What systems of earth system governance are likely to support a co-evolution of nature and human societies that leads towards sustainable development?

Earth system governance can be 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.

Earth system governance is a major analytical challenge for the social sciences. It involves questions of the emergence, design and effectiveness of governance systems as well as the overall integration of global, regional, national and local governance—that is, the quest for effective architectures. It also requires understanding the actors that drive earth system governance and that need to be involved—that is, the question of agency. Third, earth system governance must respond to the inherent uncertainties in human and natural systems; it must combine stability to ensure long-term governance solutions, with flexibility to react quickly to new findings and developments. In other words, we must understand and further develop the adaptiveness of systems of earth system governance. Fourth, the more regulatory competence and authority is conferred upon institutions and systems of governance the more will we be confronted with the need to understand the democratic quality of earth system governance and with questions of how to ensure the accountability and legitimacy of governance systems. Fifth, earth system governance is, as is any political activity, about the distribution of material and immaterial values. It is, in essence, a conflict about the access to goods and about their allocation—it is about justice, fairness, and equity. The novel character of earth system transformation puts questions of allocation and access in a new light.

(Based on the Science and Implementation Plan of the IHDP Earth System Governance Project)

What are the main constraints to successful Earth System governance and what are our options for addressing these constraints in a timely, effective and accountable manner?

The failure to make adequate, or any progress on Earth System issues such as poverty, ecosystem degradation or greenhouse gas emissions are related to society’s inability to fully grasp the gravity of the situation, to envision acceptable outcomes, and to create a system of incentives, disincentives and accountability mechanisms that would make ignoring these as priorities by a wide range of social actors hard if not impossible.

We need to understand much more clearly what are the formal and informal barriers and biases in our policy mechanisms, public and private institutions (down to the role and interests of the individual decision-maker) that help prolong unsustainable patterns of practices and behaviour. We must also identify and tackle the barriers to introducing the necessary alternatives that often work at the pilot level already into the mainstream. This includes but should go beyond the study and reinvention of global environmental governance. Governance and policies that promote essentially unsustainable forms of behaviour are found in domains where other paradigms, such as economic growth dominate.

While the social sciences have come to grips with the analysis of governance, this has not generated enough momentum to integrate Earth System sustainability as a priority into mainstream development plans and strategies, witness the haste with which national governments were prepared to indebt future generations just to return to a path of GDP growth and increasing resource consumption.

There are many obstacles, ranging from the availability of longitudinal data on governance to political or cultural sensitivities. There are also strong vested interests in the status quo, but the momentum generated by the series of recent global crises represents an opportunity that mustn’t be missed.