Earth systems governance and sustainable development: how to measure and analyze the social dimensions of environmental change, policies and governance structures with a non-economic approach

Abstract

In the current debate over the continued modernization of the public sector, governance has become a key concept. Governance can be defined, in short, as the ways in which government representatives manage in an administrative, legal, public or private sense. Public governance is also associated with a change in management policy. It is a tendency to rely increasingly on self- management in the social, economic and political development, and a new composition of the resulting forms of management. This new model adds to the negotiation, communication and cooperation among actors, policymakers and citizens. In this context, environmental issues have been used to characterize recent phenomena worldwide mostly in terms of economics and technology, particularly through the lenses and dominance of financial interests that influence the processes of global production, consumption, lifestyles and distribution of labor. Yet, in view of the changes taking place also on a global scale, climate change being the primary example, it becomes evident that the economicist view of global processes is clearly insufficient and, in more than one way, misleading. The new international order which is emerging seems to bring to the forefront of these processes Global Environmental Change (GEC).Thus, an approach to Earth System Governance must, on the one hand, revisit the traditional literature on Governance and assess the gaps in theory that became evident by recent challenges posed by GEC. On the other hand, ESG must be understood as being Human driven rather than Nature, yet, with greater interrelationships than in other areas of human activity which are also object of governance related concerns. Finally, the fact that the horizon of ESG is determined by future generations creates new questions as well. This presentation will attempt to offer some inroads on both fronts.