| 1. |
- Aguiar, Ana Paula D., et al.
(författare)
-
Co-designing global target-seeking scenarios : A cross-scale participatory process for capturing multiple perspectives on pathways to sustainability
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 65
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The United Nations 2030 Agenda catalysed the development of global target-seeking sustainability-oriented scenarios representing alternative pathways to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Implementing the SDGs requires connected actions across local, national, regional, and global levels; thus, target-seeking scenarios need to reflect alternative options and tensions across those scales. We argue that the design of global sustainability-oriented target-seeking scenarios requires a consistent process for capturing multiple and contrasting perspectives on how to reach the goals, including the perspectives from multiple scales (e.g. local, national, regional) and geographic regions (e.g. the Global South). Here we propose a novel approach to co-design global target-seeking scenarios, consisting of (a) capturing global perspectives on pathways to the SDGs through a review of existing global scenarios; (b) a multi-stakeholder process to obtain multiple sub-global perspectives on pathways to sustainability; (c) an analysis of convergences, and crucially, divergences between global and regional perspectives on pathways to reach the SDGs, feeding into the design of new target-seeking scenario narratives. As a case study, we use the results of the 2018 African Dialogue on The World in 2050, discussing the future of agriculture and food systems. The identified divergent themes emerging from our analysis included urbanization, population growth, agricultural practices, and the roles of different actors in the future of agriculture. The results challenge some of the existing underlying assumptions of the current sustainability-oriented global scenarios (e.g. population growth, urbanisation, agricultural practices), indicating the relevance and timeliness of the proposed approach. We suggest that similar approaches can be replicated in other contexts to better inform the process of sustainability-oriented scenario co-design across scales, regions and cultures. In addition, we highlight the implications of the approach for scenario quantification and the evolution of modeling tools.
|
|
| 2. |
- Chambers, Josephine M., et al.
(författare)
-
Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 72
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Co-production, the collaborative weaving of research and practice by diverse societal actors, is argued to play an important role in sustainability transformations. Yet, there is still poor understanding of how to navigate the tensions that emerge in these processes. Through analyzing 32 initiatives worldwide that co-produced knowledge and action to foster sustainable social-ecological relations, we conceptualize 'co-productive agility' as an emergent feature vital for turning tensions into transformations. Co-productive agility refers to the willingness and ability of diverse actors to iteratively engage in reflexive dialogues to grow shared ideas and actions that would not have been possible from the outset. It relies on embedding knowledge production within processes of change to constantly recognize, reposition, and navigate tensions and opportunities. Co-productive agility opens up multiple pathways to transformation through: (1) elevating marginalized agendas in ways that maintain their integrity and broaden struggles for justice; (2) questioning dominant agendas by engaging with power in ways that challenge assumptions, (3) navigating conflicting agendas to actively transform interlinked paradigms, practices, and structures; (4) exploring diverse agendas to foster learning and mutual respect for a plurality of perspectives. We explore six process considerations that vary by these four pathways and provide a framework to enable agility in sustainability transformations. We argue that research and practice spend too much time closing down debate over different agendas for change - thereby avoiding, suppressing, or polarizing tensions, and call for more efforts to facilitate better interactions among different agendas.
|
|
| 3. |
- Dahl, Martin, et al.
(författare)
-
Ranking the risk of CO2 emissions from seagrass soil carbon stocks under global change threats
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 78
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Seagrass meadows are natural carbon storage hotspots at risk from global change threats, and their loss can result in the remineralization of soil carbon stocks and CO2 emissions fueling climate change. Here we used expert elicitation and empirical evidence to assess the risk of CO2 emissions from seagrass soils caused by multiple human-induced, biological and climate change threats. Judgments from 41 experts were synthesized into a seagrass CO2 emission risk score based on vulnerability factors (i.e., spatial scale, frequency, magnitude, resistance and recovery) to seagrass soil organic carbon stocks. Experts perceived that climate change threats (e.g., gradual ocean warming and increased storminess) have the highest risk for CO2 emissions at global spatial scales, while direct threats (i.e., dredging and building of a marina or jetty) have the largest CO2 emission risks at local spatial scales. A review of existing peer-reviewed literature showed a scarcity of studies assessing CO2 emissions following seagrass disturbance, but the limited empirical evidence partly confirmed the opinion of experts. The literature review indicated that direct and long-term disturbances have the greatest negative impact on soil carbon stocks per unit area, highlighting that immediate management actions after disturbances to recover the seagrass canopy can significantly reduce soil CO2 emissions. We conclude that further empirical evidence assessing global change threats on the seagrass carbon sink capacity is required to aid broader uptake of seagrass into blue carbon policy frameworks. The preliminary findings from this study can be used to estimate the potential risk of CO2 emissions from seagrass habitats under threat and guide nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation.
|
|
| 4. |
- de Bruin, Sophie P., et al.
(författare)
-
Projecting long-term armed conflict risk : An underappreciated field of inquiry?
- 2022
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 72
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Little research has been done on projecting long-term conflict risks. Such projections are currently neither included in the development of socioeconomic scenarios or climate change impact assessments nor part of global agenda-setting policy processes. In contrast, in other fields of inquiry, long-term projections and scenario studies are established and relevant for both strategical agenda-setting and applied policies. Although making projections of armed conflict risk in response to climate change is surrounded by uncertainty, there are good reasons to further develop such scenario-based projections. In this perspective article we discuss why quantifying implications of climate change for future armed conflict risk is inherently uncertain, but necessary for shaping sustainable future policy agendas. We argue that both quantitative and qualitative projections can have a purpose in future climate change impact assessments and put out the challenges this poses for future research.
|
|
| 5. |
- Dellmuth, Lisa M., et al.
(författare)
-
Empowering NGOs? Long-term effects of ecological and institutional change on regional fisheries management organizations
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 65
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The participation of environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) in regional fisheries management organizations has inspired optimism among many observers and researchers about increasing the effectiveness of these regional organizations in managing highly migratory and straddling fish stocks sustainably. Others claim that the attendance of ENGOs in meetings of regional fisheries management organizations as accredited observers or as part of member state or cooperating non-member state delegations, could make decision-making complex, long, and inefficient. More generally, NGO participation has attracted broad scholarly interest in the study of interest groups and transnational advocacy in political science. Yet, we know little about the determinants of ENGO participation in meetings of regional fisheries management organizations in the first place. To fill this gap, this article develops a theoretical framework conceptualizing ENGO participation and developing expectations about how ecological and institutional change shapes ENGO participation. The framework deals with structural determinants of ENGO participation, as existing literature primarily has been preoccupied with the study of actor-specific explanations of specific NGOs' impact in specific political processes. By contrast, we examine how ecological change - such as target fish stock health and biomass status - and institutional change - such as financial resources, membership composition of regional fisheries management organizations and participation by other non-state actors, such as experts and fishing industry representatives - shape ENGO participation. We empirically explore this framework in the context of seven regional fisheries management organizations. A dataset comprising yearly fish stock-level data on participation, institutional, and ecological factors, for 1980-2014, was compiled for our quantitative inquiry into the determinants of ENGO participation. We find robust evidence that institutional change shapes ENGO participation, but not ecological factors related to target fish stock health. We discuss our findings against the backdrop of ongoing debates about NGOs in political science, and spell out broader implications for future research on NGOs in regional fisheries management organizations.
|
|
| 6. |
- Donnellan Barraclough, Alicia, et al.
(författare)
-
Voices of young biosphere stewards on the strengths, weaknesses, and ways forward for 74 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves across 83 countries
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 68
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Young stakeholders are key actors in social-ecological systems, who have the capacity to be agents of sustainability transformation but are also at high risk of exclusion in the unfolding of global change challenges. Despite the focus of sustainability on future generations, there has been little research effort aimed at understanding young actors' roles as biosphere stewards. In this work we investigate how young stakeholders perceive and participate in the implementation of sustainability objectives in 74 Biosphere Reserves of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme across 83 countries, through participatory group workshops, individual surveys and grey literature review. We explore to what extent youth perceptions are aligned or not with current understandings of Biosphere Reserves and how young stakeholders are acting in pursuit of Biosphere Reserve objectives. We find that young stakeholders have a comprehensive understanding of the opportunities and challenges faced by environmental governance, such as resilience and adaptation to global change and the governance challenges of implementing adaptive co-management and increasing stakeholder participation. We also show that young stakeholders can be active participants in a wide range of activities that contribute to achieving conservation and development goals in their territories. They are particularly concerned with youth participation within all levels of Biosphere Reserve functioning and with the creation of sustainable livelihood opportunities that will allow future generations to remain in their native territories. Our study provides evidence of the importance of young stakeholder knowledge and perspectives as central actors in conservation and development initiatives, like Biosphere Reserves, and of the need to increase young stakeholder integration and participation within environmental governance.
|
|
| 7. |
- Downing, Andrea S., et al.
(författare)
-
When the whole is less than the sum of all parts – Tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 69
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are described as integrated and indivisible, where sustainability challenges must be addressed across sectors and scales to achieve global-level sustainability. However, SDG monitoring mostly focuses on tracking progress at national-levels, for each goal individually. This approach ignores local and cross-border impacts of national policies and assumes that global-level progress is the sum of national, sector-specific gains. In this study, we investigate effects of reforestation programs in China on countries supplying forest and agricultural commodities to China. Using case studies of rubber and palm oil production in Southeast Asian countries, soy production in Brazil and logging in South Pacific Island states, we investigate cross-sector effects of production for and trade to China in these exporting countries. We use a threestep multi-method approach. 1) We identify distal trade flows and the narratives used to justify them, using a telecoupling framework; 2) we design causal loop diagrams to analyse social-ecological processes of change in our case studies driven by trade to China and 3) we link these processes of change to the SDG framework. We find that sustainability progress in China from reforestation is cancelled out by the deforestation and cross-sectoral impacts supporting this reforestation abroad. Narratives of economic development support commodity production abroad through unrealised aims of benefit distribution and assumptions of substitutability of socioecological forest systems. Across cases, we find the analysed trade supports unambiguous progress on few SDGs only, and we find many mixed effects - where processes that support the achievement of SDGs exist, but are overshadowed by counterproductive processes. Our study represents a useful approach for tracking global-level impacts of national sustainability initiatives and provides cross-scale and cross-sectoral lenses through which to identify drivers of unsustainability that can be addressed in the design of effective sustainability policies.
|
|
| 8. |
- Döring, Stefan
(författare)
-
From Bullets to Boreholes : A Disaggregated Analysis of Domestic Water Cooperation in Drought-prone Regions
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 65
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Does water shortage incentivize cooperation? Case studies suggests that water scarcity can rarely, if at all, explain violence, instead such shortages rather facilitate cooperative actions around water. Another major argument from qualitative research holds that water scarcity and armed conflict often occur side by side. These insights have rarely been tested empirically across cases on a sub-national level. Earlier quantitative work instead focused on basin or state level interactions. This article fills these gaps by using disaggregated data to analyze the effect of water scarcity on incidences of domestic water cooperation. Using event data covering the Mediterranean area and Northern Africa (1997–2009), this article first shows that water-related actions, cooperative or conflictual, in general are more frequent in water scarce areas. Second, the analysis demonstrates that water cooperation occurs in areas with difficult access to groundwater and with a history of violence. Third, the findings suggest that the relationship between water scarcity and water cooperation is conditional on levels of democracy. The presented results also differ depending on whether state or non-state actors collaborate in domestic water initiatives. Taken together, these findings provide crucial insights to our understanding of environmental peacebuilding and water security.
|
|
| 9. |
- Englund, Oskar, et al.
(författare)
-
Beneficial land use change: Strategic expansion of new biomass plantations can reduce environmental impacts from EU agriculture
- 2020
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - : Elsevier BV. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 60
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Society faces the double challenge of increasing biomass production to meet the future demands for food, materials and bioenergy, while addressing negative impacts of current (and future) land use. In the discourse, land use change (LUC) has often been considered as negative, referring to impacts of deforestation and expansion of biomass plantations. However, strategic establishment of suitable perennial production systems in agricultural landscapes can mitigate environmental impacts of current crop production, while providing biomass for the bioeconomy. Here, we explore the potential for such “beneficial LUC” in EU28. First, we map and quantify the degree of accumulated soil organic carbon losses, soil loss by wind and water erosion, nitrogen emissions to water, and recurring floods, in ∼81.000 individual landscapes in EU28. We then estimate the effectiveness in mitigating these impacts through establishment of perennial plants, in each landscape. The results indicate that there is a substantial potential for effective impact mitigation. Depending on criteria selection, 10–46% of the land used for annual crop production in EU28 is located in landscapes that could be considered priority areas for beneficial LUC. These areas are scattered all over Europe, but there are notable “hot-spots” where priority areas are concentrated, e.g., large parts of Denmark, western UK, The Po valley in Italy, and the Danube basin. While some policy developments support beneficial LUC, implementation could benefit from attempts to realize synergies between different Sustainable Development Goals, e.g., “Zero hunger”, “Clean water and sanitation”, “Affordable and Clean Energy”, “Climate Action”, and “Life on Land”.
|
|
| 10. |
- Fisher, Eleanor, et al.
(författare)
-
The lifeways of small-scale gold miners : Addressing sustainability transformations
- 2023
-
Ingår i: Global Environmental Change. - 0959-3780 .- 1872-9495. ; 82
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Small-scale gold mining sustains millions of people’s lives and yet it stimulates environmental harms and social conflicts. Global environmental crises drive calls for fundamental change to how people live on the planet. For small-scale gold mining, this raises questions about whether current dynamics can provide a basis for sustainability transformations. Proposing the notion of gold lifeways to focus on the lived experience of mining and gold resources as relational phenomena, we ask what sustainability looks like from different miners’ perspectives and probe the practice dynamics of current transformation. Our methodology is social science-led and transdisciplinary. From multi-sited and trans-regional research between South America and Africa, we draw cases from Suriname, Guinea Conakry, and Uganda. Our study finds that gold lifeways give expression to different strands of sustainability: sustaining everyday life in mining; discourses framing mining practices; and government repression of mining. Hence, as our empirical data demonstrates, miner perspectives on sustainability gain content not in isolation, but as part of gold lifeways embedded within different contexts and shaped by societal dynamics. Ultimately, the transformative potency of small-scale gold mining is located in personal lives and precarious dynamics rather than glittering promises of a sustainable future.
|
|
