Adaptiveness: Changing Earth System Governance

Rapid and transformational actions are ever more urgently needed to achieve a just, resilient, and ecologically sustainable global society, as envisioned and supported by the Sustainable Development Goals. Moreover, dynamic governance approaches are vital for addressing changing and uncertain conditions. At many levels, governance needs to be responsive and flexible - in one word - adaptive. This book provides a state-of-the-art review of the conceptual development of adaptiveness as a key concept in the environmental governance literature, complemented by applications from global, regional, and national levels. It reviews the politics of adaptiveness, investigates which governance processes foster adaptiveness, and discusses how, when and why adaptiveness influences earth system governance. It is a timely synthesis for students, researchers and practitioners interested in environmental governance, sustainability and social change processes. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.

Bernd Siebenhüner is Professor of Ecological Economics at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany. He has also held positions at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Harvard University, and the Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. As a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Earth System Governance Project, he contributed to its first Science Plan. In his current research he focuses, among other things, on social learning, international organizations, climate adaptation, and transdisciplinarity.

Riyanti Djalante is the Academic Programme Officer at the United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). She has ten years of scientific research and professional experience in the field of governance, development, disaster risk reduction and climate change management. She is a lead author of the 2018 Earth System Governance Project Science Plan, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report and the Global Environmental Outlook Geo-6 Report. She is also a Steering Committee member of the Integrated Research on Disaster Risk programme.