Earth system governance
Additionally, the community explores actor networks, such as relationships and interactions among various stakeholders such as governments, NGOs, and civil society.
"[1]: 22 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".
[12][13][14] 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.
"[15] 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.
[1] At the center of the ESG framework are particular problem domains (i.e. energy, food, water, climate, and economic systems), which are likely to be the focus of efforts to bring about transformations towards sustainability.
[2] 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.
[1] 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.
Additionally, the community explores actor networks, such as relationships and interactions among various stakeholders such as governments, NGOs, and civil society.
[10]: 285 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".
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.
[28] Scholars are now placing the justice discourse in the broader debate on planetary stewardship, earth system transformation and ESG.
[29] There are five dominant approaches to ESG when viewed together with planetary stewardship: market liberal, bioenvironmentalist, ecomodernist, institutionalist, and social green.
[5] Transformations have been defined as "shifts that involve fundamental changes in structural, functional, relational and cognitive dimensions of linked socio-technical-ecological systems".
[32] Examples include the following scholars who are also co-founders of the ESG Project: Frank Biermann, Michele Betsill,[19] John Dryzek,[23] Norichika Kanie and Lennart Olsson.
[20] Other notable scholars in ESG are for example Peter M. Haas, Chris Gordon, Aarti Gupta,[22] Louis J. Kotzé,[17] James Meadowcroft, Chukwumerije Okereke, Asa Persson, Oran R. Young, Fariborz Zelli.
[41] 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.
[43] 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.
[10]: 291 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".
[10]: 291 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.
[11] The definition of earth system law is "an innovative legal imaginary that is rooted in the Anthropocene's planetary context and its perceived socio-ecological crisis".
[44] However, a fuller determination of the precise content, purpose, meaning, and scope of earth system law remains a work in progress.
[47][48] 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.
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.
[54] 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.
[8] Research on ESG helps to understand that negotiators for such a treaty must overcome three major challenges to reach meaningful agreement: (i) the politicization of science, which may inhibit agreement on whether to act, especially in a context of decision-making under uncertainty; (ii) institutional fragmentation and interplay, which make it challenging to add elements to an already crowded ocean governance space in ways that increase coherence and effectiveness; and (iii) the need for the new international legally binding instrument to respond to the complex set of multiple, multilevel, and systemic threats to marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction.
[8] Researchers are investigating the impacts, problems, and possibilities surrounding the use of certain emerging technologies—namely, artificial intelligence (AI) and digitalization—in activities relevant to ESG.
