1,720,980 research outputs found
Reconsidering the Political Role of International Organizations: Persuaders or Social Leveragers in the Orchestration for Environmental Sustainability?
Full text linkPattberg, P.H. [Promotor]Biermann, F.H.B. [Promotor
Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Emergence, Adaptation and Impacts in Global and Domestic Governance Contexts
Full text linkBiermann, F.H.B. [Promotor]Pattberg, P.H. [Copromotor
Sharing Scarce Resources: Membership and allocation in permit trading schemes
Full text linkPattberg, P.H. [Promotor]Biermann, F.H.B. [Promotor]Kalfagianni, A. [Copromotor
Policy entrepreneurs and strategies for change: The Case of Water Management in the Netherlands
Full text linkBiermann, F.H.B. [Promotor]Huitema, D. [Copromotor
Pathways to Peace - Pathways to Conflict: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Social, Economic and Political Conditions in Situationsof Resource Scarcity
Full text linkOverbeek, H.W. [Promotor]Biermann, F.H.B. [Promotor]Vis, B. [Promotor
Climate Imagineering: Practices and politics of sunlight reflection and carbon removal assessment
No full textThis thesis explores recent proposals for novel carbon sinks (carbon removal) and planetary sunshades (sunlight reflection) – often treated as forms of climate engineering, or deliberate and large-scale climate interventions. I examine sunlight reflection and carbon removal as case studies of emerging sociotechnical strategies in climate governance, where imperfect projections produced by expert assessments influence political debate and planning.
I explore the hidden politics of expert assessment: How knowledge is constructed, contested, and communicated by expert networks, and how these shape understandings of future climate options. My inquiries are grounded in analytical frameworks from the intersection of global environmental governance and science and technology studies, as well as stakeholder-facing technology governance frameworks such as ‘responsible research and innovation’.
I ask three research questions. Firstly: How is knowledge and evidence about sunlight reflection and carbon removal created (Chapters 2 and 3)? I focus on scientific expert networks in the global North, and the aims, epistemologies, and effects of their assessment practices. Secondly: What does this knowledge do (Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5)? I examine how assessment practices set in play resonant terms and frames of reference that actively – if imperfectly – steer climate governance in their image. Thirdly: How can this knowledge be used to bridge differences (Chapters 5 and 6)? I move from how knowledge is constructed to focusing on that construction as a form of experimentation – engaging with different expert networks and knowledge types to use assessment practices as platforms exploring new directions for research and policy.
The chapters represent three directions. The first is from analytical to engagement work, using critical mappings of the knowledge economy to inform bridging activities amongst experts and stakeholders. The second is from retrospective to generative work – from analysis of how knowledge is constructed, to activities that use the future as a sandbox to generate new knowledge, and that in turn shape assessments. The final direction moves from general technological categories to specific approaches – engaging first with the wider politics of planetary interventions, and then with those of particular approaches and their expert networks.
I begin with interpretive reviews. Tools of the Trade (Chapter 2) juxtaposes a mission-oriented mode of assessment prioritizing actionable evidence for policy audiences against a deliberative mode aiming for open-ended appraisal with diverse stakeholders. The Practice of Responsible Research and Innovation (Chapter 3) takes a more critical look at deliberative activities, pointing out that these, by setting themselves up against mission-oriented work, engage in the same implicit and instrumental politics of knowledge-making. Delaying Decarbonization (Chapter 4) examines the longer and wider arc of climate governance, treating sunlight reflection and carbon removal as sociotechnical strategies that draw on the same political rationales that have informed a host of antecedent strategies, from market mechanisms and carbon capture to shale gas and short-lived climate pollutants.
I conclude with bridging and generative engagements on particular approaches. Is Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage Feasible? (Chapter 5) engages members of integrated assessment modeling groups and a multi-disciplinary group of critical experts, and finds that perspectives on how the ‘feasibility’ of novel climate options should be calculated are actually reflections on the influence of economic modeling work in climate policy. Engineering Imaginaries (Chapter 6) engages scholars invested in early conversations on the risk profiles and appropriate governance of a planetary form of sunlight reflection, and explores the value of anticipatory foresight approaches to create mutual learning amongst entrenched perspectives, and to generate governance that might be robust against many future plausibilities
Language, knowledge, power: The Discursive Construction of Climate Engineering Governance
No full textIn addition to mitigation and adaptation as strategies for governing climate futures, a third way of responding to climate change is now emerging: Intentional intervention into the global climate, often termed ‘climate engineering’ (CE). There is a growing awareness that formal governance of some types of CE is going to be needed in the coming years, and that informal governance is already being shaped by the discourses and practices of CE research and assessment. Increased attention is being paid to the types of scientific and societal discourses shaping the emergence of CE governance. Contributing to this literature, this thesis asks how the discursive construction of CE governance is taking place in science, industry, civil society, and politics. The project emphasises that, as discourse is the source code with which contested futures are written, ‘cracking the discursive code’ underpinning the CE governance debate can help critically anticipate the emergence of future governance practices and infrastructures. In this vein, the thesis peruses several interrelated aims: (1) Exploring a framework for shifting the analytical perspective on the role of discourse in (CE) governance development processes; (2) Anticipating and critically reflecting upon how given discursive structures may be making certain types of CE governance more/less thinkable and practicable, (3) emancipating those engaging in the CE governance debate to recognize and expand the bounds of the discursive structures they are reproducing, and (4) informing the design of participatory processes to further “open up” discursive diversity in CE governance development
Global goalsetting as a policy response: The impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on International Organizations
No full textGlobal governance is highly fragmented, characterized by tens of thousands of international organizations, treaties and regimes with specialized mandates. By agreeing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015, the United Nations General Assembly set 17 global development priorities up to 2030. Ideally, governing through goals might (re-)direct and steer the activities of international organizations along the lines of these priorities. As implementing entities, international organizations can directly influence goal-attainment. As building blocks of the global governance system, they can also
steer other actors towards the goals. But the exact effects of the 17 global goals on international organizations are unclear. This thesis therefore investigates how international organizations are impacted by the SDGs. I conducted four in-depth, primarily qualitative case studies, relying on 91 interviews, 374 key documents and numerous other materials, such as webpages and evaluation reports. Each case focuses on and thereby adds knowledge about a different (set of) international organization(s) and a different potential manifestation of impact. I look at impact as changes in organizational behavior, defined through a range of organizational outputs, including (novel) initiatives, policy changes and institutional adjustments. The cases focus on i) intra-organizational change, ii) inter-institutional coordination, iii) (novel) external steering activities and iv) changes in efforts to further institutionalize work. I find that behavioral change is most clearly observed in the external relations of international organizations. International organizations take on novel external steering activities vis-a-vis third parties, establish new coordination initiatives, and are helped in their efforts to strengthen institutionalization. However, I question if this type of activity, thus far, has realized any material impact, for example by increasing efficiency, reducing fragmentation or resolving policy incoherence. I find that intra-organizational
behavior does not seem to have changed much due to the SDGs. International organizations can and do utilize the SDG processes strategically, furthering their own interests and claiming alignment without making far-fetching adjustments to their ongoing work. I posit that the key reason for this lack of change is that beyond the setting of 17 goals, little has changed in the overall incentive structure for international organizations. It is therefore unrealistic even to expect transformative action. Furthermore, what transformative action would even entail has never been clearly defined. To utilize the potential of international organizations to realize the priorities of the SDGs, we need more fundamental changes to the environment in which international organizations operate, and a more thorough elaboration of the requirements for organizational alignment, including efforts that should be (de-)prioritized to implement the SDGs
Proceedings of the 2002 Berlin conference on the human dimensions of global environmental change.
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