Earth system governance

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." Earth system science assumes a holistic view of the dynamic interaction between the Earth's spheres and their many constituent subsystems fluxes and processes, the resulting spatial organization and time evolution of these systems, and their variability, stability and instability. 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." == Development ==

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. 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. == Conceptual framework of analytical problems ==

ESG research can be carried out under a conceptual framework of five analytical problems which are all highly interlinked. The first Science and Implementation Plan from 2009 emphasized four cross-cutting themes that were 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 from 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: • Architecture and agency • Democracy and power • Justice and allocation • Anticipation and imagination • Adaptiveness and reflexivity Those research lenses are embedded in four contextual conditions: Transformations, inequality, anthropocene, and diversity. 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. 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. == Analytical problems ==

Architectures Architectures of ESG has been defined as "the overarching system of public and private institutions, principles, norms, regulations, decision-making procedures and organizations that are valid or active in a given area of global governance". Or in other words "who governs for whom and how and to what effect?". Researchers on agency in ESG thus investigate the "multiple ways in which actors acquire authority to affect the outcomes of ESG". Subsequently, ESG researchers have been investigating questions such as "what are the politics of adaptiveness? Which governance processes foster adaptiveness? What attributes of governance systems enhance capacities to adapt? How, when, and why does adaptiveness influence earth system governance?". It is concerned with justice among humans as well as between humans and the natural world. 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. Approaches for ESG and planetary stewardship 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: • A market liberal approach builds on neoclassical economics and the assumption of individual rational behavior to argue that economic growth and higher incomes are essential for effective planetary stewardship. • A bioenvironmentalist approach focuses on the constraints of biological limits, or the carrying capacity of the planet. Accordingly, bio-environmentalists see population pressure and overconsumption of natural resources as major causes of environmental degradation. • An ecomodernist approach emphasizes the need to tap into the "power of human ingenuity and creativity" for managing planetary problems such as climate change. Justice—at international and local levels—is not a core consideration for ecomodernists. • An institutionalist approach seeks to foster interstate cooperation in pursuit of planetary stewardship. Many institutionalist research programs remain focused on the goal of effective protection of the global environment—and not on increasing justice at the same time. • A social green approach sees planetary degradation as inseparable from questions of social, economic, and political inequalities. Scholars have argued that planetary justice requires prioritizing poor people's interests within planetary stewardship. == Contextual conditions ==

ESG research takes place in four contextual conditions: Transformations, inequality, anthropocene, and diversity. Examples include climate change, economic globalization, and digitization. Very often, "transformations imply changes in power relations (e.g. challenging, disrupting or entrenching), and thus are deeply contested, political phenomena". A variety of conceptual approaches have been developed to understand and analyse societal transition or transformation processes, including: socio-technical transitions, social-ecological systems, sustainability pathways, and transformative adaptation. The ESG framework can be used as a lens for understanding and analysing transformations. It is a high-level framework for thinking about governance, and does not give specific guidance on processes of transformation, but is flexible enough to accommodate different conceptual approaches that might be applied by different scholars. By using this framework, ESG researchers can explore the governance and politics of transformations towards sustainability by applying a conceptual lens that takes a political perspective of governance for sustainability. Anthropocene == Researchers and networks ==

Many scholars have applied the ESG framework in their research. Examples include the following scholars who are also co-founders of the ESG Project: Frank Biermann, Michele Betsill, In addition, ESG scholars who have co-authored the ESG Project's first science and implementation plan in 2009 include for example: Earth System Governance Project opening the 2018 Utrecht Conference on Earth System Governance == Critique ==

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. 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. 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." Ariel Salleh compared ESG with a "proto bio-political regime". 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. == Example applications ==

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". However, a fuller determination of the precise content, purpose, meaning, and scope of earth system law remains a work in progress. Earth system law is intended to be a more generically applicable framework that spans the entire spectrum of law that is relevant for responding to earth system transformation. Researchers are now looking into questions around the understanding of earth system law, its form and content, as well as its ontological and epistemological orientation. Ocean governance UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (UNDOS) is a United Nations Decade that runs from 2021 to 2030, with a vision of "the science we need for the ocean we want". UNDOS offers a framework to strengthen connections and weave partnerships between all communities working to study, conserve, and sustainably use the ocean and its resources. The Decade will boost scientific research in this area. ESG research in relationship to oceans tackles fundamental questions of "who gets what?" (justice and allocation), "who gets to decide?" (democracy and power), "how are current systems maintained?" (architecture and agency), and "how do these systems change?" (in the present: agency, adaptiveness and reflexivity; and in the future: anticipation and imagination). Mainstreaming of governance research into ocean science has also been recommended: The ESG community can facilitate this mainstreaming by enhancing knowledge cumulation around ocean issues within the network; engaging more strongly in the production of actionable and action-oriented knowledge; and seeking integration into inter- and transdisciplinary ocean research. ocean acidification, marine biodiversity. High Seas Treaty There is the expectation that a new agreement in ocean law that was reached in 2023 will constitute a major innovation in ESG, and could add more complexity and robustness to existing global ocean governance. This agreement is called the High Seas Treaty or Global Ocean Treaty or the United Nations agreement on biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement). It was adopted on 19 June 2023 and is a legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. It falls under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Social science research on ESG can offer insights on the factors that have promoted successful negotiation, design, and implementation of international environmental agreements that are similar to the High Seas Treaty. There is no uniformly techno-optimist or techno-pessimist orientation amongst ESG researchers. Nevertheless, concerns about technology course through the entire ESG agenda. ESG researchers pointed out that those interested in adopting AI within their decision-making systems should first ask critical governance questions about the extent to which AI-informed decisions will be democratic, whether implementing such technology will contribute to north–south (in)equality, and the costs and benefits of involving private sector service providers in public sector operations. == See also ==