Architectures of Earth System Governance


Book Description

An authoritative analysis of [a decade of] research on institutional architectures in earth system governance, covering key elements, structures and policy options.




Agency in Earth System Governance


Book Description

An accessible synthesis of a decade of multidisciplinary research into how diverse actors exercise authority in environmental decision making.




Democratic Norms of Earth System Governance


Book Description

Deliberative democracy is well-suited to the challenges of governing in the Anthropocene. But deliberative democratic practices are only suited to these challenges to the extent that five prerequisites - empoweredness, embeddedness, experimentality, equivocality, and equitableness - are successfully institutionalized. Governance must be: created by those it addresses, applicable equally to all, capable of learning from (and adapting to) experience, rationally grounded, and internalized by those who adopt and experience it. This book analyzes these five major normative principles, pairing each with one of the Earth System Governance Project's analytical problems to provide an in-depth discussion of the minimal conditions for environmental governance that can be truly sustainable. It is ideal for scholars and graduate students in global environmental politics, earth system governance, and international environmental policy. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.




Decarbonising Economies


Book Description

Based on an interdisciplinary investigation of future visions, scenarios, and case-studies of low carbon innovation taking place across economic domains, Decarbonising Economies analyses the ways in which questions of agency, power, geography and materiality shape the conditions of possibility for a low carbon future. It explores how and why the challenge of changing our economies are variously ascribed to a lack of finance, a lack of technology, a lack of policy and a lack of public engagement, and shows how the realities constraining change are more fundamentally tied to the inertia of our existing high carbon society and limited visions for what a future low carbon world might become. Through showcasing the first seeds of innovation seeking to enable transformative change, Decarbonising Economies will also chart a course for future research and policy action towards our climate goals. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.




Earth System Governance


Book Description

A new model for effective global environmental governance in an era of human-caused planetary transformation and disruption. Humans are no longer spectators who need to adapt to their natural environment. Our impact on the earth has caused changes that are outside the range of natural variability and are equivalent to such major geological disruptions as ice ages. Some scientists argue that we have entered a new epoch in planetary history: the Anthropocene. In such an era of planet-wide transformation, we need a new model for planet-wide environmental politics. In this book, Frank Biermann proposes “earth system” governance as just such a new paradigm. Biermann offers both analytical and normative perspectives. He provides detailed analysis of global environmental politics in terms of five dimensions of effective governance: agency, particularly agency beyond that of state actors; architecture of governance, from local to global levels; accountability and legitimacy; equitable allocation of resources; and adaptiveness of governance systems. Biermann goes on to offer a wide range of policy proposals for future environmental governance and a revitalized United Nations, including the establishment of a World Environment Organization and a UN Sustainable Development Council, new mechanisms for strengthened representation of civil society and scientists in global decision making, innovative systems of qualified majority voting in multilateral negotiations, and novel institutions to protect those impacted by global change. Drawing on ten years of research, Biermann formulates earth system governance as an empirical reality and a political necessity.




Adaptiveness: Changing Earth System Governance


Book Description

A state-of-the-art review of adaptiveness as a key concept in environmental governance literature, complemented by global, regional, and national applications.




Earth System Law: Standing on the Precipice of the Anthropocene


Book Description

This book systematically explores the emerging legal discipline of Earth System Law (ESL), challenging the closed system of law and marking a new era in law and society scholarship. Law has historically provided stability, certainty, and predictability in the ordering of social relations (predominantly between humans). However, in recent decades the Earth’s relationship in law has changed with increasing recognition of the standing of Mother Earth, inherent rights of the environment (such as flora and fauna, rivers), and now recognition of the multiple relations of the Anthropocene. This book questions the fundamental assumption that ‘the law’ only applies to humans, and that the earth, as a system, has intrinsic rights and responsibilities. In the last ten years the planet has experienced its hottest period since human evolution, and by the year 2100, unless substantive action is taken, many species will be lost, and planetary conditions will be intolerable for human civilisation as it currently exists. Relationships between humans, the biosphere, and all planetary systems must change. The authors address these challenging topics, setting the groundwork of ESL to ensure sustainable development of the coupled socio-ecological system that the Earth has become. Earth System Law is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research project, and, as such, this book will be of great interest to researchers and stakeholders from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, anthropology, economics, law, ethics, sociology, and psychology.




Environmental Human Rights in Earth System Governance


Book Description

Environmental rights are a category of human rights necessarily central to both democracy and effective earth system governance (any environmental-ecological-sustainable democracy). For any democracy to remain democratic, some aspects must be beyond democracy and must not be allowed to be subjected to any ordinary democratic collective choice processes shy of consensus. Real, established rights constitute a necessary boundary of legitimate everyday democratic practice. We analyze how human rights are made democratically and, in particular, how they can be made with respect to matters environmental, especially matters that have import beyond the confines of the modern nation state.




The Green Marble


Book Description

Humans have difficulty thinking at the global scale. Yet as we come to understand our planet as a single, interconnected, complex system and encounter compelling evidence of human impact on Earth’s climate and biosphere, the need for a truly global effort is increasingly urgent. In this concise and accessible text, David P. Turner presents an overview of global environmental change and a synthesis of research and ideas from the rapidly evolving fields of earth system science and sustainability science that is suitable for anyone interested in humanity’s current predicaments and what we can do about them. The Green Marble examines Earth’s past, contemporary human disruption, and the prospects for global environmental governance. Turner emphasizes the functioning of the biosphere—the totality of life on Earth—including its influence on geologic history, its sensitivity to human impacts, and its possible role in ameliorating climate change. Relying on models of the earth system that synthesize vast amounts of monitoring information and recent research on biophysical processes, The Green Marble describes a range of scenarios for our planetary home, exploring the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and factors such as economic globalization. Turner juxtaposes cutting-edge ideas from both the geosciences and the social sciences to illustrate how humanity has arrived upon its current dangerous trajectory, and how we might pull back from the brink of civilization-challenging environmental change. Growing out of the author’s popular course on global environmental change, The Green Marble is accessible to non-science majors and provides a framework for understanding the complex relationship of humanity to the global environment.




Global Environmental Governance and Small States


Book Description

Global Environmental Governance gives the perspectives of small states on some of the most important issues of the anthropocene, from trade, climate change and energy security to tourism, marine governance, and heritage. Providing an in depth analysis of global environmental governance and its impact on Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) Michelle Scobie explores which dynamics and contexts influence current policy and future environmental outcomes for one of the most biodiverse regions of the planet.