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The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) (the Post-2020 Framework) is expected to embody transformative change through the adoption of the framework’s “Theory of Change” (CBD, 2020). Its implementation must recognize that the global biodiversity governance architecture needs to transform to lead the required personal and social transformations, including shifts in values, beliefs and patterns of social behaviors (Chaffin et al., 2016), necessary to successfully tackle biodiversity loss. Against this backdrop, the overarching goal of this chapter is to analyze what needs to be transformed in global biodiversity governance, including institutional structures that shape values, beliefs and behavioral change. The chapter examines obstacles and opportunities for transformation, with the indirect objective of informing implementation of the Post-2020 Framework; at the time of writing, the CBD is expected to adopt the Post-2020 GBF in 2022.

Repairing rural water infrastructure quickly through professionalized maintenance can reduce costs and increase social and economic returns, with benefits for low income households and women. We estimate that over a ten-year period rural water users can spend as much on alternative water sources when waterpoints fail as is spent on the capital costs for handpumps or large piped schemes.

La presente contribution compare les structures institutionnelles dans trois domaines, a savoir le changement climatique, la filiere bois et la peche. L’etude mondiale de la gouvernance environnementale dans la tradition de l’institutionnalisme neoliberal a deplace son attention des institutions individuelles vers des « ensembles de regimes », egalement appeles « architectures », « systemes de gouvernance » ou « systemes assembles ». Des donnees probantes emergentes montrent que plusieurs problemes environnementaux (par exemple le changement climatique, les ressources phytogenetiques et la biodiversite) sont desormais regis par des ensembles institutionnels faiblement relies entre eux plutot que par des regimes uniques et coherents. Les discussions actuelles portent sur des conceptualisations et evaluations selon un modele ideal d’un systeme et de ses proprietes, par exemple sur la question de savoir si les ensembles sont institutionnellement fragmentes ou polycentriques. Ce qui manque, ce sont des cartographies empiriques comparant les differents ensembles de regimes ainsi que des explications qui en resultent, fondees sur la theorie de la variation appliquee aux differents domaines. Nous suggerons une evaluation comparative des systemes de gouvernance selon quatre perspectives complementaires : la premiere dimension utilisee pour cartographier une architecture de gouvernance est institutionnelle. Elle se concentre sur les systemes de regles regissant un domaine a l’echelle mondiale. Nous nous interessons particulierement a la nature des institutions entrecroisees de gouvernance publique et privee. La deuxieme dimension est organisationnelle. Elle est representee par les acteurs constituant ces institutions puisque dans cette perspective les institutions sont mises en place par des organisations qui possedent la qualite d’acteur. Dans notre conceptualisation, seules les organisations ayant un role decisionnel sont prises en compte. La troisieme dimension est fonctionnelle, axee sur les roles distincts joues par les institutions et les instruments utilises. Nous nous interessons ici au caractere contraignant de ces instruments, par exemple par rapport au caractere souple ou strict des mecanismes de mise en œuvre. Enfin, la quatrieme dimension est relationnelle. Ce qui est pertinent ici, ce sont les points de contact entre institutions et acteurs etudies a travers une approche de reseau.

Background Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals requires a relatively rapid transition towards a circular economy. Therefore, a multidisciplinary perspective is required to sketch why a transition from diets based primarily on animal proteins towards diets based primarily on plant proteins products is extremely urgent for both food security and sustainability. Scope and approach This review starts out by identifying ecological, economic and social aspects of sustainable food consumption. Subsequently, it is argued how protein supply is underlying and linking the top-3 of anthropogenic impacts based on the planetary boundaries concept, i.e. 1) biodiversity loss, 2) nitrogen cycle acceleration, and 3) carbon cycle acceleration (resulting in climate change). These environmental impacts associated with current Western food consumption need to be reduced urgently. In order to address the inefficiencies inherent to current dietary patterns, therefore, a ranked list of more sustainable options is proposed, based on their order of magnitude. Addressing consumers, industry, and governmental stakeholders plus cultural aspects, challenges and options are sketched. Key findings and conclusions Clearly, a dietary transition from primarily animal towards plant protein products is required. Fortunately, new dietary guidelines are increasingly taking sustainability into account and the contours of a diet transition are slowly emerging.

Biodiversity conservation interventions have long confronted challenges of human poverty. The ethical foundations of international conservation, including conservation's relationship with poverty, are currently being interrogated in animated debates about the future of conservation. However, while some commentary exists, empirical analysis of conservation practitioner perspectives on poverty, and their ethical justification, has been lacking thus far. We used Q methodology complemented by more detailed qualitative analysis to examine empirically perspectives on poverty and conservation within the conservation movement, and compare these empirical discourses to positions within the literature. We sampled conservation practitioners in western headquartered organizations, and in Bolivia, China, Nepal and Uganda, thereby giving indications of these perspectives in Latin America, Asia and Africa. While there are some elements of consensus, for instance the principle that the poor should not shoulder the costs of conserving a global public good, the three elicited discourses diverge in a number of ways. Anthropocentrism and ecocentrism differentiate the perspectives, but beyond this, there are two distinct framings of poverty which conservation practitioners variously adhere to. The first prioritizes welfare, needs and sufficientarianism, and is more strongly associated with the China, Nepal and Uganda case studies. The second framing of poverty focuses much more on the need for ‘do no harm’ principles and safeguards, and follows an internationalized human rights‐oriented discourse. There are also important distinctions between discourses about whether poverty is characterized as a driver of degradation, or more emphasis is placed on overconsumption and affluence in perpetuating conservation threats. This dimension particularly illuminates shifts in thinking in the 30 or so years since the Brundtland report, and reflecting new global realities. This analysis serves to update, parse and clarify differing perspectives on poverty within the conservation, and broader environmental movement, to illuminate consensual aspects between perspectives, and reveal where critical differences remain. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Fish has several benefits that make it a desirable part of a healthy diet. It is also a high-protein product that can be used as a relatively efficient meat replacer. Both from a health and sustainability perspective, however, it is important to consider the optimum number of fish servings per week and to examine whether fish and plant protein can be brought under the same heading of alternative protein sources. To explore the consumer perspective on these issues, this paper draws on a brief literature study and a re-analysis of survey data from the Netherlands collected earlier. The hypothesis was that affinities with fish consumption and plant-based protein sources are to a certain extent related to each other, based on common relationships with food involvement, which set them apart from meat. The results showed that the hypothesis needed to be nuanced: fish consumption was associated exclusively with affinity with spicy meals based on authentic plant protein sources (e.g. nuts) and this relationship was partially based on food involvement. The results are in line with current Dutch recommendations that encourage consumers to eat one serving of fish per week and that stimulate those who already eat more than one serving of fish to replace the rest by plant-based protein sources.

The most recognized definition of the circular economy is that it is a restorative and regenerative economy. Despite the wide use and importance attributed to the concepts of “restoration” and “regeneration,” they are rarely defined or explained in the circular economy literature. In this context, this study critically examines the two terms, while providing guidance on their future utilization and development. Specifically, the study investigates the origin of the concepts, their adoption in frameworks that anticipated the idea of the circular economy, and their connotations in the circular economy literature. The examination supports the need for clear and distinct definitions, combined with precision in usage. From a review of the literature, restoration is a better‐defined concept than regeneration, although it needs conceptual re‐enforcement relative to the biological/ecological aspects of the circular economy. This study suggests looking in the direction of restoration ecology, a well‐established branch of ecological research. Conversely, regeneration is a symbolic/evocative term with little practical application in the context of circular systems except in the case of certain agricultural practices. Until new conceptual developments intervene, regeneration does not seem to be applicable to the economy as a whole and because of this, might be abandoned as a guiding principle of the circular economy. Unlike regeneration, restoration can be considered a core principle because it has widespread application and can be a point of reference for circular applications. This does not preclude the possibility that other concepts may be needed to augment restoration.

The Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) remains one of the leading conceptual models in the policy sciences because it continues to be revised and updated as required. A focus area of the ACF that requires further theorization is the roles of experts and expert-based information in influencing policy problem contexts. Our article takes a necessary step in this direction by (1) evaluating the usefulness of Weible’s expectations regarding the uses of expert-based information in different types of policy subsystems and factors that contribute to shifts from one subsystem to another; and (2) making critical observations that result from this evaluation in the context of the controversial acid mine drainage policy case study in South Africa. The findings of our case study analysis indicate that Weible’s framework performed reasonably well but also revealed opportunities for further improvement. We therefore suggest adding awareness raising as a use of expert-based information, developing a typology of different types of experts who participate in policy subsystems, and including a focus on the use of expert-based information in policy subsystem shifts. We also reflect upon the relevance and importance of continuing to expand ACF applications to countries outside of North America and Western Europe.

Sustainable Development Goal 7 and the Paris Agreement reiterate the importance of a worldwide uptake of renewable energy. However, the present growth rate of renewables in the global energy mix is too slow to meet international targets. There exists at present a wide range of institutions with different characteristics that work internationally to promote a steeper increase. Whereas previous studies have examined the institutional landscape for renewable energy and the considerable interactions occurring across institutions, it remains unclear what the implications of these institutional interactions are for effectiveness. This paper assesses how institutional interactions can strengthen effectiveness, by focusing on three multi-stakeholder partnerships for renewable energy. Based on an expert survey and semi-structured interviews, the study provides both theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding institutional interactions in relation to effectiveness. Moreover, it provides insights on how to strengthen the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder partnerships for renewable energy. Results show that different levels and types of institutional interactions may influence effectiveness differently, with the sharing of procedural information and coordination mechanisms being considered most fruitful to increase effectiveness. Importantly, however, such interactions should not harm the autonomy, nor the efficiency of multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Non-state and sub-national actors (e.g. companies, civil society, cities and regions, collectively referred to as ‘NSAs’) could bridge the ambition gap left by insufficiently ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement. Increasing effective non-state and sub-national contributions could both support NDCs’ implementation and spur ambitious updates to these national climate action plans. The impact of NSAs depends partly on whether and how national climate strategies recognize them. Yet, systematic knowledge about the extent to which national governments envisage a role for non-state and sub-national climate action is scarce. How do governments refer to NSAs in their NDCs; and what capacities, functions, and in which sectors do they envisage non-state contributions? We apply structural topic modelling (STM), an efficient quantitative text analysis technique seldom used in global climate governance research, to 147 NDCs to explore whether and how national governments incorporate non-state and subnational contributions into their international climate commitments. Using this method, we identify key topics for non-state and subnational engagement in NDCs, including vulnerability and adaptation, monitoring, general and sector-specific collaboration, and policy support. We find that developing countries overwhelmingly reference NSAs more frequently than developed countries. We also find predominantly negative trade-offs in how countries link to NSAs, suggesting countries tend to mention NSAs’ contributions in specific roles rather than across multiple sectors. Our findings suggest there is scope for countries to broaden their linkage to NSAs in their updated NDCs to further catalyze engagement. Key policy insightsLinkages to NSA initiatives (including cities, regions, businesses or civil society) in NDCs under the Paris Agreement are mostly made by developing countries.Developing countries describe NSAs primarily in the context of vulnerability and adaptation policy implementation, while developed countries mainly describe these actors’ role as collaborators across a range of functions.Closer coordination between NSAs and national governments, to fully leverage NSA contributions to NDCs, can be achieved by explicitly outlining NSAs’ contributions in future updates of NDCs. Linkages to NSA initiatives (including cities, regions, businesses or civil society) in NDCs under the Paris Agreement are mostly made by developing countries. Developing countries describe NSAs primarily in the context of vulnerability and adaptation policy implementation, while developed countries mainly describe these actors’ role as collaborators across a range of functions. Closer coordination between NSAs and national governments, to fully leverage NSA contributions to NDCs, can be achieved by explicitly outlining NSAs’ contributions in future updates of NDCs.

Last year's conference of the global climate change regime took place from 2 until 15 December 2019 in Madrid, Spain. Despite marking a new record for overtime in the history of the UNFCCC, the conference did not only fail to meet the increasing public demand for swift and strong climate action, it also failed on its formal mandate to finalise the Paris rulebook. A record number of issues were left unresolved and shelved for the next session. COP25 thereby highlighted how much work still lies ahead both domestically and internationally if 2020 is to see a step-up in climate action that is consistent with the long-term goal of the Paris Agreement.

The transition to a circular economy requires actions and policies. In the praxis of governance, a common way to steer the transition to a different state proceeds through the setting of targets. Thus far, no study has investigated circular economy targets in a systematic way. To bridge this gap, this study examines which targets can facilitate the transition towards a circular economy. The analysis focuses both on existing and new targets; the latter complement existing targets which are limited to a few discrete cases addressing only partially the goal of a more circular economy. A framework based on 10 common circular economy strategies (i.e. recover, recycling, repurpose, remanufacture, refurbish, repair, re-use, reduce, rethink, refuse) is applied to scrutinise the selected targets. The study clarifies that existing targets for recovery and recycling do not necessarily promote a circular economy, though they are the most commonly applied targets so far. Because of lack of efficacy of recovery and recycling, targets should instead favour other more powerful circular economy strategies. In relation to these, the study looks into new and existing targets showing how they can reduce waste, increase efficiency, close production loops, and maximise retention of the economic value of materials and products. In particular, the study proposes an expanded set of brand new targets for the transition to a circular economy together with a fresh view on targets aimed at scholars and decision-makers alike.

The chapter reports about the efforts of the RESILIO partners to inform the residents of the social housing building blocks that were selected for the RESILIO project and the surrounding neighbourhoods adequately about climate adaptation in general and the blue-green project more specifically.

Disaster risks are the results of complex spatiotemporal interactions between risk components, impacts and societal response. The complexities of these interactions increase when multi-risk events occur in vulnerable contexts characterized by ethnic conflicts, unstable governments, and high levels of poverty, resulting in impacts that are larger than anticipated. Yet, only few multi-risk studies explore human-environment interactions, as most studies are hazard-focused, consider only a single-type of multi-risk interaction, and rarely account for spatiotemporal dynamics of risk components. Here, we developed a step-wise, bottom-up approach, in which a range of qualitative and semi-quantitative methods was used iteratively to reconstruct interactions and feedback loops between risk components and impacts of consecutive drought-to-flood events, and explore their spatiotemporal variations. Within this approach, we conceptualize disaster risk as a set of multiple (societal and physical) events interacting and evolving across space and time. The approach was applied to the 2017–2018 humanitarian crises in Kenya and Ethiopia, where extensive flooding followed a severe drought lasting 18–24 months. The events were also accompanied by government elections, crop pest outbreaks and ethnic conflicts. Results show that (a) the highly vulnerable Kenyan and Ethiopian contexts further aggravated drought and flood impacts; (b) heavy rainfall after drought led to both an increase and decrease of the drought impacts dependent on topographic and socio-economic conditions; (c) societal response to one hazard may influence risk components of opposite hazards. A better understanding of the human-water interactions that characterize multi-risk events can support the development of effective monitoring systems and response strategies.

To mitigate climate change at around one-and-a-half degree of warming compared to pre-industrial averages, current emissions must drastically decline to zero, leaving no more than 7.5 years before the global carbon budget will be exhausted. Can we avert climate breakdown without limiting our political and individual freedoms, or does addressing the climate challenge require giving up freedom? In this essay, I argue that we don’t need to give up freedom for fighting climate change if we act fast, but risk our freedom if we act too slow or not at all. What we need to give up instead of our freedom is our taken-for-granted privileges. I will proceed as follows. Section I will review the relationship between freedom, progress and unsustainability. Section II outlines three areas of transition that will keep the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement alive. Section III will in turn discuss the necessary scope conditions for transformative change, in particular what we can learn from the global COVID-19 pandemic for balancing radical mitigation within personal and political freedom.

The ongoing agrarian transition from smallholder farming to large-scale commercial agriculture promoted by transnational large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) often aims to increase crop yields through the expansion of irrigation. LSLAs are playing an increasingly prominent role in this transition. Yet it remains unknown whether foreign LSLAs by agribusinesses target areas based on specific hydrological conditions and whether these investments compete with the water needs of existing local users. Here we combine process-based crop and hydrological modelling, agricultural statistics, and georeferenced information on individual transnational LSLAs to evaluate emergence of water scarcity associated with LSLAs. While conditions of blue water scarcity already existed prior to land acquisitions, these deals substantially exacerbate blue water scarcity through both the adoption of water-intensive crops and the expansion of irrigated cultivation. These effects lead to new rival water uses in 105 of the 160 studied LSLAs (67% of the acquired land). Combined with our findings that investors target land with preferential access to surface and groundwater resources to support irrigation, this suggests that LSLAs often appropriate water resources to the detriment of local users., Water scarcity associated with large-scale land acquisitions is exacerbated by adoption of water-intensive crops and expansion of irrigation, which in turn increases rival water uses.

The pressing nature of the climate crisis is placing sub-national action at the forefront of climate mitigation. Energy communities have been an example of such niche action, as, over the past decades, they have blossomed in number and have challenged dominant narratives of the energy transition. The aggregate impact such action promises may be necessary to mitigate the global-scale problem of the climate crisis. This opens up the vexing question of what mechanisms are at play in scaling such action and how the contours of causality may be painted in the pathways towards transitions. This article aims to address this gap by building on the concept of mechanismic thinking. The innovative nature of this approach helps us identify empirical examples of conditions of scaling and brings conceptual clarity to studying processes of transitions. This article identifies conditions in relation to various pathways of transitions and the strategic management of niches. We identify several conditions that scaling may depend on through a systematic literature review of the energy community literature. From our review, two key results surface: Firstly, at the empirical level, the conditions identified suggest that a diversity of pathways to scaling may exist in parallel. Secondly, the conditions found in the literature can productively be mapped based on three dimensions: conditions internal to communities, conditions affecting interactions between communities, and finally, conditions related to the context of community initiatives. By feeding back our findings into leading theories in the field, our review enriches existing accounts of niche-internal dynamics of the strategic niche management approach. Moreover, we suggest that mechanismic thinking has much to add to the research agenda on connecting local scale innovation and higher scale impact in socio-technical thinking.

Rainfall patterns influence water usage and revenue from user payments in rural Africa. We explore these dynamics by examining monthly rainfall against 4,888 records of rural piped water revenue in Ghana, Rwanda, and Uganda and quantifying revenue changes over 635 transitions between dry and wet seasons. Results show operators experience revenue variability at regional and intra-seasonal scales. Revenues fall by an average of 30 percent during the wettest months of the year in climate regimes with consistent wet season rainfall. However, seasonally stable revenues are observed in areas where consecutive dry days are common during the wet season, potentially reflecting a dependency on reliable services. We also find changes in tariff level, waterpoint connection type, and payment approach do not consistently prevent or increase seasonal revenue variability. Local revenue generation underpins delivery of drinking water services. Where rainfall patterns remain consistent, piped water operators can expect to encounter seasonal revenue reductions regardless of whether services are provided on or off premises and of how services are paid for. Revenue projections that assume consistent volumetric demand year-round may lead to shortfalls that threaten sustainability and undermine the case for future investment. Intra-seasonal rainfall analysis can enhance rural piped water revenue planning by offering localised insight into demand dynamics and revealing where climate variability may increase dependency on reliable services.

This editorial introduces the special issue by arguing for a multi-disciplinary perspective on transformative change toward sustainability. Starting from the Anthropocene as our new geological epoch and collective frame of reference, we set out to describe the existing challenges to accelerating and scaling viable solutions to pressing socioecological problems, including the twin emergency of biodiversity and climate breakdown. The combined impact of environmental, social, and humanitarian crises that are observable at a planetary scale stresses the urgent need to include concepts, methodologies, and solutions from across various disciplines—Philosophy, Arts, Design Studies, Sociology, Psychology and Behavioral Studies—all included in this special issue.

Salinization is one of the main challenges of contemporary agriculture affecting food security and sustainability. Climate change with more persistent droughts, floods and sea-level rise is expected to increase this challenge, making it one of the most common land degradation processes. At the same time, an increasingly complex institutional landscape has emerged across multiple issue areas of global environmental governance related to salinization. This can be seen in a myriad of public, private, and hybrid actors coming together by creating initiatives to address the issue of growing salinization through saline agriculture. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to characterize the development of a governance landscape of cooperative initiatives for saline agriculture in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, and to discuss how to harness their potential and orchestrate their efforts. The preliminary findings suggest that the fragmented landscape of initiatives is predominated by public actors and research institutions. This potentially hampers benefit sharing and upscaling efforts. Operational activities are most frequently the governance function, followed by information and networking efforts thereafter. Thematically, initiatives focus on the development of new crop varieties and water and soil management practices. Linkages to the Sustainable Development Goals suggest saline agriculture is connected to policy debates on sustainable food systems, climate change, water security, and land degradation.

The UK-EU Trade & Cooperation agreement was finally agreed in December 2020 and we are now also a year on from the end of the transition period. This is an opportune time to re-visit Brexit and its implications, in particular for the UK’s ability to put itself on a clear pathway to meeting legally binding emissions reduction targets at a vital time for sustainable energy policymaking.This paper outlines what we see as being the main implications of Brexit for UK energy and climate policy and politics, which we separate out into three main sections: markets and interconnectors; UK in a global context; and policy capacity and Brexit opportunity costs. It is based on analysis of key government and think tank documents, a survey of 85 UK and EU based stakeholders, and is further supported by supplementary semi-structured interviews.

UK and European energy and climate change policy and politics have changedsignificantly over the past few years. In this paper we present three scenariosfor how UK energy and climate change policy and politics, and its relationshipwith the European Union, might evolve between now and 2035. We do so whilstconsidering rapidly changing energy contexts at a time when urgent climateaction is required.

Contains fulltext : 285215.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The causes and consequences of biodiversity loss and climate change are deeply intertwined. Hundreds of existing cooperative initiatives—gathering thousands of states, regions, cities, companies, civil society organisations and communities—are potentially bending the curve on biodiversity loss and tackling climate change simultaneously. More research is needed to understand if, how and under what conditions cooperative initiatives are delivering on their promises and importantly how they can contribute to both ‘biodiversity positive outcomes’ and ‘net-zero emissions’ at the same time. 13 november 2022 5 p.

Given the gaps between EU ambitions regarding energy community development and the current reality of clean energy communities in Europe, we explore a research framework enabling viable multi- and interdisciplinary research into new clean energy communities. We offer a definition of new clean energy communities, discuss their potential for wider dissemination and identify four factors that contribute to the current mismatch between ambitions and reality in energy community development. As a broader framework for interdisciplinary research into the field of new clean energy communities, we propose polycentric governance theory, considering the fact that the area of community energy systems is essentially multi-scalar, and that the rules of engagement in such systems are of great significance. This opens up four avenues for research on energy communities, which we outline in terms of enabling institutional contexts, potential for learning and transferability, business models and value propositions, and evaluation of outcomes and processes.

Using data from Eurobarometer 83.4, this study combines the two branches of research that address climate-related and biodiversity-related opinions and actions of individuals in the EU. The literature shows that the differences between climate-related and biodiversity-related policies correspond, at an individual level, to a person's basic attitudes towards environmental protection and towards nature protection, respectively. The contribution of this study is to demonstrate how these attitudes can influence behavior that has environmental repercussions for both issues, such as food consumption practices. The analysis focused on two Eurobarometer questions about buying local and seasonal food (to fight climate change) and about buying organic and local food (to protect biodiversity and nature). The results of two multinomial regression analyses, separately in Northwestern European countries and Eastern and Southern European countries, demonstrated that climate-related and biodiversity-related attitudes were, independent of each other, related to the adoption of these purchase behaviors. The results may support Europe’s new Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy and indicate that improving food consumption practices can enable individuals to better play their part in fighting climate change and biodiversity loss simultaneously, which opens up interesting new perspectives for policymakers, businesses and consumers.

Energy communities may play a significant role in the transition towards a more participatory and low-carbon energy system. However, their development varies across European countries, depending on national contexts and policies. Overall, European energy communities face many barriers: access to the grid and lack of funding are often cited. The transformation of the electricity network to integrate new distributed energy resources opens opportunities and entails trade-offs for all the actors involved, from technical, social and economic perspectives. While the question of financial incentives for renewable energy communities is widely addressed in the literature, that of access to the grid is still fragmented and scattered. This study explores the conditions under which energy communities access the electricity grid in two countries with contrasting governance settings: France and Germany. We explore the governance choices and narratives, determining the technical and economic conditions for grid access. Priority of connection for renewable energy and affordable connection prices are identified as the main opportunities, together with a strong agency of local authorities. The connection issues are also intertwined with national regulations for renewable energy, especially financial incentives, with the way the grid is financed, and with the European rules of the common electricity market.

This paper aims to highlight the position of meat reduction in what EU consumers think “eating a healthy and sustainable diet” involves and who has a role to play in achieving food system change. The data are based on the Eurobarometer 93.2 survey (mid 2020). The participants were asked to make their own selections out of a variety of food-related items and actors, linked to meat (“Eating meat less often”) and other aspects of diets (“Eating more fruit and vegetables”). Their responses were analyzed separately in two EU regions: Northwest Europe—consisting of the 10 richest EU countries with the highest scores on economic and social sustainable development indicators— and the East and the South. Three principal components of dietary thinking were distinguished, relating to 1) nutrition issues, 2) easy “light green” issues and 3) more demanding “deeper green” issues, respectively. The analysis also distinguished three types of actors in the value chain (food chain actors, supporting actors, and governmental actors). In Northwestern Europe, a majority of consumers saw a role for themselves in making the food system more sustainable and a large minority saw meat reduction as part of a healthy and sustainable diet. Both responses were much less common in the East and South. In the Northwest, meat reduction was relatively strongly related to “deeper green” thinking but also weakly to nutrition-focused thinking, whereas the opposite was found in the East and South. However, meat reduction had no prominent position in their considerations. For policy-makers, therefore, it is crucial that both nutrition and environment can be motivating factors for consumers to consider meat reduction, albeit to different degrees.

This paper investigates how consumers can be guided towards healthy diets from sustainable and more animal-friendly food systems, in times when no single food system can be considered the best. In order to provide an alternative, the paper focuses on how farm animal welfare concerns can be translated into potential consumer goals, inspired by the “Three Rs” principles of Replacement, Reduction and Refinement, originally developed to systematically improve the welfare of laboratory animals. After some adaptations, the three goals established are 1) to eat less meat, and/or 2) “less and better” meat, and/or 3) “less worrisome” animal protein, respectively, which imply choices described in the literature on consumer behavior. This literature shows that the goal of eating less meat is relatively straightforward, but needs to be made more prominent, and that the goals of eating “less and better” meat or eating “less worrisome” animal protein need more nuances regarding the specific trade-offs that should be made in terms of species, production types and geographic locations. This may help to better integrate the repercussions of food choices for human health, animal welfare, climate change and biodiversity, the relative importance of which varies between countries and consumer segments. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that Reduction, Replacement and Refinement are not just different parts of the same process to meet human health and animal welfare challenges, but also powerful options to combat the climate, biodiversity and—last but not least—food security challenges of the next few decades.

Given the interconnectedness of climate change and sustainable development, policymakers and scholars have started to investigate how climate actions can contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and vice versa. To date, research has mainly focused on the national and international levels, while little is known about the interlinkages between climate actions and the SDGs at the transnational level. Not only nation states, but also non-state actors undertake ambitious actions designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to promote sustainable development. Using content analysis and network analysis techniques, we examine the interlinkages between the climate actions of 72 transnational initiatives and the 169 targets of the 17 SDGs. We find that actions of 71 initiatives contribute to achieving 16 SDGs, thus generating valuable co-benefits. Besides SDG 13 on climate action and SDG 17 on partnerships for the goals, transnational climate actions frequently address SDGs 9 on industry, innovation and infrastructure, SDG 7 on affordable and clean energy, and SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production. While SDG 3 on good health and well-being and SDG 4 on quality education are barely addressed, SDG 5 on gender equality is not at all covered by transnational climate actions. Additionally, the network reveals that SDG 9 is highly synergistic with many other frequently addressed SDGs and functions as an important connector between them. Finally, our results indicate that transnational initiatives fill a governance gap left by states with regards to SDG 12. Climate initiatives of non-state actors can thus complement state-led actions to implement the Paris Agreement and the SDGs jointly.

There is ample research supporting White’s (1967) thesis, which postulates that religion and religious belief inhibit ecological concerns. This study thus seeks to explore the relationship between individuals’ acceptability for harming animals as one representation of ecological concern (measured using Animal Issue scale (AIS)) and their religious belief (measured using Religious Orientation Scale (ROS)) and ethical ideology (measured using Ethical Position Questionnaire (EPQ)). The study surveyed 929 Muslim teachers and school staff in East Java, Indonesia. We found that ROS correlates with EPQ whereby intrinsic personal (IP) relates with idealism while extrinsic social religious orientation (ES)—where religion is perceived as an instrument for social gain, membership and support—relates with relativism. However, using multiple regression analysis to examine both EPQ and ROS relation to acceptability for harming animals suggests mixed results. We found that, idealism and IP relate to a lower acceptability for harming animals, while relativism and ES correlate to a higher acceptability for harming animals. In another model where we calculate all the main variables with all the demographical and other determinants, we found that only ROS consistently relates to acceptability for harming animals. Additionally, we identify, explain and discuss significant demographic determinants along with this study’s limitations.

Food production on present and future saline soils deserves the world’s attention particularly because food security is a pressing issue, millions of hectares of degraded soils are available worldwide, freshwater is becoming increasingly scarce, and the global sea-level rise threatens food production in fertile coastal lowlands. Future of Sustainable Agriculture in Saline Environments aims to showcase the global potential of saline agriculture. The book covers the essential topics, such as policy and awareness, soil management, future crops, and genetic developments, all supplemented by case studies that show how this knowledge has been applied. It offers an overview of current research themes and practical cases focused on enhancing food production on saline lands. FEATURES Describes the critical role of the revitalization of salt-degraded lands in achieving sustainability in agriculture on a global scale Discusses practical solutions toward using drylands and delta areas threatened by salinity for sustainable food production Presents strategies for adaptation to climate change and sea-level rise through food production under saline conditions Addresses the diverse aspects of crop salt tolerance and microbiological associations Highlights the complex problem of salinity and waterlogging and safer management of poor-quality water, supplemented by case studies.

This study has been conducted based on the main question how urban policies focusing on economic growth and urban sprawl affect green areas and forests in the course of time. Its main goal is to assess the effects of Turkey’s rapid urbanization policy on the green areas in Istanbul. The sub-goals of the study are: (i) To determine the land use and land change in 1984-2000–2017, (ii) To explain the ecological response of the pressure of land change on urban green areas and (iii) To discuss the urban and forestry policies accelerating change of land use. Physical data, socio-economic data and media news on urban policy, and other statistical data were used in the study. To determine the changes in inland use in Istanbul, satellite images of 1984, 2000 and 2017 as well as the DEM data for Istanbul from ASTER GDEM v2 were classified via Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS). The study has concluded that transformations in Istanbul’s land forms occurred not individually, but connected to each other, and these changes might have different trends in different periods, yet these changes always occur in expanding urban areas. It has been numerically identified and interpreted that these changes evolved within the scope of unearned income and private benefits. It has been suggested that country’s policies change towards social policies, which highlight ecology, as opposed to neoliberal policies, which highlight economy, to improve Turkey’s green areas.

The paper assesses the extent of the forest area change in Turkey between 2005 and 2015 across 81 provinces and seven geographical regions. The results show that the situation varies at provincial and regional levels, but overall Turkey's forest area increased. An increase in forest areas in 60 out of 81 provinces was recorded, while there was a decrease in 19, and no change in the remaining two. There was a significant negative correlation between forest area and human population size. However, the change in forest area was found to have a significant positive relationship with the change in forest growing stock and current annual increment. Decrease in forest area was mainly seen in the provinces where there has been an intensive population increase, mainly through the impact of rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. In addition, it was observed that forest areas in these provinces became more fragmented due to allocations based on new legal regulations. A further finding was that the increase in total forest area was not the result of afforestation efforts by Turkey's forestry organisation but resulted from changes in the socioeconomic structure of the population, and related processes such as rural to urban migration.

Global palm oil production has greatly increased in recent years with the adoption of renewable energy policies by the E.U. and U.S.A. and growing demand for its use in food, biodiesel, and other commodities. Indonesia, the world's largest oil palm producer, has leased large tracts of forested and tribal lands as new concessions, thereby expanding oil palm plantations. While previous studies have focused on some of the important social and environmental consequences of this process, the full suite of potential environmental impacts from land conversion and cultivation remains poorly understood. Here we quantify these impacts in terms of forest loss and fragmentation, CO 2 emissions from land use change, and freshwater pollution from fertilizer application. Within all concession types, forest cover decreased by 20% and forest fragmentation increased by 44%, both of which are significantly higher than in comparable non-concession areas. We also assess to what extent CO 2 emissions and freshwater pollution are attributable to increasing palm oil demand abroad. We find that four-fifths of Indonesia's palm oil production is for export markets and that 66% of this is destined for just eight countries – India, China, Pakistan, Malaysia, Italy, Egypt, Bangladesh, and the United Kingdom. Examining these multiple impacts highlights the importance of remote policies and consumption patterns in dictating local production decisions in a telecoupled world. This work demonstrates that - in order to be truly sustainable - bioenergy initiatives must ensure that adverse environmental impacts (and the demands that drive them) are reduced globally and not simply displaced elsewhere.

Urban governance systems need to be adaptive to deal with emerging uncertainties and pressures, including those related to climate change. Realising adaptive urban governance systems requires attention to institutions, and in particular, processes of institutional innovation. Interestingly, understanding of how institutional innovation and change occurs remains a key conceptual weakness in urban climate change governance. This paper explores how institutional innovation in urban climate change governance can be conceptualised and analysed. We develop a heuristic involving three levels: (1) “visible” changes in institutional arrangements, (2) changes in underlying “rules-in-use”, and (3) the relationship to broader “governance dilemmas”. We then explore the utility of this heuristic through an exploratory case study of urban water governance in Santiago, Chile. The approach presented opens up novel possibilities for studying institutional innovation and evaluating changes in governance systems. The paper contributes to debates on innovation and its effects in urban governance, particularly under climate change.

This study examines the relationship between rainfall and groundwater use in rural Kenya, using automatically-transmitted hourly data from handpumps (n=266), daily rainfall records (n=19), and household survey data (n = 2508). We demonstrate a 34% reduction in groundwater use during the wet season compared to the dry season, suggesting a large shift from improved to unimproved sources in the wet season. By cross-correlating handpump and rainfall time series, we also reveal substantial short-term changes in groundwater pumping observed immediately following heavy rainfall. Further investigation and modelling of this response reveals a 68% reduction in pump use on the day immediately following heavy rain. Wethen investigate reasons for this behavioural response to rainfall, using survey data to examine the characteristics, concerns and behaviours of households in the area where the reduction in pump use was most marked. In this area rainwater harvesting was widespread and only 6% of households reported handpumps as their sole source of drinking water in the wet season, compared to 86% in the dry season. These findings shed light on the impact increasing rainfall variability may have on the Sustainable Development Goal of “universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all”. Specifically, we suggest a flaw in the water policy assumption that the provision of improved sources of drinking water—in this case community handpumps— translates to consistent use and the associated health benefits. We note that failure to understand and account for actual water use behaviour may results in adverse public health outcomes and maladapted WASH policy and interventions.

Institutional work focuses on the role of actors in creating, maintaining, or disrupting institutional structures. The concept has its origin in organisational studies. In this paper, we rethink and redefine institutional work to make it fit for use in the multi actor and multi-level context of environmental governance. We survey key approaches to institutional change in the literature, and argue that institutional work should have a central place within this theorising. Drawing on the insights from this literature, weargue that studying institutional work should involve a look at both the actions taken by actors, as well as the resulting effects. We identify a critical need for attention to the fundamentally political character of institutional work, the cumulative effects of action taken by multiple actors, and communicative and discursive dimensions. Overall, the concept of institutional work opens up new possibilities for unpacking the longstanding challenge of understanding institutional change in environmental governance.

Non-state and subnational climate actors have become central to global climate change governance. Quantitatively assessing climate mitigation undertaken by these entities is critical to understand the credibility of this trend. In this Perspective, we make recommendations regarding five main areas of research and methodological development related to evaluating non-state and subnational climate actions: defining clear boundaries and terminology; use of common methodologies to aggregate and assess non-state and subnational contributions; systematically dealing with issues of overlap; estimating the likelihood of implementation; and addressing data gaps.

Charismatic carbon projects are becoming increasingly popular in the voluntary carbon market. These are carbon offset projects that lend themselves to telling stories about the livelihood benefits they provide for poor people in the Global South in addition to carbon emission savings. I use cultural political economy as a theoretical heuristic to analyse how Gold Standard-certified cookstove carbon offsets are framed as delivering charismatic carbon. Methodologically, this is done through a content analysis of the online visual and textual marketing of 22 Gold Standard-certified cookstove carbon offset projects. I find that the project marketing makes particularly strong claims to improve family livelihoods, income generation and women empowerment, whilst de-politicising the feminist concern with women’s agency. The Gold Standard is one of the major and most well-regarded offsetting standards. Therefore, this research may reveal important limitations in the current and future shape of the wider voluntary carbon market.

The release of excessive anthropogenic nitrogen contributes to global climate change, biodiversity loss, and the degradation of ecosystem services. Despite being an urgent global problem, the excess nitrogen is not governed globally. This paper considers possible governance options for dealing with excessive nitrogen through target setting, which is an approach commonly adopted to address global environmental problems. The articulation of the nitrogen problem and the numerous international institutions dealing with it, provide evidence of a nitrogen regime characterised by limited coordination and targets covering sources and impacts only partially. This calls for improving the nitrogen governance in the direction of more integrated approaches at the global scale. In this vein, the paper investigates two opposite governance options – here labelled as ‘holistic’ and ‘origin-based’ – and evaluates them for their capability to define solutions and targets for human-induced nitrogen. From the analysis, it emerges that origin-based solutions can be preferable to holistic solutions as they can be more specific and potentially have greater immediate results. Independent from which governance arrangement is chosen, what matters most is the speed at which an arrangement can deploy solutions to combat (fast-growing) nitrogen pollution.

PurposeA shift to a healthy and sustainable diet (as recommended by the EAT Lancet Commission) needs to have a strong societal legitimation. This makes it relevant to investigate to what extent countries are using their Food-Based Dietary Guidelines (FBDGs) in ways that can stimulate such a shift.Design/methodology/approachGiven the pivotal role of protein, the authors examined what patterns of protein-related recommendations are used to guide consumers and how these patterns are related to specific contexts and societal priorities of the countries.FindingsThe analysis of data from 93 countries worldwide revealed two emerging patterns of recommendations. One pattern (found in a cluster of 23% of the countries) combined positive advice about key protein sources with limiting messages to reduce (or replace) the consumption of animal protein. The other pattern (found in a cluster of 24%) encouraged both animal and plant protein, thereby diversifying the set of protein sources, without negative advice on animal-based food sources. The two patterns of recommendations were differently associated with health and nutrition variables, including the countries' level of animal protein supply (in particular, dairy) and the prevalence of overweight individuals among adult men.Social implicationsFor all stakeholders, it is of crucial importance to realize that an increasing number of countries in the world are moving in the direction of acknowledging and addressing the diet-health-environment nexus by adapting their patterns of recommendations for key protein sources.Originality/valueThis study is the first that reveals patterns in recommendations with respect to protein sources by different nations worldwide.

This article develops a sectoral approach to the analysis of global climate governance. This approach advances the assessment of global climate governance by focusing on complexes of intergovernmental and transnational institutions co-governing key socio-technical sectoral systems. The actual and potential contribution of these sectoral institutional complexes to advancing decarbonization can be assessed according to five key governance functions: (1) providing guidance and signal to actors, (2) setting rules to facilitate collective action, (3) enhancing transparency and accountability, (4) offering support (finance, technology, capacity-building), and (5) promoting knowledge and learning. On this basis, we can assess the potential of international cooperation to address the challenges specific sectoral systems face in the climate transition as well as the extent to which existing sectoral institutional complexes deliver on this potential. This provides a solid starting point for developing options for filling identified gaps and enhancing the effectiveness of global climate governance.

This concluding article derives six major findings from the contributions to this special issue. First, the barriers and challenges to decarbonisation vary significantly across sectoral systems. Second, and similarly, the need and potential for the five functions of international governance institutions to contribute to effective climate protection also vary widely. Third, while the pattern is uneven, there is a general undersupply of international climate governance. Fourth, the sectoral analyses confirm that the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement play an important overarching role but remain limited in advancing effective sectoral governance. Fifth, while non-environmental institutions may present important barriers to decarbonisation, more synergistic effects are possible. Sixth, our sectoral approach provides a sound basis on which to identify sector-specific policy options. The paper then offers reflections on the merits and limitations of the sectoral approach, before identifying avenues for future research to further advance the agenda.

This chapter describes with the challenge of analyzing complexity in world politics, in particular, with appropriate methods to do so. Complexity theory is concerned with phenomena that arise from and are visible in complex systems. The chapter outlines the state of the art with regard to conceptualizations of governance complexity. It also outlines with the challenge of analyzing complexity in global governance and suggested applying a network approach to studying regime complexes, fragmented governance architectures and increased interactions across policy domains. The chapter suggests that network analysis can help unravel complexities in world politics at three levels: the system level, the cluster level, and the individual level. Modeling networks, however, presents an important challenge for analysts. Modeling networks at the level of regime complexes requires a substantial amount and quality of data which has been largely unavailable to researchers.

The ongoing agrarian transition from small-holder farming to large-scale commercial agriculture is reshaping systems of production and human well-being in many regions. A fundamental part of this global transition is manifested in large-scale land acquisitions (LSLAs) by agribusinesses. Its energy implications, however, remain poorly understood. Here, we assess the multi-dimensional changes in fossil-fuel-based energy demand resulting from this agrarian transition. We focus on LSLAs by comparing two scenarios of low-input and high-input agricultural practices, exemplifying systems of production in place before and after the agrarian transition. A shift to high-input crop production requires industrial fertilizer application, mechanization of farming practices and irrigation, which increases by ~5 times fossil-fuel-based energy consumption compared to low-input agriculture. Given the high energy and carbon footprints of LSLAs and concerns over local energy access, our analysis highlights the need for an approach that prioritizes local resource access and incorporates energy-intensity analyses in land use governance., Nature Communications, 12 (1), ISSN:2041-1723

Climate change is a transformation challenge. It requires the transformation of a patchwork of independent socio-technical systems. These complex systems have their own specific challenges and path dependencies. Lukas Hermwille introduces a perspective on socio-technical complexity to the study of global climate governance and asks what governance arrangements on the international level, in particular the United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Paris Agreement, can offer to facilitate and foster the required transformational change. His work shows the importance of the discursive power of global climate governance, shifting the expectations and visions of the future of key actors and, as a corollary, changing their investment decisions of today towards a more sustainable future.