It explores the political solutions and novel, more effective governance mechanisms to cope with the current transitions in the biogeochemical systems of the planet. It does so by developing integrated earth system governance, from the local to the global level, to ensure sustainable development of the coupled socio-ecological system that the Earth has become.  The Project is a core element of Future Earth, and views itself as the largest social science research network in the area of governance and global environmental change. It runs research centers in 14 countries and it is open to all social and natural scientists who are engaged in research on the governance of coupled socio-ecological systems.

Analytical Problems:

• Architecture – Earth system governance is faced by questions relating to the emergence, design and effectiveness of governance systems as well as the overall integration of global, regional, national and local governance.
• Agency – Tries to understand the agents that drive earth system governance and that need to be involved. The research gap is here especially the influence, roles and responsibilities of actors apart from national governments, such as business and non-profit organizations, the ways in which authority is granted to these agents, and how it is exercised.
• Accountability – The more regulatory competence and authority is conferred upon larger institutions and supranational systems of governance the more we will be confronted with questions of how to ensure the accountability and democratic legitimacy of earth system governance.
• Adaptiveness – Tries to understand and further develop the adaptiveness of earth system governance. It must be able to respond to the inherent uncertainties in human and natural systems and combine stability, to ensure long-term governance solutions, with flexibility, to react quickly to new findings and developments.
• Allocation and access – Earth system governance, like any political activity, is about the distribution of material and immaterial values. The novel character of earth system transformation and of the new governance solutions that are being developed puts questions of allocation and access in a new light.

Global Environmental Governance Task Forces:

• Planetary Justice – Aims to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who are concerned with questions of justice on a planetary scale in the context of profound transformations of the earth system.
• Ocean Governance – Seeks to address the daunting multi-level challenge of oceans governance in the Anthropocene.
• Earth System Law – Explores novel legal developments in and for the Anthropocene, where the earth as a whole is now seen to have become a socio-ecological system with human societies acting as a global geophysical force capable of changing this system, and at once as stewards of earth system care.
• Conceptual Foundations – Explores key ideas that are coming to frame international discussion of the challenge of governance in times of global environmental change and earth system transformation. It is concerned with understanding, refining and critically interrogating concepts that increasingly provide the foundation for contemporary theory and practice in the environmental domain.
• Accountability – Explores approaches to accountability, to assess the necessity and potential for greater accountability in the system of global environmental governance that has been riddled by fragmentation and duplication of efforts, dispersed political authority and weak regulatory influence.

Projects:

• Future Earth Cluster “Extreme Events and Environments from Climate to Society” (E3S) – A Future Earth Fast Cluster Activity aiming at identifying, bringing together and mobilizing the GEC communities which together address a wide perspective on climate extremes, improved adaptation techniques, and governance strategies.
• Climate-Smart Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa – Study on the barriers and opportunities for promoting climate-smart agriculture (CSA) in sub-Saharan Africa.
• BBNJ Initiative – A major development in ocean governance involves the effort to devise a legally binding Implementing Agreement to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ).
• Transformative Potential of Transparency in Climate Governance (TRANSGOV) – Aims to “understand the drivers and effects of transparency in the context of global climate governance. “
• Low Carbon Action in Ordinary Cities (LO – ACT) – Aims to deliver “the first multi-dimensional, large scale assessment of low carbon action in ordinary cities. It will contribute a new framework to understand global environmental politics and urban governance.”

Publications:

• A library of books, working papers, reports, etc.
• ESG and MIT Press book series

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Anthropocene Encounters: New Directions in Green Political Thinking (2019, 261p.) – Traces in detail a broad variety of such ‘Anthropocene encounters’: in science, philosophy and literary fiction. It asks what it means to ‘think green’ in a time when nature no longer offers a stable backdrop to political analysis.
• Climate Migration and Security – Securitisation as a Strategy in Climate Change Politics (2015) – Examine the strategic usage of security arguments on climate migration as a political tool in climate change politics.