Governing Sustainability: Rio+20 and the Road beyond

Abstract

Abstract. The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, more widely known as 'Rio+20', was a significant global political event, but it left many important questions relating to the future of sustainability governance unanswered. This paper introduces a theme issue on "Governing sustainability: Rio+20 and the road beyond". It is organized around three themes which are addressed at greater detail in the different papers: (i) the current status of governance for sustainability in the aftermath of Rio+20; (ii) whether or not sustainable development still has political and institutional relevance; and (iii) institutional and political opportunities and obstacles for governing sustainability in the future. The paper argues that both sustainability governance and the sustainable development concept are under growing pressure amid a perceived failure to deliver change, but identifies three opportunities to advance sustainability: (i) by reframing the way in which problems of unsustainability are described and approached; (ii) via the formulation of effective sustainable development goals; and (iii) by identifying novel ways to open up the sustainable development debate to more actors and interests.

Managing the transition to critical green growth: The ‘Green Growth State’

“…In some cases, Green Growth provides a guise for weak sustainability or ecological modernization [21], and to advocate the monetization of natural capital, technological solutions and human ingenuity. Here criticisms identify failures to recognise the physical limits of Earth and customers' responsibility; thus increasing reckless behaviour, weakening the precautionary principle and hindering political space for more radical transformation [25,26]. Similarly critics of framing as low carb, resource-efficient or green developmental growth point out that these are all too prosaic approaches.…”

Opening and Closing the Future: Climate Change, Adaptation, and Scenario Planning

“…These calls for a more holistic approach to adaptation align with the so-called 'contextual vulnerability' approach (rather than 'climate science approach') to understanding adaptation needs (see, for example, O'Brien et al, 2007), which highlights some groups' ongoing 'adaptation deficits' in adapting well to present-day climatic stressors (Burton, 2009). A holistic approach to adaptation also, somewhat differently, aligns with a reading of adaptation as ideally a route to societal transformation, reflecting a first-wave environmentalist sense of climate change as the epitome of industrialism undermining species survival (Rickards and Howden, 2012) and more recent questions about the underexamined fundamental contradictions inherent to the win-win notion of 'sustainable development' (Bulkeley et al, 2013).…”

Intermediary activities and agendas of regional cleantech networks in Sweden

“…This involves governance interactions with public and private actors. Regional cleantech networks are considered an illustration of a more general trend in the involvement of local and regional authorities in sustainable governance (Bulkeley et al, 2013). Similarly, Bulkeley (2005) finds that governance implies a continuum of systems of functions that can be performed by a variety of state and non-state actors in combination (cf.…”