IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v81y2012icp4-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the links

Author

Listed:
  • Biermann, Frank

Abstract

This article discusses the concept of planetary boundaries that has been advanced by a group of leading experts around Johan Rockström. I place the concept of planetary boundaries in the larger framework of the emerging research paradigm of earth system governance, welcoming it as a crucial contribution that defines the overall goals of governance. Yet I also elaborate on the political conflicts that surround the identification of planetary boundaries, which are, in the end, a social construct. I then explore the policy and governance responses that may follow from the planetary boundary approach. In the conclusion, I point to several research challenges that flow from the current state of knowledge on planetary boundaries.

Suggested Citation

  • Biermann, Frank, 2012. "Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the links," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 4-9.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:81:y:2012:i:c:p:4-9
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.02.016
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800912000808
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.02.016?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robinson, John, 2004. "Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 369-384, April.
    2. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    3. Frank Biermann & Ingrid Boas, 2010. "Preparing for a Warmer World: Towards a Global Governance System to Protect Climate Refugees," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 10(1), pages 60-88, February.
    4. Biermann, Frank & Gupta, Aarti, 2011. "Accountability and legitimacy in earth system governance: A research framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1856-1864, September.
    5. Dryzek, John S. & Stevenson, Hayley, 2011. "Global democracy and earth system governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1865-1874, September.
    6. Frank Biermann & Michele Betsill & Joyeeta Gupta & Norichika Kanie & Louis Lebel & Diana Liverman & Heike Schroeder & Bernd Siebenhüner & Ruben Zondervan, 2010. "Earth system governance: a research framework," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 277-298, December.
    7. Johan Rockström & Will Steffen & Kevin Noone & Åsa Persson & F. Stuart Chapin & Eric F. Lambin & Timothy M. Lenton & Marten Scheffer & Carl Folke & Hans Joachim Schellnhuber & Björn Nykvist & Cynthia , 2009. "A safe operating space for humanity," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7263), pages 472-475, September.
    8. Biermann, Frank & Gupta, Aarti, 2011. "Accountability and legitimacy: An analytical challenge for earth system governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1854-1855, September.
    9. Shaohua Chen & Martin Ravallion, 2010. "The Developing World is Poorer than We Thought, But No Less Successful in the Fight Against Poverty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1577-1625.
    10. Marten Scheffer & Jordi Bascompte & William A. Brock & Victor Brovkin & Stephen R. Carpenter & Vasilis Dakos & Hermann Held & Egbert H. van Nes & Max Rietkerk & George Sugihara, 2009. "Early-warning signals for critical transitions," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7260), pages 53-59, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michelle Scobie, 2018. "Accountability in climate change governance and Caribbean SIDS," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 769-787, April.
    2. Combes, J.-L. & Combes Motel, P. & Minea, A. & Villieu, P., 2015. "Deforestation and seigniorage in developing countries: A tradeoff?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 220-230.
    3. Piero Morseletto & Frank Biermann & Philipp Pattberg, 2017. "Governing by targets: reductio ad unum and evolution of the two-degree climate target," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(5), pages 655-676, October.
    4. Emily Webster, 2022. "Regulating humanity's impact on the earth: The promise of transnational environmental law," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 13(S3), pages 38-48, December.
    5. Jan K. Kazak, 2018. "The Use of a Decision Support System for Sustainable Urbanization and Thermal Comfort in Adaptation to Climate Change Actions—The Case of the Wrocław Larger Urban Zone (Poland)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.
    6. Hörisch, Jacob & Ortas, Eduardo & Schaltegger, Stefan & Álvarez, Igor, 2015. "Environmental effects of sustainability management tools: An empirical analysis of large companies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 241-249.
    7. Galaz, V. & de Zeeuw, Aart & Shiroyama, Hideaki & Tripley, Debbie, 2016. "Planetary boundaries : Governing emerging risks and opportunities," Other publications TiSEM 0aebe291-f890-4a2d-9ab7-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Chris Hadley, 2015. "The sustainability of New Zealand climate change policy: an ethical overview," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 477-495, June.
    9. Eckehard Rosenbaum, 2017. "Green Growth—Magic Bullet or Damp Squib?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-18, June.
    10. Galaz, Victor & Biermann, Frank & Folke, Carl & Nilsson, Måns & Olsson, Per, 2012. "Global environmental governance and planetary boundaries: An introduction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1-3.
    11. Herrfahrdt-Pähle, Elke & Scheumann, Waltina & Houdret, Annabelle & Dombrowsky, Ines, 2019. "Freshwater as a global commons: International governance and the role of Germany," IDOS Discussion Papers 15/2019, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).
    12. Mew, Michael C., 2024. "Why and when do reserves estimates in mining change and innovations take place?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    13. Fang, Kai & Heijungs, Reinout & De Snoo, Geert R., 2015. "Understanding the complementary linkages between environmental footprints and planetary boundaries in a footprint–boundary environmental sustainability assessment framework," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 218-226.
    14. Fred Saunders, 2015. "Planetary boundaries: at the threshold… again: sustainable development ideas and politics," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 823-835, August.
    15. Salisu Barau, Aliyu & Stringer, Lindsay C., 2015. "Access to and allocation of ecosystem services in Malaysia's Pulau Kukup Ramsar Site," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 167-173.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schouten, Greetje & Leroy, Pieter & Glasbergen, Pieter, 2012. "On the deliberative capacity of private multi-stakeholder governance: The Roundtables on Responsible Soy and Sustainable Palm Oil," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 42-50.
    2. Nasiritousi, Naghmeh & Hjerpe, Mattias & Buhr, Katarina, 2014. "Pluralising climate change solutions? Views held and voiced by participants at the international climate change negotiations," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 177-184.
    3. Michelle Scobie, 2018. "Accountability in climate change governance and Caribbean SIDS," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 769-787, April.
    4. Shukui Tan & Haipeng Song & Ghulam Akhmat & Javeed Hussain, 2014. "Governing Harmonious Human Engagement with the Spatial Capital," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-19, March.
    5. Vinnari, Markus & Tapio, Petri, 2012. "Sustainability of diets: From concepts to governance," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 46-54.
    6. Mitchell, Ronald B., 2011. "Transparency for governance: The mechanisms and effectiveness of disclosure-based and education-based transparency policies," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1882-1890, September.
    7. Farrell, Katharine N., 2014. "Intellectual mercantilism and franchise equity: A critical study of the ecological political economy of international payments for ecosystem services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 137-146.
    8. Maria Spiliotopoulou & Mark Roseland, 2020. "Urban Sustainability: From Theory Influences to Practical Agendas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-19, September.
    9. Carole-Anne Sénit, 2020. "Transforming our world? Discursive representation in the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 411-429, September.
    10. Carole-Anne Sénit, 0. "Transforming our world? Discursive representation in the negotiations on the Sustainable Development Goals," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-19.
    11. Spagnuolo, Francesca, 2011. "Diversity and pluralism in earth system governance: Contemplating the role for global administrative law," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1875-1881, September.
    12. van Kerkhoff, Lorrae & Berry, Helen, 2016. "Serving the public good: Empirical links between governance and research investment in the context of global environmental change," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 101-107.
    13. Richter, Andries & Dakos, Vasilis, 2015. "Profit fluctuations signal eroding resilience of natural resources," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 12-21.
    14. Filipa Correia & Philipp Erfruth & Julie Bryhn, 2018. "The 2030 Agenda: The roadmap to GlobALLizaton," Working Papers 156, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    15. Park, Mi Sun & Lee, Hyowon, 2019. "Accountability and reciprocal interests of bilateral forest cooperation under the global forest regime," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 32-44.
    16. Millar, Neal & McLaughlin, Eoin & Börger, Tobias, 2019. "The Circular Economy: Swings and Roundabouts?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 11-19.
    17. Catacora-Vargas, Georgina & Alvarado, Víctor & Rankovic, Aleksandar & Tambutti, Marcia, 2022. "Governance approaches and practices in Latin America and the Caribbean for transformative change for biodiversity," Documentos de Proyectos 48542, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    18. Hametner, Markus, 2022. "Economics without ecology: How the SDGs fail to align socioeconomic development with environmental sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    19. Ronja Teschner & Jessica Ruppen & Basil Bornemann & Rony Emmenegger & Lucía Aguirre Sánchez, 2021. "Mapping Sustainable Diets: A Comparison of Sustainability References in Dietary Guidelines of Swiss Food Governance Actors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-21, November.
    20. Duncan Weaver, 2018. "The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 199-213, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:81:y:2012:i:c:p:4-9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.