Earth System Governance Project Explained

Earth System Governance Project
Abbreviation:ESG Project
Founder:Originally developed under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change
Type:Nonprofit organization, network or alliance
Formation: (planning phase 2006-2008)
Region Served:Worldwide
Focus:Stimulate a vibrant research community for earth system governance
Method:Networking, task forces, working groups, annual conferences and workshops, publication series, research projects
Headquarters:Utrecht University, The Netherlands (location of secretariat from 2019 to 2024)
Leader Title:Chair
Leader Name:Cristina Inoue and Jonathan Pickering (Scientific Steering Committee with rotating co-chairs)
Funding:Various (for example Lund University, Utrecht University, Earth System Governance Foundation)

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 program called the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.[1] The ESG Project started in January 2009. 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.[2]

Utrecht University in the Netherlands has hosted the secretariat, called International Project Office, from 2019 to 2024.[3] Previously the secretariat was at United Nations University in Bonn, Germany (from 2009 to 2012) and at Lund University, Sweden (from 2012 to 2018).

Aims

The ESG Project aims to "Expand the global mobilization of earth system governance researchers; stimulate and facilitate research collaborations; Inform and advise at the science-policy interface."[4]

Its mission is to "to stimulate a vibrant, pluralistic, and relevant research community with the vision to understand, imagine and help realize just and sustainable futures".

The project also examines problems of the global commons, as well as more local problems such as air pollution, water pollution, desertification and soil degradation. Due to natural interdependencies, local environmental pollution can be transformed into global changes. Therefore, the ESG Project looks at institutions and governance processes both local and globally.[5]

Structure

Members

The ESG Project currently (as of 2024) has 557 members (also called research fellows) representing 57 different countries, from all continents. There are around 2500 scholars who engage with the network indirectly via social media.[6] This global network of experts consists of people from different academic and cultural backgrounds.

Secretariat

The secretariat, called International Project Office is hosted at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. It usually has three staff members.

The secretariat ensures the functioning of this virtual international network. It is the "focal point for management and administration, as well as for the communication and network development efforts of the ESG Project".

Scientific steering committee and chairs

The ESG Project operates under the direction of a Scientific Steering Committee. The role of this committee is to guide the implementation of the Earth System Governance Science Plan. For the first ten years, until 2018, the committee was chaired by Frank Biermann, the network’s founder. Since 2019, the committee relies on system of rotating leadership, with two co-chairs elected for two years.[7] The scientific steering committee currently has 13 members (as of 2024) from diverse disciplines and geographical regions.

Science and implementation plans

An international group of experts came together in 2006 in the Scientific Planning Committee, chaired by Frank Biermann. This committee wrote the first Science and Implementation Plan drawing on input for various drafts discussed at global events and conferences. Many scholars and practitioners contributed ideas, advice, and feedback. In 2009, this first science plan was published.[8] In this plan, the conceptual problems, cross-cutting themes, flagship projects, and its policy relevance were outlined in detail.

Since 2014, discussions have been held at conferences around a new science and implementation plan. In 2016 a group of lead authors was selected. After extensive review by the Earth System Governance community, the second Science and Implementation Plan was launched at the 2018 Utrecht Conference on Earth System Governance.[9]

Funding sources

The National Science Foundation of the United States provided about US$15,000 each year since 2015 via Future Earth, an international research platform. This money supports annual meetings of the scientific steering committee.[10]

The project does not charge membership fees. Several universities support the project financially, as does the Earth System Governance Foundation. This foundation is a "non-profit charitable organization under Dutch law, created to help channel support from a variety of sources to the earth system governance research community".[11]

Funding for the secretariat has been provided from three universities so far who have each hosted the secretariat for several years:

In September 2023, the ESG Project launched an open call inviting institutions to submit bids to become the next host of the secretariat. The ESG Project has been assessing bids on a continuous basis since 15 December 2023.[12]

Activities

Global networking with research centers

The ESG Project is supported by a global alliance of ESG centers, with 17 universities and institutes being involved.[13] Many of these universities have hosted the annual conferences of the ESG Project, including the universities of East Anglia, VU Amsterdam, Australian National University in Canberra, Colorado State University, Lund University, University of Nairobi, Radboud University Nijmegen, Tokyo Institute of Technology, University of Toronto, and Utrecht University.

Publications

There are four major publication series of the ESG Project:

Organizing conferences

Since 2007, the ESG Project has organized major scientific conferences on topics of governance and global environmental change:[21]

Organizing task forces

The ESG Project organizes task forces, which are international networks of senior and early career scholars with a series of working groups focused on particular ideas. There are currently seven task forces on the following research topics:[41] Planetary justice, new technologies, ocean governance, conceptual foundations, earth system law,[42] methodology for research,[43] accountability.

Interacting with affiliated projects

In addition to its core activities, such as conferences, taskforces and working groups, the ESG Project interacts with many smaller research projects that have been formally affiliated with the larger network.[44] Such affiliated projects are formally accepted by the ESG Project’s scientific steering committee, and its research findings are typically discussed at the annual conferences of the ESG Project.

Examples of such affiliated projects include: the Norms of Global Governance Initiative (NGGI),[45] the project Improving Earth Systems Governance through 'Purpose Ecosystems',[46] the project Governing the EU's Climate and Energy Transition in Turbulent Times (GOVTRAN),[47]  the ReSET Programme 'Governance of Global Environmental Change,[48] and the project Climate-Smart Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa.[49]

Two of the affiliated projects specifically focus on the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals for 2030: the GlobalGoals Project,[50] and the project Governance 'of' and 'for' the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).[51]

Impacts

The ESG Project does not take policy positions as a network. However, its lead scientists have initiated many activities to support political decision-making and inform policy makers. For example, in 2011, the lead faculty of the ESG Project launched a global assessment on international environmental governance. This publication drew on ongoing research on the institutional framework for sustainable development in the period leading up to the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. The outcome was an article in Science in 2012, written by 33 leading scholars from the ESG Project as a blueprint for reform of strengthening earth system governance.[52]

In 2011, more than twenty Nobel Prize laureates, several leading policy-makers and renowned thinkers on global sustainability met for the Third Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm.[53] The Nobel Laureate Symposium concluded with the Stockholm Memorandum.[54] This document mentioned earth system governance prominently and called for "strengthening of earth system governance as a priority for coherent global action".[55] It was submitted to the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability appointed by the UN Secretary General and fed into the preparations for the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).

In 2014, the then project's chair Frank Biermann was invited to speak in the United Nations General Assembly during an Interactive Dialogue on Harmony with Nature.[56] [57] This fed into the Harmony with Nature report of the Secretary-General of the UN.[58]

In 2022, members of the ESG Project, along with many natural scientists, took the initiative to call for an "International Non-Use Agreement on Solar Geoengineering".[59] The authors demand that "Governments and the United Nations need to take effective political control and restrict the development of solar geoengineering technologies before it is too late."

In general, there is widespread support for the ESG Project in the scientific community, which is reflected in the size of the research network and in various publications by experts.[60] [61]

Challenges

The ongoing funding of the secretariat (called International Project Office, or IPO, in this case) is a challenge from time to time, just like it is for many other knowledge networks or alliances. The 2022 Annual Report of the network stated: "We are also exploring possibilities for the next institutional home of the IPO as our funding partnership comes to a close with Utrecht University in 2023".

History

In 2001, four global change research programs (DIVERSITAS, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), World Climate Research Programme, and International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) agreed to intensify co-operation through setting up an overarching Earth System Science Partnership. The research communities represented in this partnership said in the 2001 Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change 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 programs have called "urgently" for strategies for Earth System management.

In March 2007, the Scientific Committee of the IHDP mandated the drafting of the Science Plan of the ESG Project. The IHDP was the overarching social science program in the field at that time. For this drafting work a Scientific Planning Committee was appointed and chaired by Professor Frank Biermann, who was affiliated with VU University Amsterdam. This committee drafted in 2006-2008 the ESG Project's first Science and Implementation Plan. Biermann also became in 2009 the chair of the Scientific Steering Committee, until he stepped down in 2018. Since then, the Project is led by a Scientific Steering Committee that operates with rotating co-chairs.

The ESG Project builds on the results of an earlier long-term research program, the IHDP core project "Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change" (IDGEC).[62] [63] In 2009, the ESG Project began.

Since the termination of the IHDP in 2014, the ESG Project operates independently as an international, self-funded research alliance.

In 2015 the ESG Project became affiliated with of the overarching international research platform Future Earth.[64] However, links between Future Earth and the ESG Project have remained weak.

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. 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.
  2. Dryzek . John S. . 2016 . Institutions for the Anthropocene: Governance in a Changing Earth System . British Journal of Political Science. 46 . 4 . 937–956 . 10.1017/S0007123414000453 . 0007-1234.
  3. Web site: International Project Office . 2024-07-18 . Earth System Governance Project.
  4. Earth System Governance Project (2022) Annual Report 2022 of Earth System Governance Project, University of Utrecht
  5. Web site: What is Earth System Governance? Future Earth . 2024-07-22.
  6. Earth System Governance Project (2023) Annual Report 2023 of Earth System Governance Project, University of Utrecht
  7. Web site: Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  8. Biermann . Frank . Betsill . Michele M . Vieira . Susana Camargo . Gupta . Joyeeta . Kanie . Norichika . Lebel . Louis . Liverman . Diana . Schroeder . Heike . Siebenhüner . Bernd . Yanda . Pius Z . Zondervan . Ruben . 2010 . Navigating the anthropocene: the Earth System Governance Project strategy paper . Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability . en . 2 . 3 . 202–208 . 10.1016/j.cosust.2010.04.005.
  9. Earth System Governance Project. 2018. Earth System Governance. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project (second science and implementation plan). Utrecht, the Netherlands
  10. Biermann . Frank . Betsill . Michele M . Burch . Sarah . Dryzek . John . Gordon . Christopher . Gupta . Aarti . Gupta . Joyeeta . Inoue . Cristina . Kalfagianni . Agni . Kanie . Norichika . Olsson . Lennart . Persson . Åsa . Schroeder . Heike . Scobie . Michelle . 2019 . The Earth System Governance Project as a network organization: a critical assessment after ten years . Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. 39 . 17–23 . 10.1016/j.cosust.2019.04.004.
  11. Web site: Earth System Governance Foundation . 2024-07-18 . Earth System Governance Project.
  12. Web site: Open Call: The Earth System Governance Research Alliance invites expressions of interest to host its International Project Office . 2024-08-02 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  13. Web site: Research Centres . 2024-07-29 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  14. Web site: Journal Earth System Governance . 18 July 2024 . Science Direct.
  15. Web site: Insights - Earth System Governance ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier . 2024-07-29 . www.sciencedirect.com.
  16. Web site: Scimago Journal & Country Rank - Earth System Governance . 2024-07-29 . www.scimagojr.com.
  17. Web site: MIT Press Book Series Archives . 2024-07-18 . Earth System Governance Project.
  18. Web site: Earth System Governance . 2024-07-18 . MIT Press.
  19. Web site: Earth and Environmental Sciences . 2024-07-18 . Cambridge Core.
  20. Web site: Earth System Governance . 2024-07-18 . Cambridge Core.
  21. Web site: Annual Conferences . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  22. Web site: 2007 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. 'Earth System Governance: Theories and Strategies for Sustainability' . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  23. Web site: 2008 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimension of Global Environmental Change. 'Long-Term Policies: Governing Social-Ecological Change' . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  24. Web site: 2009 Amsterdam Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. 'Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet' . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  25. Web site: 2010 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change. 'Social dimensions of environmental change and governance' . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  26. Web site: Colorado Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Crossing Boundaries and Building Bridges' . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  27. Web site: 2012 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Towards Just and Legitimate Earth System Governance – Addressing Inequalities' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  28. Web site: Earth System Governance Tokyo Conference: Complex Architectures, Multiple Agents . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  29. Web site: 2014 Norwich Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Allocation and Access in the Anthropocene' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  30. Web site: 2015 Canberra Conference on Earth System Governance: ’Democracy and Resilience in the Anthropocene’ . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  31. Web site: 2016 Nairobi Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Confronting Complexity and Inequality' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  32. Web site: 2017 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Allocation & Access in a Warming and Increasingly Unequal World' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  33. Web site: 2017 Lund Conference on Earth System Governance – Allocation & Access in a Warming and Increasingly Unequal World . 2024-07-31 . en-GB.
  34. Web site: 2018 Utrecht Conference on Earth System Governance . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  35. Web site: 2019 Mexico Conference on Earth System Governance . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  36. Web site: 2021 Bratislava Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Earth System Governance in Turbulent Times: Prospects for Political and Behavioral Responses' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  37. Web site: 2022 Toronto Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Governing Accelerated Transitions: Justice, Creativity, and Power in a Transforming World' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  38. Web site: 2023 Radboud Conference on Earth System Governance: 'Bridging Sciences and Societies for Sustainability Transformations' . 2024-07-31 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  39. Web site: 2024 ESG Forum on 'Re-imagining Earth System Governance in an Era of Polycrisis' . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  40. Web site: 2024 ESG Forum: "Re-imagining Earth System Governance in an Era of Polycrisis" . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  41. Web site: Taskforces . 2024-07-18 . Earth System Governance Project.
  42. Kim . Rakhyun E. . Blanchard . Catherine . Kotzé . Louis J. . 2022-01-01 . Law, systems, and Planet Earth: Editorial . Earth System Governance. 11 . 100127 . 10.1016/j.esg.2021.100127 . 2589-8116 . 245312306 . free. 2022ESGov..1100127K .
  43. Web site: 7 January 2013 . Methodology for Earth System Governance Research . 22 July 2024 . PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency.
  44. Web site: Affiliated projects . 2024-07-18 . Earth System Governance Project.
  45. Web site: Norms of Global Governance Initiative (NGGI) . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  46. Web site: Improving Earth Systems Governance through "Purpose Ecosystems" . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  47. Web site: Governing the EU's Climate and Energy Transition in Turbulent Times (GOVTRAN) . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  48. Web site: ReSET Programme "Governance of Global Environmental Change" . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  49. Web site: Climate-Smart Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  50. Web site: GLOBALGOALS – Research for Sustainability . 2024-07-22.
  51. Web site: Governance 'of' and 'for' the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) . 2024-07-22 . Earth System Governance Project.
  52. 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. . 2012-03-16 . Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance . Science . 335 . 6074 . 1306–1307 . 2012Sci...335.1306B . 10.1126/science.1217255 . 0036-8075.
  53. Folke . Carl . Rockström . Johan . 2011 . 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability: Transforming the World in an Era of Global Change . Ambio. 40 . 7 . 717–718 . 10.1007/s13280-011-0190-0 . 0044-7447 . 3357755 . 22338711. 2011Ambio..40..717F .
  54. Web site: Stockholm Memorandum: Tipping the Scales towards Sustainability . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20111211022831/http://globalsymposium2011.org/news-and-media/memorandum . 11 December 2011 . 24 November 2011.
  55. Book: Biermann, Frank . Routledge handbook of global environmental politics . 2022 . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group . 978-1-003-00887-3 . Harris . Paul G. . 2nd . Routledge handbooks . London ; New York, NY . Chapter 21: Earth system governance – World politics in the post-environmental age.
  56. Biermann, F. (2914) “Governance in the Anthropocene: Towards Planetary Stewardship” Presentation at the 4th Interactive Dialogue of the United Nations General Assembly on Harmony with Nature New York City, New York, 22 April 2014
  57. Web site: Frank Biermann Presents at UN General Assembly . 2024-08-02 . Earth System Governance Project . en-US.
  58. UNGA – United Nations General Assembly (2014) Harmony with Nature. Report of the Secretary-General. United Nations Doc. A/69/322 of 18 August 2014.
  59. Biermann . Frank . Oomen . Jeroen . Gupta . Aarti . Ali . Saleem H. . Conca . Ken . Hajer . Maarten A. . Kashwan . Prakash . Kotzé . Louis J. . Leach . Melissa . Messner . Dirk . Okereke . Chukwumerije . Persson . Åsa . Potočnik . Janez . Schlosberg . David . Scobie . Michelle . 2022 . Solar geoengineering: The case for an international non‐use agreement . WIREs Climate Change . en . 13 . 3 . 10.1002/wcc.754 . 1757-7780.
  60. Myanna Lahsen. 2007. Earth System Governance: Research in Aid of Global Environmental Sustainability. Global Change NewsLetter No. 70
  61. Book: Climate in Asia and the Pacific: Security, Society and Sustainability . 2014 . Springer Netherlands . 978-94-007-7337-0 . Manton . Michael . Advances in Global Change Research . 56 . Dordrecht. 10.1007/978-94-007-7338-7 . 2014caps.book.....M . Stevenson . Linda Anne.
  62. Book: Institutions and environmental change: principal findings, applications, and research frontiers . 2008 . MIT Press . 978-0-262-24057-4 . Young . Oran R. . Cambridge, Mass . 212014719 . King . Leslie A. . Schroeder . Heike.
  63. Book: Integrated risk governance: science plan and case studies of large-scale disasters . 2013 . Springer . 978-3-642-31640-1 . Shi . Peijun . IHDP-integrated risk governance project series . Berlin ; New York . Jaeger . Carlo . Ye . Qian.
  64. Web site: ESG – Earth System Governance Future Earth . 2024-07-18.

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