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Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – the creation, enhancement, and upscaling of carbon sinks – has become a pillar of national and corporate commitments towards Net Zero emissions, as well as pathways towards realizing the Paris Agreement's ambitious temperature targets. In this perspective, we explore CDR as an emerging issue of Earth System Governance (ESG). We draw on the results of a workshop at the 2022 Earth System Governance conference that mapped a range of actors, activities, and issues relevant to carbon removal, and refined them into research questions spanning four intersecting areas: modeling and systems assessment, societal appraisal, policy, and innovation and industry. We filter these questions through the five lenses of the ESG framework and highlight several key ‘cross-cutting’ issues that could form the basis of an integrated ESG research agenda on CDR.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – the creation, enhancement, and upscaling of carbon sinks – has become a pillar of national and corporate commitments towards Net Zero emissions, as well as pathways towards realizing the Paris Agreement's ambitious temperature targets. In this perspective, we explore CDR as an emerging issue of Earth System Governance (ESG). We draw on the results of a workshop at the 2022 Earth System Governance conference that mapped a range of actors, activities, and issues relevant to carbon removal, and refined them into research questions spanning four intersecting areas: modeling and systems assessment, societal appraisal, policy, and innovation and industry. We filter these questions through the five lenses of the ESG framework and highlight several key ‘cross-cutting’ issues that could form the basis of an integrated ESG research agenda on CDR.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – the creation, enhancement, and upscaling of carbon sinks – has become a pillar of national and corporate commitments towards Net Zero emissions, as well as pathways towards realizing the Paris Agreement's ambitious temperature targets. In this perspective, we explore CDR as an emerging issue of Earth System Governance (ESG). We draw on the results of a workshop at the 2022 Earth System Governance conference that mapped a range of actors, activities, and issues relevant to carbon removal, and refined them into research questions spanning four intersecting areas: modeling and systems assessment, societal appraisal, policy, and innovation and industry. We filter these questions through the five lenses of the ESG framework and highlight several key ‘cross-cutting’ issues that could form the basis of an integrated ESG research agenda on CDR.

Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) – the creation, enhancement, and upscaling of carbon sinks – has become a pillar of national and corporate commitments towards Net Zero emissions, as well as pathways towards realizing the Paris Agreement's ambitious temperature targets. In this perspective, we explore CDR as an emerging issue of Earth System Governance (ESG). We draw on the results of a workshop at the 2022 Earth System Governance conference that mapped a range of actors, activities, and issues relevant to carbon removal, and refined them into research questions spanning four intersecting areas: modeling and systems assessment, societal appraisal, policy, and innovation and industry. We filter these questions through the five lenses of the ESG framework and highlight several key ‘cross-cutting’ issues that could form the basis of an integrated ESG research agenda on CDR.

In an Editorial now published in “Global Environmental Change”, 18 climate policy researchers argue that analyses of equity and justice are absolutely essential for our ability to understand climate politics and contribute to concrete efforts to achieve adequate, fair and enduring climate action for present and future generations. Climate change action is too important not to address the issue of equity; failing to do so risks the collapse of the new regime.

An environmentalist maps the hidden costs of overconsumption in a globalized world by tracing the environmental consequences of five commodities.

An environmentalist maps the hidden costs of overconsumption in a globalized world by tracing the environmental consequences of five commodities.

An environmentalist maps the hidden costs of overconsumption in a globalized world by tracing the environmental consequences of five commodities.

An environmentalist maps the hidden costs of overconsumption in a globalized world by tracing the environmental consequences of five commodities.

Most Southeast Asian states now embrace the language of sustainable development, environmental protection, and biodiversity conservation. But the impact of these new policies differs across political and economic systems. This paper compares the links between commercial forest management and community insecurity in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Sarawak (Malaysia), focusing in particular on the roles and responses of the state. Since the late 1980s, the Philippine government has decentralised environmental management, incorporating local governments, communities, and nongovernmental organisations. Although serious problems remain, especially in the areas that retain valuable commercial timber, compared to the years of President Ferdinand Marcos (1965-86), forest management is now far more transparent, inclusive, and responsive to the environmental security of communities. These changes were possible because of the collapse of the commercial timber industry, the fall of powerful logging patrons, and the emergence of democratic practices and a vibrant civil society. Sarawak and Indonesia have also reformed environmental and forest policies since the 1990s, such as raising forest fees, tightening regulations, and increasing the penalties for illegal and destructive loggers. But these new policies have had little impact on powerful, politically-connected companies. With substantial areas of valuable timber controlled by state-business networks, and with b state controls over civil society, state and business leaders have managed to resist and undermine genuine environmental reforms. They have also disputed or ignored the evidence that environmental degradation is contributing to community insecurity. When Indonesia and Sarawak do link security and environmental degradation, the purpose is generally not to improve environmental management, but to justify and legitimise campaigns to increase control and suppress internal dissent.

Environmental aid is the cornerstone of Japan's initiative in the 1990s to become a regional and international environmental power. Formidable internal and external factors, however, impede effective environmental aid. Powerful Japanese economic ministries, such as the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Finance, overwhelm environmentally oriented state bodies, such as the Environment agency. This contributes to environmental aid that stresses technological solutions, environmental exports, and corporate interests. Bureaucratic disputes and power struggles undermine policies and contribute to inefficient management. Vague environmental guidelines and weak enforcement mechanisms compound problems. Japan also relies primarily on data and information from recipients to assess environmental impacts. In addition, environmental reviews often have unclear procedures and are poorly coordinated. Even the definition of environmental aid is vague, which as allowed Japan to increase the amount of environmental aid by simply reclassifying traditional projects, such as sewage and water systems. This has also contributed to concessional loans accounting for the bulk of environmental aid. Within Southeast Asia, corrupt officials, a stress on economic growth, and inefficient and ineffective managers further aggravate the problems with Japanese environmental aid. As a result, despite large amounts of environmental aid, this aid has only contributed to marginal improvements to the environments of Southeast Asia. Meanwhile, the ability of Japanese environmental aid to foster goodwill or improve Japan's environmental image in Southeast Asia is constrained by negative perceptions of Japan within Southeast Asia, Japan's environmental, economic, and aid legacy, and inconsistent effects of actual environmental aid projects. These problems and constraints suggest that Japan's environmental aid is unlikely to provide an effective foundation for environmental leade

This paper assesses the environmental impact of multinational companies on commercial timber management in the Solomon Islands since 1990. As more and more companies, especially from Malaysia, have spread throughout the country, the capacity of the state and societal groups to develop and enforce effective rules have become increasingly strained. Corporate bribes and pressure on state and community leaders further contribute to inappropriate policies and weak enforcement. In this context, loggers have pushed log production over three times higher than the sustainable yield. With minimal controls, and in an effort to maximise profits and minimise risks, companies in the Solomon Islands have ignored environmental and harvesting guidelines, broken promises to landowners and communities, evaded export and income taxes, developed informal and formal arrangements that lower prices and increase production, and constructed complex corporate structures that obscure financial and environmental accountability. The environmental impact of timber companies is not unique to the Solomon Islands. Similar patterns are also found in other parts of the Asia–Pacific, South America, and Africa.

Over the last thirty years, global environmental agreements and nongovernmental organisations have proliferated, and international organisations, states, societies, corporations, and communities have to some extent been influenced by environmental values. Yet the global spread of environmental ideas has been uneven, contributing to important changes in some areas and minimal changes in others. This paper examines the impact of the globalisation of environmentalism—including the globalisation of environmental ideas and attitudes, international agreements and institutions, international and local nongovernmental organisations, and environmental sections within states—on commercial tropical timber management in the Asia–Pacific. It argues that the environmental rhetoric surrounding forest management has shifted. This has contributed to some policy reforms. However, few concrete changes to logging practices have occurred in areas that still have large commercial forests, and loggers continue to trigger widespread deforestation. Global environmental norms and pressures for environmental reforms from nongovernmental organisations, state agencies, and communities have had little impact on three key factors that drive unsustainable tropical logging: multinational and domestic corporations, global markets and corporate traders, and state capacity and willingness to manage forest resources. This has occurred partially because of direct opposition from these forces, partially because of the inherent weaknesses of environmental reformers in the Asia–Pacific, and partially because of the complexity of how these forces undermine sustainable commercial timber management. This suggests that even if current efforts to develop a global forest convention are successful, even as governments embrace new environmental institutions and laws, and even as international activist groups and local nongovernmental groups gain influence, genuine reforms will still occur slowly, perhaps too slowl