Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-07-15DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100275
Elsa L. Dingkuhn , Lilian O'Sullivan , Caitlin A. Grady , Erik de Klerk , Rogier P.O. Schulte
{"title":"Land-use governance: The interplay of social, market, and policy drivers – A global systematic review","authors":"Elsa L. Dingkuhn , Lilian O'Sullivan , Caitlin A. Grady , Erik de Klerk , Rogier P.O. Schulte","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100275","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100275","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sustainable land-use governance is challenged by the complex interplay of local to global influences. This study combines two complementary approaches: a systematic review compiling a database of direct and diffuse contextual land-use drivers; and a cross-case analysis of three contrasting contexts: Ireland (regulated EU), Pennsylvania (market-driven US), and the Philippines (emerging economy) to uncover systemic interactions between drivers within and across cases.</div><div>Among direct drivers, regulatory approaches had the greatest impact, especially when synergistically combined with softer instruments. Market drivers highlight the need to engage supply-chain actors beyond farmers. Contextual factors outweighed direct drivers: farmers’ choices remain rooted in social contexts on which governance instruments depend for their effectiveness.</div><div>We demonstrate the need for greater policy coherence by addressing conflicting influences that hinder policy objectives, integrating socio-cultural and structural factors, and prioritising context-sensitive approaches. Amidst escalating ecological pressures, we provide recommendations and common governance principles applicable across diverse institutional settings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100275"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144633033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-06-09DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100263
Joyeeta Gupta , Jesse F. Abrams , David Armstrong McKay , Xuemei Bai , Kristi L. Ebi , Paola Fezzigna , Giuliana Gentile , Lauren Gifford , Syezlin Hasan , Lisa Jacobson , Aljoscha Karg , Steven Lade , Tim Lenton , Diana Liverman , Awaz Mohamed , Nebojsa Nakicenovic , David Obura , Johan Rockström , Ben Stewart-Koster , Detlef van Vuuren , Caroline Zimm
{"title":"Thresholds of significant harm at global level: The journey of the Earth Commission","authors":"Joyeeta Gupta , Jesse F. Abrams , David Armstrong McKay , Xuemei Bai , Kristi L. Ebi , Paola Fezzigna , Giuliana Gentile , Lauren Gifford , Syezlin Hasan , Lisa Jacobson , Aljoscha Karg , Steven Lade , Tim Lenton , Diana Liverman , Awaz Mohamed , Nebojsa Nakicenovic , David Obura , Johan Rockström , Ben Stewart-Koster , Detlef van Vuuren , Caroline Zimm","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100263","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100263","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The planetary boundary framework proposes ‘safe’ boundaries, but these boundaries are not necessarily ‘just’. Hence, we ask: How has the Earth Commission defined just boundaries building on the concept of minimizing significant harm and how many people are currently exposed to harm above the safe and just threshold? We document the work of the Earth Commission to address these questions using our Earth System Justice framework. We conclude that: (a) from a justice perspective, nine criteria need to be considered when defining just boundaries; (b) the proportions of populations exposed to harm from exceeding safe and just boundaries today range from 11 to 84 % for the five domains studied (climate, biosphere, water, nutrients, aerosols); and (c) argue that the absolute upper limit for significant harm is possibly harm to 1 % of the population, which although not stringent enough to leave no one behind, would require radical transformations, given the populations currently already above the threshold.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100263"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144241134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-05-20DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100259
Fariborz Zelli
{"title":"Groundhog Day at the 2024 United Nations biodiversity conference: What COP 16 can teach us for reforming environmental summits","authors":"Fariborz Zelli","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100259","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100259","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>With 23,000 registered participants and unprecedented media attention, the 16th conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, Colombia, was the largest in the 32-year history of these biannual meetings.</div><div>In terms of successes, the Cali conference established a new subsidiary body to protect concerns of indigenous communities and local populations as defenders of nature, along with a new voluntary mechanism on benefit-sharing. The Cali COP may also be remembered for its civil society zone which turned into a vibrant platform of social and cultural encounters.</div><div>On a more critical note though, negotiations in Cali shared the fate of the climate COP in Baku just two weeks later and, arguably, of inflated environmental summits in general. They were slowed down by typical bargaining strategies and stalemates and failed to address crucial implementation, financing and review gaps.</div><div>While the conference was suspended unceremoniously on November 2, 2024, the much more concise resumed sessions in December 2024 and February 2025 achieved crucial breakthroughs on these matters.</div><div>A lesson learned from these turnarounds is to complement larger COPs more regularly with smaller and solution-oriented meetings with decision-making power – instead of using such formats only for firefighting. Moreover, to avoid exaggerated greenwashing and lobbying like in Cali, future COPs should exhibit a more equitable representation of non-governmental actors and benefit from a more careful selection process of conference venues.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100259"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144089917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-07-21DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100268
Justin Joseph , Anjan Kumar Sahu , Juha Vuori
{"title":"Securitization, three streams model and biodiversity in the Global South: A case study of Western Ghats of India","authors":"Justin Joseph , Anjan Kumar Sahu , Juha Vuori","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100268","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100268","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Biodiversity conservation is one of the most contentious issues in the Global South, particularly political authority's methods and objectives of managing conservation. This paper studies how political authority deals with biodiversity conservation, and how different stakeholders respond to the conservation policy. In doing so, the study employs the securitization framework and blends it with the Three Streams Model to find out the political authority's securitization process (which is state-driven and top-down). Additionally, Narrative Policy Framework is employed to study the response of stakeholders (primarily local) to the securitization process. Thus, the central objective of the paper is to examine the securitization of the Western Ghats, especially with reference to Kerala, India. Based on the case study, the study finds that audiences in the Global South are capable of opposing securitization of biodiversity. In conjunction with functional actors, audience form assemblages and resist the deployment of extraordinary measures, thereby opposing securitization.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100268"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144672645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-06-16DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100267
Chris Höhne
{"title":"Exporting norm interpretations from the Global South: Explaining India's reasons for contesting and reshaping international climate norms","authors":"Chris Höhne","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100267","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100267","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent scholarship highlights Global South countries not only as norm-takers or localizers but also as norm-makers. Contributing to this shift, I conceptualize why these countries contest and lobby for alternative norm interpretations in international negotiations. Applying this lens to climate politics, I use triangulated data (incl. expert interviews) to identify domestic factors that explain the Indian government's behavior. By exporting domestic norm interpretations that merged with other norm interpretations from Global North and South countries, the Indian delegation successfully reshaped two international climate norms at the 2007 Bali Conference that target developing countries' mitigation efforts and climate action in forests. This increased the resonance of these two norms with the Indian government's domestic norms, political economy beliefs, international funding desire and collective identity needs. This research provides insights into the complex dynamics of international norm negotiations between proposers and counter-proposers in the context of the rise of the Global South.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100267"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144290565","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-07-31DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100280
Nicole Curato , John S. Dryzek , David Levai , Claire Mellier , Melisa Ross , Rich Wilson
{"title":"Where next for global climate deliberation: From proof of concept to a role in transformation","authors":"Nicole Curato , John S. Dryzek , David Levai , Claire Mellier , Melisa Ross , Rich Wilson","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100280","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100280","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Building on the proof of concept that was the 2021 Global Assembly on the Climate and Ecological Crisis, we explore an expanded and even institutionalized role for effective and consequential citizen deliberation in global climate governance. Such an expanded role could not just strengthen citizen voices in negotiations, but also counter vested interests, promote civic learning, enhance the legitimacy of governance, foster global solidarity, and generate reflective input to galvanize policies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100280"},"PeriodicalIF":4.6,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144739104","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-07-07DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100274
Heiner von Lüpke
{"title":"The just energy transition partnership in South Africa: Identification and assessment of key factors driving international cooperation","authors":"Heiner von Lüpke","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100274","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100274","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates the implications of implementing the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) in South Africa by exploring the factors that are at work when donors and recipients interact with each other. It analyses the JETP using global cooperation theories on climate change and identify mutual trust, based on shared norms; and process legitimacy via institutionalisation as the factors which can promote cooperation between donors and recipients. The paper contributes to the literature on international climate finance by providing novel insights through the analysis of the South African JETP as a single case study. It shows that the JETP is in fact a transnational policy process that needs to be institutionalised and legitimised to improve shortcomings of established conditionality instruments. The results might also inform the design of other climate and development partnerships in sectors such as land use or industry, as challenges of transitions appear similar.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100274"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144570452","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-05-24DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100256
Amandine Orsini, Juan Felipe Duque
{"title":"Where are Global South youth? Youth interest, identities and participation in global biodiversity governance","authors":"Amandine Orsini, Juan Felipe Duque","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100256","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100256","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100256"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144125123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-06-17DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100265
Montserrat Koloffon Rosas
{"title":"Partnerships for sustainable development: measuring transformative potential through leverage points","authors":"Montserrat Koloffon Rosas","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100265","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100265","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs) play a key role in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), offering collaborative mechanisms to address interconnected global challenges. Despite the increasing number of MSPs, their transformative potential remains underexplored. Taking a systems thinking approach, the leverage points theoretical framework by Donella Meadows (1999) is operationalized and applied to assess the transformative potential of a sample of 35 MSPs working on prominent SDG nexuses involving SDGs 4, 13, 14, and 15. Findings indicate that while partnerships target multiple intervention points within systems, they often neglect the deepest leverage points that could lead to a more profound transformation. This research contributes by identifying gaps in the engagement with deep system intervention places and offering insights into how partnerships can improve their focus on systems transformations. Enhancing the understanding of intervention points is the first step for MSPs to increase their transformative potential, competence, and impact.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100265"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144298445","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Earth System GovernancePub Date : 2025-08-01Epub Date: 2025-06-27DOI: 10.1016/j.esg.2025.100271
Jochen Prantl, Giridharan Ramasubramanian
{"title":"International cooperation in times of polycrisis: Patchworks as pathways in earth system governance","authors":"Jochen Prantl, Giridharan Ramasubramanian","doi":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100271","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.esg.2025.100271","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":33685,"journal":{"name":"Earth System Governance","volume":"25 ","pages":"Article 100271"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4,"publicationDate":"2025-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144491315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}