Current Challenges in Global Sustainability Governance - Einzelansicht

This course will start with a general overview of recent conceptual developments in the field of global sustainability governance. In particular, we will discuss the concept of planetary boundaries and the emerging paradigm of the Anthropocene, which is a proposed term for a new geological epoch starting with the Industrial Revolution when human activities began to have a significant impact on the Earth’s ecosystems. Against this background, we will address the question of how these concepts change our understanding of global sustainability governance, both in theoretical and practical terms. In this context, we will examine the implications of an increasingly human-dominated planet for contemporary global policy-making by focusing on a number of illustrative examples of global sustainability problems, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and the disruption of biogeochemical cycles. Finally, we will summarize the main findings and insights gained from the presentations and discussions in the individual sessions.