Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability最新文献

Most literature on peacebuilding has been characterized by the intention to set resilience as an alternative to liberal peace or as a reproduction of it, thus conflating different types of policy development into a single dependent variable, whereby policy change happened or not. The central aim of the article is to clarify the type of change represented by the resilience approach. Evidence seems to show that resilience is an adaptation of the instruments and settings that leaves the overall goals of the policy unaltered. The second aim of the article is to suggest a move away from current monolithic interpretations, providing insights into how resilience can be saved from itself. The paper is not meant to provide exhaustive answers or indisputable empirical findings, but rather to shed light on the actual limitations of research in peacebuilding, and to provide some cues for future studies on how peace practice might change.

Cities undergoing rapid growth are at risk of outbreaks of violence as competition over scarce resources and space intensifies. In this context, it is critical to identify conditions that make cities and their inhabitants resilient to violence. We review research findings about the general relationship between urban growth and the violence-proneness of cities, as well as insights about the factors that underpin violence–resilience in three different areas: 1) urban governance and planning, 2) security institutions, and 3) the everyday practices of urban dwellers. We argue that in order to understand cities’ resilience to violence, we need to account for both the mechanisms linking urban growth to violence, and the possible conflict resolution and mitigation mechanisms present in cities.

For today’s decisions to be sustainable, they need to include choices and actions that reduce poverty and improve livelihoods, counteract climate change and are equitable towards the vulnerable. Climate-resilient development pathways are a practice that aims to achieve these goals, enabling decision-makers to identify, consolidate and implement climate action and development decisions towards sustainable development. To date, there is little evidence regarding how the practice can be navigated in real-world situations. Guidance on monitoring, evaluating and learning from experience specifically for climate-resilient development pathways is largely lacking. For this article, we reviewed the literature and held reflexive sessions with experts, synthesising different perspectives to present seven process-based monitoring, evaluation and learning requirements for climate-resilient development pathways. We close with discussing the applicability of the requirements and where further research is needed. In doing so, we address an important but underrepresented topic in the expanding body of literature on climate-resilient development pathways.

Blue carbon is attracting substantial interest as a natural climate solution. Focus has been on countries with large blue carbon stocks, though the high carbon densities of blue carbon ecosystems make them suitable for Small Island States with small coastal habitats. Small Island States hold 1806–2892 Tg of blue carbon, and mangroves alone offset >10% of land use emissions for 11-16 Small Island States, highlighting their potential contribution to national climate change mitigation if they are protected and restored. However, <10% of Small Island States have incorporated blue carbon into their National Greenhouse Gas Inventories or Forest Reference Emissions Levels, only 23% have quantitative and measurable blue carbon targets, and 36% have no mention of blue carbon at all. There is immense scope to implement robust blue carbon targets and actions in many Small Island States, with Nationally Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement being a key policy lever.

Assertion of the validity of the way agents’ decision-making remains one of the central epistemological problems in empirical agent-based model (ABM) simulations. Reliable and robust models of individual and group-level decision-making are needed if scenarios are to be relevant for policies with implications in natural resource management. Serious games (in the form of role-playing games) have emerged as stakeholder-centric ways of parameterizing human behavior and decision-making and validating ABM results. Iterations between games and ABMs may offer attractive options for quality control in salient, credible, and legitimate ABM use. However, a revisit to a validated case study after six years suggested that models and games generate ‘prospects’ rather than ‘predictions’ as events not foreseen in model development added to recognized parameter uncertainty.

The recent reframing of global biodiversity policy from (unsuccessfully) dealing with ‘underlying causes’ to focusing on spatial allocations and planning implies renewed urgency of reconciling goal-oriented spatial planning of rights to use land and water with harmony-oriented ‘co-production’ by the relevant stakeholders. Current understanding of spatial and temporal variation in the balance between goal-oriented instrumental and harmony-oriented relational values of nature recognizes different decision-making styles. Taking Indonesia and Vietnam as examples, we explored how current tools and processes of land-use planning for multiple environmental services (LUMENS) deal with that balance, and what further steps may be needed to meet current expectations, across all sustainable development goals in a mega-diverse country with an export-oriented economy and its changing norms. So far, relational values are expressed primarily as stakeholder preferences through the ‘co-production’ process, consultations, and priority setting, while instrumental values and economic multipliers are formally presented.

Climate-changed development describes how climate change affects the way global South policymakers conceptualize and implement capitalist development into national policies and plans. It signals a different form of development emerging where national governments in the global South play a prominent role in controlling national economic activities through climate-resilient development financing and policy interventions. This specific manifestation of climate-resilient development organizes national responses to climate risk through an economic growth lens. This article examines current critical perspectives on these economizing processes within the context of climate-resilient development. It finds three significant patterns of economization occurring across climate decision-making: capitalizing upon hazards and vulnerability, restructuring national governance, and transitioning to sustainable economies. The review calls for further research that draws attention to national governments’ discursive and technological work to construct profitable climate risk responses.

Transformative change toward sustainability is increasingly recognized as inevitable to avoid the collapse of socio-ecological systems. However, for a deep and system-wide transformation, governance approaches and policymaking need to be changed too. This paper discusses how a diverse value approach in environmental policymaking could be undertaken to foster transformative governance that can further lead to system-wide transitions. Based on the analysis of different policy options’ transformative potential, we argue that the more diverse values addressed by a policy instrument, the bigger its transformative potential. Weaving values into policy decision-making is possible at several junctures of the policy process, but context-specificities should always be considered, and capacities must be enhanced at all levels, both for public and private actors.

In globally coordinated efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), perspectives on instrumental (goal-oriented, ecological–economic) and relational (harmony-oriented, social–ecological) values of nature vary between, but matter to both local and global actors and stakeholders. The (sub)-national motivation to engage in REDD+ programs evolved over time. We reviewed literature on the underlying values and moral roots in subnational REDD+ implementation in two Southeast Asian countries with different political histories: Vietnam and Indonesia. Vietnam tried to use the preexisting Payments for Forest Environmental Services program for REDD+, incentivizing community-based forest management. Indonesia asked all provinces to clarify emission-reduction plans in green growth strategies, before engaging with international REDD+ finance. Maintaining strong national control over forests was a key motivation for initial REDD+ adoption, but further development of the programs in both countries rebalances efficiency and fairness in instrumental and relational decision-making modes, encompassing various dimensions of morality beyond financial gains.

In the public debate on the expansion of oil palm production in tropical forest zones, ‘is palm oil demon or unfairly demonized?’, values (instrumental and relational) interact with rationalizations (instrumental) grounded on a priori preferences (relational). This muddied debate urges clearer distinctions between the crop itself and how it is produced to achieve sustainable oil palm systems. More socially oriented narratives emerge, such as oil palm being suitable to family farming, not just large multinational company plantations, and as diversified agroforestry rather than monoculture production systems. These narratives shift the debate, posing new but similar risks of misrepresentation. We dissect current issues in the oil palm debate, linking ‘values of nature (VoN)’ to key dimensions of morality. Classifying different perspectives of reality allows new knowledge and understanding to emerge, moving toward more effective negotiations for developing inclusive oil palm value chains that further economic development, small-scale producers’ livelihoods, and environmental health.