Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T12:41:47.240Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Adaptiveness in Earth System Governance

Synthesis, Policy Relevance, and the Way Forward

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2021

By
Bernd Siebenhüner ,
Riyanti Djalante ,
Nicolas W. Jager  and
Julie P. King
Edited by
Riyanti Djalante  and
Bernd Siebenhüner
Riyanti Djalante
Affiliation:
United Nations University, Tokyo
Bernd Siebenhüner
Affiliation:
Carl V. Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, Germany
Get access

Summary

This chapter concludes the edited volume and its quest to harvest findings on the conceptual development of adaptiveness, as proposed by the Earth System Governance (ESG) Project. Adaptiveness is both a key attribute and goal of governance to anticipate, manage, and help steer complex societal, technological, and environmental changes towards more sustainable trajectories. Reiterating the main question of the book: How has adaptiveness, as an umbrella concept, been developed and applied in the context of earth system governance in the first decade after its inception, and what insights and practical solutions has it yielded? We have found that adaptiveness encompasses and relates to concepts including adaptive management and governance, adaptive capacity, vulnerability, resilience, robustness, and social learning. We elucidate how these concepts and further Harvesting Initiative findings relate to the 2018 Science and Implementation Plan of the ESG Project, in which adaptiveness is considered alongside the concept of reflexivity. We then look back on 10 years of progress to answer the so-called 'Utrecht Questions', exploring both the relevance of adaptiveness concepts in practice and their generalisability. Finally, we touch upon the 2009 ESG Science Plan and suggest how adaptiveness offers lessons for broader societal transformation and achieving global sustainability agendas.

Keywords

adaptivenessreflexivitytransformationsustainabilityearth system governance
Type
Chapter
Information
Adaptiveness: Changing Earth System Governance , pp. 188 - 200
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adger, W.N., Dessai, S., Goulden, M. et al. (2009). Are there social limits to adaptation to climate change? Climatic Change, 93(3–4), 335–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allan, T., Keulertz, M., & Woertz, E. (2015). The water–food–energy nexus: an introduction to nexus concepts and some conceptual and operational problems. International Journal of Water Resources Development, 31(3), 301–11.Google Scholar
Beunen, R., Patterson, J., & van Assche, K. (2017). Governing for resilience: the role of institutional work. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 28, 10–16.Google Scholar
Biermann, F., Betsill, M.M., Gupta, J. et al. (2009). Earth System Governance: People, Places, and the Planet. Science Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Bonn: International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change.Google Scholar
Biermann, F., Kanie, N., & Kim, R.E. (2017). Global governance by goal-setting: the novel approach of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 26, 26–31.Google Scholar
Biermann, F. & Kim, R.E. (eds.) (2020). Architectures of Earth System Governance: Institutional Complexity and Structural Transformation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Birkmann, J., Garschagen, M., Kraas, F., & Quang, N. (2010). Adaptive urban governance: new challenges for the second generation of urban adaptation strategies to climate change. Sustainability Science, 5(2), 185–206.Google Scholar
Boas, I., Biermann, F., & Kanie, N. (2016). Cross-sectoral strategies in global sustainability governance: towards a nexus approach. International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, 16(3), 449–64.Google Scholar
Boyd, E. & Juhola, S. (2015). Adaptive climate change governance for urban resilience. Urban Studies, 52(7), 1234–64.Google Scholar
Burch, S., Gupta, A., Inoue, C.Y.A. et al. (2019). New directions in earth system governance research. Earth System Governance, 1, 100006. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2019.100006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cannon, T. & Müller-Mahn, D. (2010). Vulnerability, resilience and development discourses in context of climate change. Natural Hazards, 55(3), 621–35.Google Scholar
Castán-Broto, V. & Westman, L. (2009). Urban Sustainability and Justice: Just Sustainabilities and Environmental Planning. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Collste, D., Pedercini, M., & Cornell, S.E. (2017). Policy coherence to achieve the SDGs: using integrated simulation models to assess effective policies. Sustainability Science, 12(6), 921–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Coninck, H., Revi, A., Babiker, M. et al. (2018). Strengthening and implementing the global response. In Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pörtner, H.O. et al., eds., Global Warming of 1.5°C: An IPCC Special Report on the Impacts of Global Warming of 1.5°C above Pre-Industrial Levels and Related Global Greenhouse Gas Emission Pathways, in the Context of Strengthening the Global Response to the Threat of Climate Change. Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.Google Scholar
Dow, K., Berkhout, F., Preston, B.L. et al. (2013). Limits to adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 3(4), 305.Google Scholar
Earth System Governance (ESG) Project (2018). Earth System Governance: Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Utrecht: Earth System Governance Project.Google Scholar
Eisenack, K., Moser, S.C., Hoffmann, E. et al. (2014). Explaining and overcoming barriers to climate change adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 4(10), 867–72. doi: http://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2350.Google Scholar
Ellis, N.R. & Tschakert, P. (2019). Triple-wins as pathways to transformation? A critical review. Geoforum, 103, 167–70.Google Scholar
Flick, U. (2009). How to design qualitative research: an overview. In Flick, U., ed., An Introduction to Qualitative Research, 4th ed. London: Sage, 127–45.Google Scholar
Fuenfschilling, L., Frantzeskaki, N., & Coenen, L. (2019). Urban experimentation & sustainability transitions. European Planning Studies, 27(2), 219–28. doi: http://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2018.1532977.Google Scholar
Gerring, J. (2007). Case Study Research: Principles and Practices. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Goertz, G. (2017). Multimethod Research, Causal Mechanisms, and Case Studies: An Integrated Approach. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gupta, J., Termeer, C., Klostermann, J. et al. (2010). The Adaptive Capacity Wheel: a method to assess the inherent characteristics of institutions to enable the adaptive capacity of society. Environmental Science & Policy, 13(6), 459–71.Google Scholar
Kanie, N. & Biermann, F. (eds.). (2017). Governing through Goals. Sustainable Development Goals as Governance Innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Koontz, T.M., Gupta, D., Mudliar, P. et al. (2015). Adaptive institutions in social-ecological systems governance: a synthesis framework. Environmental Science and Policy, 53(B), 139–51. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2015.01.003.Google Scholar
Korhonen, J. & Seager, T.P. (2008). Beyond eco‐efficiency: a resilience perspective. Business Strategy and Environment, 17(7), 411–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krieger, T., Panke, D., & Pregernig, M. (eds.). (2020). Environmental Conflicts, Migration and Governance. Bristol: Bristol University Press.Google Scholar
McLeman, R. & Gemenne, F. (eds.) (2018). Routledge Handbook of Environmental Displacement and Migration. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Madsen, S.H.J. & Hansen, T. (2019). Cities and climate change: examining advantages and challenges of urban climate change experiments. European Planning Studies, 27(2), 282–99.Google Scholar
Magnan, A.K., Schipper, E.L.F., Burkett, M. et al. (2016). Addressing the risk of maladaptation to climate change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 7(5), 646–65. doi: http://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.409.Google Scholar
Mechler, R., Singh, C., Ebi, K. et al. (2020). Loss and damage and limits to adaptation: recent IPCC insights and implications for climate science and policy. Sustainability Science, 15, 1245–51.Google Scholar
Northrop, E., Biru, H., Lima, S., Bouye, M., & Song, R. (2016). Examining the Alignment between the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions and Sustainable Development Goals. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.Google Scholar
Persson, Å., Weitz, N., & Nilsson, M. (2016). Follow‐up and review of the Sustainable Development Goals: alignment vs. internalization. Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, 25(1), 59–68.Google Scholar
Reyes-García, V., Garcia del Amo, D., Benyei, P. et al. (2019). A collaborative approach to bring insights from local observations of climate change impacts into global climate change research. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 39, 1–8. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2019.04.007.Google Scholar
Siebenhüner, B. (2018). Conflicts in transdisciplinary research: reviewing literature and analysing a case of climate adaptation in northwestern Germany. Ecological Economics, 154, 117–27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.07.011.Google Scholar
Sovacool, B.K., Linnér, B.-O., & Goodsite, M.E. (2015). The political economy of climate adaptation. Nature Climate Change, 5(7), 616–18.Google Scholar
Stafford-Smith, M., Griggs, D., Gaffney, O. et al. (2017). Integration: the key to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainability Science, 12(6), 911–19.Google Scholar
Stringer, L.C., Fraser, E.D.G., Harris, D. et al. (2020). Adaptation and development pathways for different types of farmers. Environmental Science & Policy, 104, 174–89. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2019.10.007.Google Scholar
Venn, A. (2019). Social justice and climate change. In Letcher, T., ed., Managing Global Warming. London: Academic Press, 711–28. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814104-5.00024-7.Google Scholar
Yin, R.K. (2009). How to know whether and when to use case studies as a research method. In Yin, R.K., ed., Case Study Research Designs and Methods, 4th ed. London: Sage, 3–21.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×