Issues of governance arising in areas beyond national jurisdiction are rising rapidly as priority concerns. In thinking about institutional architectures for these areas, it is helpful to subdivide this class of issues into three subcategories dealing with: (i) international spaces or areas easy to locate in spatial terms; (ii) earth systems that play critical roles in determining the habitability of the planet; and (iii) virtual systems that are increasingly important but difficult to locate in spatial terms. Focusing on one prominent example exemplifying each of these subcategories – the high seas, the earth’s climate system and cyberspace – this chapter seeks to identify lessons of general interest regarding the governance of areas beyond national jurisdiction. It directs attention to the importance of process in contrast to substance, the role of discursive embeddedness, and the importance of balancing stability and agility in a world featuring increasingly complex systems.

Building from the base of knowledge presented in the preceding chapters, this chapter explores how the cycling of carbon in subduction zones and orogenic belts varies with supercontinent cycles and mountain building. It discusses the processes that link short-term and long-term carbon cycling and the timescales of these processes, such as the response times of weathering and atmospheric drawdown at periods of enhanced volcanism. This chapter covers topics of potential fluctuations in the long-term CO2 content of Earth’s atmosphere because of mantle–climate feedback, again taking advantage of the modeling platforms available for further exploration of these topics.