Governing for Transformative Change across the Biodiversity-Climate-Society Nexus

Pascual, Unai; McElwee, Pamela D.; Diamond, Sarah E.; Ngo, Hien T.; Bai, Xuemei; Cheung, William W. L.; Lim, Michelle; Steiner, Nadja; Agard, John; Donatti, Camila, I; Duarte, Carlos M.; Leemans, Rik; Managi, Shunsuke; Pires, Aliny P. F.; Reyes-Garcia, Victoria; Trisos, Christopher; Scholes, Robert J.; Portner, Hans-Otto

Type

Article

KAUST Department

Red Sea Research Centre and with the Computational Bioscience Research Centre, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology , Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
Marine Science Program
Red Sea Research Center (RSRC)
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division
Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC)

Date

2022-06-01

Embargo End Date

2023-06-01

Permanent link to this record

http://hdl.handle.net/10754/679124

Metadata

Show full item record

Abstract

Transformative governance is key to addressing the global environmental crisis. We explore how transformative governance of complex biodiversity–climate–society interactions can be achieved, drawing on the first joint report between the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to reflect on the current opportunities, barriers, and challenges for transformative governance. We identify principles for transformative governance under a biodiversity–climate–society nexus frame using four case studies: forest ecosystems, marine ecosystems, urban environments, and the Arctic. The principles are focused on creating conditions to build multifunctional interventions, integration, and innovation across scales; coalitions of support; equitable approaches; and positive social tipping dynamics. We posit that building on such transformative governance principles is not only possible but essential to effectively keep climate change within the desired 1.5 degrees Celsius global mean temperature increase, halt the ongoing accelerated decline of global biodiversity, and promote human well-being.

Citation

Pascual, U., McElwee, P. D., Diamond, S. E., Ngo, H. T., Bai, X., Cheung, W. W. L., Lim, M., Steiner, N., Agard, J., Donatti, C. I., Duarte, C. M., Leemans, R., Managi, S., Pires, A. P. F., Reyes-García, V., Trisos, C., Scholes, R. J., & Pörtner, H.-O. (2022). Governing for Transformative Change across the Biodiversity–Climate–Society Nexus. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biac031

Sponsors

We dedicate this article to Bob Scholes, whose knowledge, dedication and leadership contributed significantly to this manuscript, which builds from the IPBES–IPCC cosponsored workshop on biodiversity and climate change and the resulting workshop report (Pörtner et al. 2021). The views expressed in the present article, however, represent the individual views of the authors. We would like to thank the scientific steering committee of the IPBES–IPCC workshop, reviewers of the draft reports, both the IPBES and IPCC secretariats and technical support units. We are grateful to Anne Larigauderie, the executive secretary of IPBES, for her support throughout the process, and Yuka Otsuki Estrada for the visualization and development of the graphics. We would also like to thank three reviewers for their constructive comments. This work was supported by the Basque Centre for Climate Change Unit of Excellence (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grant no. MDM-2017-0714), US National Science Foundation grant no. 1853759, US National Science Foundation grant no. DEB-1845126, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the European Research Council under an ERC Consolidator Grant (FP7-771056-LICCI) and the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Unit of Excellence (Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, grant no. MdM-2019-0940), the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development grant no. 423057/2021-9, and the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of the State of Rio de Janeiro grant no. 210.164/2019.