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]
ESG research can be carried out under a conceptual framework of five analytical problems which are all highly interlinked.[2] [3] These analytical problems are "problems of the overall architecture of ESG, of agency beyond the state and of the state, of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and processes, of their accountability and legitimacy and of modes of allocation and access in ESG". They share at least four cross-cutting themes which are "power, knowledge, norms and scale".
Hundreds of scholars who are interested in ESG research have joined forces within the Earth System Governance Project, a large research network and interdisciplinary social science research alliance which began in 2009.[4]
The concept of earth system governance (ESG) 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."
A simpler version of the same definition is: Earth system governance is the combination of various rules and efforts from actors at all levels of society, from local to global, aimed at guiding actions to prevent, reduce, and adapt to environmental changes.
ESG is about the "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".
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.[5] 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 program in this field, which became in 2009 the global Earth System Governance Project (ESG Project). The ESG Project is a network of researchers. It produced the first science and implementation plan for ESG research in 2009. This provided a framework for research activities of ESG scholars during 2009 to 2018. It was followed by a second Science and Implementation Plan in 2018 which is meant to guide the research activities from 2018 onwards.
When scholars conduct research in ESG they theorize about it as analytical practice (explaining current politics), as normative critique (a critique of current systems of governance), and as transformative visioning.
ESG research can be carried out under a conceptual framework of five analytical problems which are all highly interlinked. These analytical problems are "problems of the overall architecture of ESG, of agency beyond the state and of the state, of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and processes, of their accountability and legitimacy and of modes of allocation and access in ESG". The table below shows these five research activities and the main research questions for each of the analytical problems.
| Architecture of governance | To analyze the emergence, design and effectiveness of governance systems as well as the overall integration of global, regional, national and local governance.[6] | How do environmental institutions perform within larger governance structures? What environmental impacts arise from non-environmental governance systems? What are the norms of ESG?[7] | |
| Agents of governance | To investigate the diverse agents beyond national governments, such as businesses, non-profit organizations, or cities,[8] studying their roles, responsibilities, authority, and impact.[9] | Who are the agents of ESG? How do they exercise their roles, and how can their relevance be evaluated? | |
| Adaptiveness | To analyze how long-term stability can best be balanced with flexibility to respond to new developments.[10] This research explores the politics and processes that enhance adaptiveness in governance. | What attributes of governance systems promote adaptiveness? How does adaptiveness influence governance? | |
| Accountability and legitimacy | To focus on questions of accountability,[11] legitimacy, transparency,[12] and the democratic quality of governance.[13] | What are the sources of accountability, legitimacy and democratic governance? How do they affect governance performance? What designs can best balance interests and perspectives? | |
| Allocation and Access | To study the distribution of resources, raising issues of planetary justice.[14] | How can interdisciplinary definitions of allocation and access be developed?[15] What principles underlie planetary justice, and how does planetary justice align with governance effectiveness? |
In addition, the first Science and Implementation Plan emphasized four cross-cutting themes that are deemed crucial for understanding these problems: power, knowledge, norms, and scale. It also promoted focused case studies on the global water, food, climate, and economic systems, integrating here analyses of governance architecture, agents, adaptiveness, accountability, and allocation.
The second Science and Implementation Plan published in 2018 has expanded the original framework of the “5 A’s” to pair them with novel concepts that have become more prominent in the community. This resulted in the following five sets of research lenses:
Those research lenses are embedded in four contextual conditions: Transformations, inequality, anthropocene, and diversity.
The concept of ESG 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."
Many scholars have applied the ESG framework in their research. Examples include the following scholars who are also co-authors of the ESG Project's first science and implementation plan in 2009: Frank Biermann, Michele Betsill, Joyeeta Gupta, Norichika Kanie, Louis Lebel, Diana Liverman, Heike Schroeder, and Bernd Siebenhüner.
Other notable scholars in ESG are John Dryzek, Chris Gordon, Aarti Gupta, Louis J. Kotzé, James Meadowcroft, Chukwumerije Okereke, Lennart Olsson, Asa Persson, Oran R. Young, Fariborz Zelli and many others. In total, more than 550 scholars are formally registered as members of the ESG Project.[16]
The idea of earth system governance (ESG) has been criticized for being too top-down, for placing too much emphasis on global governance structures. According to Mike Hulme, ESG represents an attempt to "geopolitically engineer" our way out of the climate crisis.[17] 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. Others regard this particular interpretation of the ESG concept as being too narrow and misleading.[18]
Andy Stirling criticized the ESG concept by saying: "No matter how much a governance model might emphasize ‘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."[19] Ariel Salleh compared ESG with a “proto bio-political regime”.[20] She also stated that "What is minimized in the ESG analysis are major historical tensions between capital and labor, core and periphery, human production and natural reproduction". On the other hand, political scientist Frank Biermann from Utrecht University responded to that criticism 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.
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". On the other hand, Frank Biermann pointed 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."[21]
Complex and global challenges that ESG 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".
The ESG research community focuses on the study of formal rules and institutions, which include laws, public regulations and policies set by national or local governments and international organizations to address global and local sustainability problems. The network also examines informal rules and practices, such as unwritten norms and societal behaviors. Additionally, the community explores actor networks, such as relationships and interactions among various stakeholders such as governments, NGOs, and civil society.
ESG researchers study sustainability challenges at local, national and global levels. They look into how local communities manage natural resources and respond to sustainability changes. At the national level, ESG researchers examine how governments and other actors develop and implement policies to address sustainability challenges. They also investigate international agreements, the role of global organizations such as the United Nations and transnational institutions in governing earth systems. By integrating research across all these scales, ESG researchers seek to understand the complexities of sustainability governance and develop actionable solutions that are effective and fair at all levels of society.
Planetary justice is a system designed to secure the integrity of the planetary system as well as universal protection of basic human dignity for all people. It requires addressing extreme concentrations of wealth in industrialized and middle-income countries and international redistributions of wealth. There are allocation challenges, both within and between countries. To address these challenges it is critical to realize pro-poor planetary justice.[22]
Planetary justice cannot be a debate among academics and activists in the global North alone. For the ideals of planetary justice to be achieved, these challenges must be linked to the lives and life worlds of the poorest and most marginalized people of the world.
There are five dominant approaches to ESG when viewed together with planetary stewardship: market liberal, bioenvironmentalist, ecomodernist, institutionalist, and social green. All of these approaches to planetary stewardship and ESG are not yet apt at realizing a pro-poor vision of justice. They cannot handle the complex causes of planetary crisis, including socioeconomic inequality and social injustice:
Scholars have argued that planetary justice requires prioritizing poor people's interests within planetary stewardship.