stated that "What is minimized in the ESG analysis are major historical tensions between capital and labour, core and periphery, human production and natural reproduction". On the other hand, political scientist Frank Biermann from Utrecht University rejected those criticisms by saying that there has been "a misunderstanding that this community would study only global institutions" due to the wording of earth system in the term.[3]
Another line of criticism is to link "earth system governance research with dangers of universal, Northern-based intellectual dominance that marginalizes different epistemologies and in particular actors from the Global South". However, Frank Biermann rejected this notion by pointing out that "Much research on earth system governance has directly criticized ecomodernism, technocracy and postcolonialism, for instance by prioritizing work on “planetary justice,” epistemic diversity, decolonializing Western science, or by engaging with ecosocialist and other progressive lines of thinking."[3]
Researchers and networks
[edit]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.
The Earth System Governance Project (or ESG Project in short) is a research network that builds on the work from about a dozen research centers and hundreds of researchers studying earth system governance. It is a long-term, interdisciplinary social science research alliance. Its origins are an international programme called the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.[11] The ESG Project started in January 2009.[11] Over time, it has evolved into a broader research alliance that builds on an international network of research centers, lead faculty and research fellows. It is now the largest social science research network in the area of governance and global environmental change.[12]
Utrecht University in the Netherlands has hosted the secretariat, called International Project Office, from 2019 to 2024.[13][14] Previously the secretariat was at United Nations University in Bonn, Germany (from 2009 to 2012) and at Lund University, Sweden (from 2012 to 2018).See also
[edit]- Climate governance
- 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.
- ^ 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
- ^ a b c d e f g Biermann, Frank (2022). "Chapter 21: Earth system governance - World politics in the post-environmental age". In Harris, Paul G. (ed.). Routledge handbook of global environmental politics. Routledge handbooks (2nd ed.). London ; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 978-1-003-00887-3.
- ^ Biermann, Frank (2007). "'Earth system governance' as a crosscutting theme of global change research". Global Environmental Change. 17 (3–4): 326–337. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2006.11.010.
- ^ Earth System Governance Project. 2018. Earth System Governance. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Utrecht, the Netherlands
- ^ Biermann, F.; Abbott, K.; Andresen, S.; Bäckstrand, K.; Bernstein, S.; Betsill, M. M.; Bulkeley, H.; Cashore, B.; Clapp, J.; Folke, C.; Gupta, A.; Gupta, J.; Haas, P. M.; Jordan, A.; Kanie, N. (16 March 2012). "Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance". Science. 335 (6074): 1306–1307. doi:10.1126/science.1217255. ISSN 0036-8075.
- ^ a b Hulme, Mike (2008). "The Conquering of Climate: Discourses of Fear and Their Dissolution". The Geographical Journal. 174 (1): 5–16. ISSN 0016-7398.
- ^ Biermann, Frank (2014). Earth system governance: world politics in the anthropocene. Earth system governance : a core research project of the international human dimensions programme on global environmental change. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-02822-6.
- ^ Stirling, A. (2014) Emancipating Transformations: From controlling ‘the transition’ to culturing plural radical progress, STEPS Working Paper 64, Brighton: STEPS Centre
- ^ Ariel Salleh (2013) The Idea of Earth System Governance. Unifying tool? Or hegemony for a new capitalist Landnahme? Working Paper der DFG-KollegforscherInnengruppe Postwachstumsgesellschaften, Nr. 10/2013, Jena
- ^ a b 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
- ^ Dryzek, John S. (2016). "Institutions for the Anthropocene: Governance in a Changing Earth System". British Journal of Political Science. 46 (4): 937–956. doi:10.1017/S0007123414000453. ISSN 0007-1234.
- ^ "International Project Office". Earth System Governance. Retrieved 18 July 2024.
- ^ Earth System Governance Project (2022) Annual Report 2022 of Earth System Governance Project, University of Utrecht
External links
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