Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Strategy paper

Navigating the anthropocene: the Earth System Governance
Project strategy paperFrank Biermann1,2, Michele M Betsill3, Susana Camargo Vieira4,
Joyeeta Gupta5,6, Norichika Kanie7, Louis Lebel8, Diana Liverman9,10,
Heike Schroeder10, Bernd Siebenhüner11, Pius Z Yanda12 andRuben Zondervan13

In 2001, the Earth System Science Partnership declared anurgent need to develop ‘strategies for Earth Systemmanagement’. Yet what such strategies might be, how they
could be developed and how effective, efficient and equitablesuch strategies would be, remain unspecified. We argue thatthe institutions, organizations and mechanisms by whichhumans currently govern their relationship with the naturalenvironment and global biogeophysical systems are bothinsufficient and poorly understood. For this reason, we havedeveloped, and present here, the science and implementation
plan for the Earth System Governance Project, a new 10-year
global research agenda under the auspices of the International
Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental
Change (IHDP) and the Earth System Science Partnership(ESSP).
Addresses
1
Chair, Earth System Governance Project, The Netherlands
2
Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute forEnvironmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
3
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andColorado State University, United States
4
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andUniversidade de Itaúna, Brazil
5
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project;
UNESCO-IHE Delft, The Netherlands
6
Department of Environmental Policy Analysis, Institute forEnvironmental Studies, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands
7
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andTokyo Institute of Technology, Japan
8
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andUnit for Social and Environmental Research, Chiang Mai University,
Thailand9
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andUniversity of Arizona, United States
10
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andOxford University, United Kingdom
11
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andOldenburg University, Germany
12
Scientific Steering Committee, Earth System Governance Project; andUniversity of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania
13
International Project Office, Earth System Governance Project,
Germany
Corresponding authors: Biermann, Frank (frank.biermann@ivm.vu.nl)

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2010, 2:202–208

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2010, 2:202–208
Received 8 April 2010; Accepted 21 April 2010
Available online 2nd June 2010
1877-3435/$ – see front matter# 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
DOI 10.1016/j.cosust.2010.04.005

Introduction
Human interference with planetary systems is increasing
rapidly. Some observers recognize today the dawn of an
entirely new era in planetary history, the ‘anthropocene’[1]. The impacts of human activities are so pervasive andprofound that they could inadvertently alter the Earth
System in ways that may prove irreversible and inhospitable to humans [2–4]. Navigating the anthropocene has
thus become a key challenge for policy-makers at all levelsof decision-making, ranging from the need to limit humanlarge-scale disturbance of natural biogeophysical cycles tothe increasing exigency to prepare — politically, legally,socially and economically — for the adaptation to those
global environmental changes that can no longer be
avoided [5]. In recognition, the Earth System Science
Partnership declared an ‘urgent need’ to develop ‘strategies for Earth System management’. Yet what such strategies might be, how they could be developed and how
effective, efficient and equitable such strategies would be,remain unspecified. It is apparent that the institutions,organizations and mechanisms by which humans currently
govern their relationship with the natural environment andglobal biochemical systems are not only insufficient —they are also inadequately understood.
This is the rationale for the Earth System Governance
Project, a new core project of the International Human
Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change(IHDP). The 10-year global project aims to bring together
researchers from a variety of disciplines and regions tostudy the governance dimensions of global environmental
change in a co-ordinated, collaborative effort. The project
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Earth System Governance Biermann et al. 203

builds on an earlier comparable initiative, the IHDP core
project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, which ended in 2007 [6,7,8]. This article
summarizes the science programme of the Earth System
Governance Project. (For a full version of the science plansee [9], available at www.earthsystemgovernance.org; asubstantially extended version of the present summary is
published as [10].)

Conceptualizing earth system governanceTraditional notions of environmental policy, pollution
control and nature conservation do not capture current
global developments that transform the biogeophysicalcycles and processes of our planet. New perspectives andresearch are needed to understand the complex relation
between global transformations of social and natural
systems, including accelerating economic integration,
globalization in all its forms, internationalization of policy
processes, and multi-scale consequences of ecologicaltransformation. Innovative research is needed also to
analyze political options to govern sustainable development — taking into account not only political effectiveness and efficiency but also global and national justice andequity — and the need to bridge levels of analysis anddisciplinary assumptions, methods and foci.
One of these new perspectives that we propose here is theconcept of ‘earth system governance’ (developed in moredetail in [11,12]). We understand earth system governance as the interrelated and increasingly integrated system offormal and informal rules, rule-making systems and actornetworks at all levels of human society ( f rom local to global)that are set up to steer societies towards preventing, mitigating
and adapting to global and local environmental change and, inparticular, earth system transformation, within the normative
context of sustainable development.
Earth system governance stands at the interface of two
broad strands of academic inquiry: governance theory andearth system analysis. Governance has been defined in avariety of ways, and there is no consensus amongst
scholars on the core elements of this concept [13,14].
In most bodies of literature, the term governance denotes
new forms of regulation, authority, legitimacy and steering that go beyond traditional hierarchical state activity. It
usually implies some form of self-regulation by societal
actors, private–public cooperation in solving societal problems, and new forms of multilevel policy. At the international level, the term ‘global governance’ is often used
to describe processes of modern world politics, although
here, too, no consensus on an appropriate definition has
been reached [15,16]. Importantly, from local to international levels, the concept of ‘governance’ is not confined to states and governments as sole actors, but ismarked by participation of myriad public and private
non-state actors at all levels of decision-making, ranging
from networks of experts, environmentalists and multiwww.sciencedirect.com

national corporations to new agencies set up by governments, such as intergovernmental bureaucracies.
Equally important for the notion of earth system governance is its link to earth system analysis. In the naturalsciences, quantification and computer-based modelling
has long been important to integrate understanding fromdifferent strands of research. Research on institutions andgovernance mechanisms is often viewed as part of thisintegrated effort and is formally included in most theoretical conceptualizations in this field [17]. In practice,
however, it remains a major research challenge to establish to what extent institutional and governance research
can contribute to, and integrate with, the more modeldriven research programmes [11]. On the one hand,scholars will thus need to continue pursuing researchthat is interdisciplinary across the social sciences and that
follows the internal logic and particular theoretical, epistemological and methodological approaches of the social
sciences and the humanities, which are often qualitative,
case-based, context-dependent and reflexive. On theother hand, it is important and timely to also explore
integrated approaches that seek novel ways of incorporating research on governance into earth system analysis.
The Earth System Governance Project is designed tointegrate both communities in a common quest for identifying and analyzing governance solutions to cope withthe emergent threat of earth system transformation.

The core analytical problems in earth systemgovernance research

The Earth System Governance Project [9] prioritizes fiveinterdependent analytical problems (Figure 1). These are
the problems of the overall architecture of earth systemgovernance, of agency beyond the state and of the state,of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and processes, of their accountability and legitimacy and of modes ofallocation and access in earth system governance [11].

The problem of architecture
The first analytical problem is the study of overall governance architectures in earth system governance. We
define governance architectures as the overarching system of public or private institutions, principles, norms,
regulations, decision-making procedures and organizations that are valid or active in an issue area. Architecture
can thus be described as the meta-level of governance (seein detail [18]). Research on governance architectures isstill limited. Most institutional research has focused so far
on single institutions, especially regarding international
regulation. We now have a better understanding of thecreation, maintenance and effectiveness of international
environmental regimes and national policies, as well as
better methodological tools to study these questions (e.g.
[19,20]). In addition, at both national and international
levels interactions and interlinkages between institutions
have been a concern for many years. Examples include
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204 Strategy paper

Figure 1

Schematic overview of the Science Plan of the Earth System
Governance Project.

the analysis of environmental policy integration or ofenvironmental governance in federal systems in which
different jurisdictional competences at times overlap, or
research on the vertical interaction of institutions in
multilevel governance systems [21–25] and on the interactions of the increasing number of international environmental institutions [26,27].

or city governments [22,23], to public–private, such asenvironmentalist alliances [31,32], public/private partnerships [33] or scientific networks [34], to purely private
actors, such as business associations [35] and corporations[36]. The activities of these non-state actors in earthsystem governance are not confined to protests, advocacy,
lobbying or advising. Frequently, these actors become
agents of earth system governance in that they substantively participate in rule-setting processes or at times
negotiate their own global standards, as in the Forest
Stewardship Council or the Marine Stewardship Council[37]. We define such agents in earth system governance asactors who have the ability to prescribe behaviour and toobtain the consent of the governed; an agent is anauthoritative actor as a constituent part of the cumulative
steering effort towards preventing, mitigating or adapting
to earth system transformation.
Several broad research questions, each related to abroader social science debate, arise. First, what is agency
for current earth system governance, and who are theagents of earth system governance? How do different
agents exercise agency in earth system governance? Since
different agents may become authoritative on different
grounds, it is also important to enquire into the sources ofauthority. Finally, how can we evaluate the significance ofagents and agency, and assess the effectiveness of different agents and their various means of exercizing agency?

The problem of adaptivenessThe renewed research effort on governance architecturesthat we propose will continue and expand these lines ofresearch along a number of questions: one research question is for instance how the performance of single environmental institutions is affected by their embeddedness inlarger architectures. Research on architecture will alsoneed to investigate the environmental consequences ofnon-environmental governance systems, continue tostudy vertical institutional interaction and the role ofinstitutions within multilayered institutional systems,
and analyze non-governance, that is, conflict areas where
no effective systems of governance have been agreed
upon (for example in the area of deforestation). Moreover,more research is needed on the overarching and crosscutting norms of earth system governance and on theprinciples and norms that run through all, or through alarge number of, institutions.

The problem of agency
The second analytical problem advanced by the Earth
System Governance Project is agency. Many vital institutions of earth system governance are today inclusive of, oreven driven by, non-state actors from the local to theglobal level. These often cut across public–private
divides [28,29] and span the entire spectrum from public
non-state, such as intergovernmental bureaucracies [30]Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2010, 2:202–208

Adaptiveness is the third analytical problem that weadvance here. Adaptiveness is an umbrella term for aset of related concepts — vulnerability [38], resilience[39,40], adaptation [41], robustness [42], adaptive
capacity [43] or social learning [44] — to describe changes
made by social groups in response to, or in anticipation of,challenges created through environmental change.
Within the framework of earth system governance, theterm adaptiveness includes the governance of adaptation
to social–ecological change as well as the processes ofchange and adaptation within governance systems. We
advance four main research questions under this theme.
First, what are the politics of adaptiveness? Adaptation
can create winners and losers, by, for instance, shifting the
distribution of benefits, of involuntary risks, or of power.
We should therefore ask of adaptiveness: for whom andwho benefits? Adaptive capacity is also often specific tothe social–ecological system in question [45]. A second
cluster of research questions addresses which governanceprocesses foster adaptiveness. Thirdly, it will be important to look into attributes of governance systems thatenhance capacities to adapt. A fourth research question ishow, when and why adaptiveness influences earth systemgovernance? This calls for deeper investigation of individual and collective behaviours that underlie adaptivewww.sciencedirect.com

Earth System Governance Biermann et al. 205

ness, and, in particular, those related to the exercise,
allocation and shaping of power.

The problem of accountability and legitimacy
Earth system governance poses also important questionsof accountability and legitimacy. Strong comprehensive
governance architectures must be legitimate and accountable. Effective and possibly widely spread agency of
non-state actors requires new conceptualizations of legitimacy and accountability beyond the nation state. Also,
the adaptability of governance systems calls for special
attention to their accountability and legitimacy. In public
norm-setting, legitimacy may derive through the accountability of governments to their constituencies as well as
through wider public scrutiny and acceptance of decisions
and actions, that is, forms of discursive legitimacy [46].
Yet accountability through the ballot box has its limitations — not least because such channels are not relevant
to many citizens who live in non-democratic states[47,48]. Many authors see a solution in the participationof private actors in earth system governance. However,
the accountability and legitimacy of private actors themselves can be seen as problematic [12,49,50].
The problem of accountability comes thus down to four
broad research questions: first, what are the sources ofaccountability and legitimacy in earth system governance?
Second, what is the effect of different forms and degrees ofaccountability and legitimacy for the performance of governance systems? Third, transparency has been emphasized as one mechanism to secure accountability andlegitimacy of earth system governance [51]. Yet the exact
role and relevance of transparency is still insufficiently
understood and requires further research on how mechanisms of transparency can ensure accountable and legitimate
earth system governance. Fourth, in a more policy-orientedsense, what institutional designs can produce the accountability and legitimacy of earth system governance in a waythat guarantees balances of interests and perspectives?

The problem of allocation and accessWho gets what, when, where and how is a key question of
any politics. The pursuit of fair allocation and access, andthe un-doing of perceived injustices, is a never-ending
but meaningful goal. The impacts of global change pose
additional challenges, for instance in the way thatenvironmental risks are distributed across peoples andplaces or in the way that responses are favoured andsupported by stronger societies [52]. This research themeis difficult also because what constitutes fair allocation
and access is tangled up in details of both objectives andmeans to achieve them, as well as different disciplinary
understandings. These vary widely and reflect beliefs
about how the world is, or should be; they are also
path-determined. There is some limited research oninternational environmental regimes emphasizing justiceat the level of nation states. This needs to be strengthwww.sciencedirect.com

ened in itself, yet also be complemented by research into
allocation and access issues within states. Such research
will have to tackle moral and ethical issues; it is here
where questions of allocation can easily become trapped
into forgetting the shaping contexts that empower anddisenfranchize from the start [53].
We propose four sets of questions to guide research on theanalytical problem of allocation and access. First, how can
we reach interdisciplinary conceptualizations and definitions of allocation and access? Second, what is therelevance of questions of allocation and access in earthsystem governance? Third, what (overarching) principles
underlie allocation and access? Fourth, what are theimplications of current and alternative initiatives toimprove allocation and access within earth system governance? How can these be redirected to the pursuit offair allocation and access without reducing their effectiveness in addressing environmental consequences anddrivers of global change?

Crosscutting themes
The five analytical problems are the basis of earth systemgovernance research. They are all highly interlinked andshare a number of crosscutting themes, that is, core
concerns of the social sciences that are of fundamental
relevance for the analysis of each analytical problem. Fourcrosscutting themes have been selected for closer examination within the Earth System Governance Project:these are power, knowledge, norms and scale (see [9]in more detail).

Flagship activities
Whilst the science plan of the Earth System Governance
Project can be applied to any given problem of global andlocal environmental change, we believe that a strong
research programme will benefit from a clear focus on alimited area of empirical research. It thus seems useful tofocus empirical research on a number of case study areasin which the investigation of the five A’s — the analyticalproblems of architecture, agency, adaptiveness, accountability and allocation and access — will stand at thecentre. These empirical areas are the ‘flagship activities’of the Earth System Governance Project, which will at thesame time be linked with joint ESSP projects to ensure
the crosscutting nature of the Project.
As one example, the Earth System Governance Projectwill collaborate with the ESSP Global Water System
Project in studying the problems of architecture, agency,
adaptiveness, accountability and allocation and accesswith the example of local, national or global water
regimes. The Global Water System Project aims to understand how humans are changing the global water cycle,
the associated biogeochemical cycles and the biologicalcomponents of the global water system, and what social
feedbacks arise from these changes. The Project has three
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206 Strategy paper

sub-questions: about the magnitudes of anthropogenic
and environmental changes in the global water systemand the key mechanisms by which they are induced;
about the main linkages and feedbacks in the earthsystem that arise from changes in the global water system;and how resilient and adaptable the global water system is
to change and what sustainable water management strategies are. This third question focuses on the institutionaland governance dimension and will be the focus of thecooperation of the Global Water System Project with the
Earth System Governance Project.
A second flagship activity of the Earth System Governance Project will be global climate governance. This
activity will be linked to the research programme of
the Global Carbon Project, a joint project under the Earth
System Science Partnership. Even though the study ofearth system governance goes beyond the core questionsof the Global Carbon Project, there are complementarities between the two initiatives: studies of earth systemgovernance in the context of coupled human and natural
systems can be expected to yield insights related to therole of humans and societal institutions as drivers ofchange as well as the ways that humans are likely toorganize themselves in the face of change. In particular,
complementarities with the Global Carbon Project lie
with Task 3.2.3 of its Science Plan that envisions researchfor designing carbon management institutions and multilevel governance for urban carbon management.
A third flagship of the Earth System Governance Projectwill be food systems. This interaction between earthsystem governance and food systems will be analyzed
through collaboration with the Global Environmental
Change and Food Systems (GECAFS) project, one of
the joint projects of the Earth System Science Partnership. The goal of GECAFS is to determine strategies tocope with the impacts of global environmental change onfood systems and to assess the environmental and socioeconomic consequences of adaptive responses aimed at
improving food security. There are strong institutionaland governance questions underpinning GECAFS’
analysis of food systems. These include the extent towhich concerns about food systems are incorporated into
global and regional environmental governance, forexample into the adaptation or mitigation strand of theclimate convention process or in environmental components of regional trade agreements; the ways in which
the governance of the food system affects the earthsystem, for instance how the shifts to long global supply
chains controlled by large private firms affect climate andland use; and the inadvertent impacts of earth systemgovernance on food systems, for instance the interaction
between biofuels, energy efficiency or carbon sequestration projects and food security. In many ways, earthsystem governance is integral to the GECAFS agenda,
and the Earth System Governance Project provides an
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2010, 2:202–208

excellent opportunity to expand and strengthen understanding of food systems and security in the face ofenvironmental change.
A fourth flagship research activity within the Earth System Governance Project will focus on the governance of
key aspects of the global economic system that benefit
from adopting a socio-ecological system framework to
exploring these interactions. The Earth System Governance Project will concentrate here on few key issue areasthat are not yet adequately addressed in existing international research efforts, with a particular focus on the five
analytical problems of architecture, agency, adaptiveness,accountability and allocation and access.
Additional flagships activities will be explored, forexample with the research programmes Land–Ocean
Interactions in the Coastal Zone Project and the Global
Land Project.
Crosscutting research and the engagement of other projects as flagship activities is no one-way street. On thecontrary, research findings on one of the five analyticalproblems of the Earth System Governance Project,
derived in one of the other global change projects, will
be interesting also for all other global change projects
dealing with similar problems. For example, research on
allocation and access conducted in the areas of water
governance, food governance or global economic governance, will be specific to their particular cases, yet will also
yield new general insights useful for progress in the social
sciences as a whole. The Earth System Governance
Project is designed as the central nodal point within
the global change research programmes to guide, organize
and evaluate these various activities on governance inseparate projects (see [9], pp. 86–108 in more detail).

Policy relevance
The Earth System Governance Project, whilst primarily ascientific initiative, is also designed to assist policy. Significant policy-relevant contributions from research are
expected in all five analytical problem areas. For example,
the problem of the architecture of earth system governanceis a key concern of current negotiations and politicalprocesses that are often faced with ‘treaty congestion’and complex interlinkages between different institutions,for instance between multilateral environmental agreements and the World Trade Organization. ‘Fragmented’
governance architectures are also an increasing problem fordecision-makers, particularly in climate policy. A related
concern is the reform of the United Nations, for example
with a view to the debate on a world environment organization. At national and local levels, architecture is a key
concern for decision-makers dealing with policy integration, the comparative effectiveness of policy instruments
and the integration of decision-making from international,
national and local levels. Research on agency within the
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Earth System Governance Biermann et al. 207

project will generate novel ideas on the integration of civilsociety actors in earth system governance, and on theadvantages and disadvantages of private and public–private governance arrangements. Research on governance ofadaptation and the adaptiveness of governance arrangements will inform policy-makers who have to deal withadapting political processes and policies to a changing
world. The accountability and legitimacy of decision-making, from local to global levels, is equally a key problem for
public policy. Finally, research on allocation and access as
outlined here will help to improve governance outcomes
and advance philosophical and ethical discourses on an
equitable approach to earth system governance.

Conclusion
Earth system governance is one of the most difficult yet atthe same time one of the most exciting and urgent
research topics for the social sciences. The five analyticalproblems and four crosscutting research themes(Figure 1) of the Earth System Governance Project’s
science plan provide a starting point for advancing andintegrating many different strands and disciplines ofresearch. Moreover, the Earth System Governance Project will serve as nodal point within the global change
research programmes to guide, organize and evaluate
research on governance, thus strengthening and incorporating governance as a crosscutting theme within the
IHDP and ESSP communities.
The Project was formally launched in 2009 and is now
being implemented through a global alliance of Earth
System Governance Research Centres; through a global
network of associate faculty members and research fellows; through a global series of conferences; and through amultitude of research undertaken at the local, regionaland global levels. (Comprehensive information on the
Project is available at www.earthsystemgovernance.org.)
The Earth System Governance Project is designed as a
global, open and broad network of researchers interested
in advancing knowledge on the governance of human–nature co-evolution at all levels, ranging from local
decision-making to global regimes and organizations.
We look forward to engaging with more and more
researchers and communities as the Project evolves.

References and recommended reading
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