Locating Cities and Their Governments in Multi-Level Sustainability Governance

Cities and their governments are increasingly recognized as important actors in global sustainability governance. With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, their role in the global endeavor to foster sustainability has once again been put in the spotlight. Several scholars have highlighted pioneering local strategies and policies to implement the Sustainable Development Goals and render urban areas more sustainable. However, the question of how such urban sustainability actions are embedded in complex interactions between public and private actors operating at different levels has not been studied in enough detail. Building upon a multi-level governance approach, this article explores the entanglement and interconnectedness of cities and local governments with actors and institutions at various levels and scales to better capture the potential and limitations of urban policymaking contributing to global sustainability. The article finds that on the one hand cities and their governments are well positioned to engage other actors into a policy dialogue. On the other hand, local authorities face considerable budgetary and institutional capacity constraints, and they heavily rely on support from actors at other governmental levels and societal scales to carry out effective sustainability actions in urban areas

The Use of an Incentive Program to Increase Motivation for Academic Performance

The effects of an incentive program (Free Hours Points Program) on academic performance were examined. Sixty student-athletes on academic probation (less than a 2.25 GPA) at a Division I university participated. Points were awarded for positive, measurable efforts towards improving academic standing. Although grade point average (GPA) did not significantly increase from one year to the next, 62% of student-athletes did demonstrate improvement on this measure. Total points earned by each individual was not significantly correlated to GPA, however, class year was significantly negatively correlated with points earned, suggesting that this type of intervention may be more effective with younger student-athletes

Ukierunkowana rola przywódcza Unii Europejskiej w miêdzynarodowej polityce klimatycznej

Die richtungweisende Führungsrolle der Europäischen Union in der internationalen KlimapolitikUkierunkowana rola przywódcza Unii Europejskiej w miêdzynarodowej polityce klimatyczne

The Reconfiguration of Public Authority in Developing Countries

In recent years, several scholars of world politics have observed a relocation of authority in different issue areas of global policy-making. This development appears to be particularly evident in the field of global climate politics where a number of authors have highlighted the gradual loss of authority by national governments and the emergence of new spheres of authority dominated by actors other than the nation-state. In fact, due to the existence of a regulatory gap in this policy domain, various new governance arrangements have emerged which work simultaneously at different levels (some top-down and others bottom-up) to cope with the problem of climate change. However, despite several broader descriptions and mapping exercises, we have little systematic knowledge about their workings, let alone their impact on political-administrative systems. Given these shortcomings, in this paper we explore how (and how far) different types of globally operating governance arrangements have caused changes in the distribution of authority within national governments and their public administration. We will focus on two stylized governance arrangements: one that operates bottom-up (i.e. Transnational City Networks, TCNs) and another that operates top-down (i.e. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, REDD+). Departing from our hypotheses that the former is likely to lead to more decentralization and the latter to more centralization of environmental policy making, we will present some preliminary findings from our case studies in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and South Africa

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Transformative Change through the Sustainable Development Goals?

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 sub-targets which serve as a global reference point for the transition to sustainability. The agenda acknowledges that different issues such as poverty, hunger, health, education, gender equality, environmental degradation, among others, are intertwined and can therefore only be addressed together. Implementing the SDGs as an ‘indivisible whole’ represents the actual litmus test for the success of the 2030 Agenda. The main challenge is accomplishing a more integrated approach to sustainable development that encompasses new governance frameworks for enabling and managing systemic transformations. This thematic issue addresses the question whether and how the SDGs set off processes of societal transformation, for which cooperation between state and non-state actors at all political levels (global, regional, national, sub-national), in different societal spheres (politics, society, and economy), and across various sectors (energy, transportation, food, etc.) are indispensable. In this editorial, we first introduce the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs by providing an overview of the architecture of the agenda and the key challenges of the current implementation phase. In a second step, we present the eleven contributions that make up the thematic issue clustering them around three themes: integration, governance challenges, and implementation

Four governance reforms to strengthen the SDGs:A demanding policy vision can accelerate global sustainable development efforts

In 2015, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly agreed on 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with 169 targets as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Although the SDGs, which are to be achieved by 2030, are not the first attempt to guide policy actors through global goals, they go far beyond earlier agreements in their detail, comprehensiveness, and ambition. Yet the 2022 SDG Impact Assessment, conducted by a global consortium of researchers, has shown that the first phase of SDG implementation did not lead to a transformative reorientation of political systems and societies (1, 2). As the UN SDG Summit gets underway this month to review the halfway point in SDG implementation, and a further UN “Summit of the Future” is planned for 2024 to debate global governance reforms, we present here a demanding yet realistic policy vision to adjust the course of SDG implementation

Exploring Global Climate Policy Futures and Their Representation in Integrated Assessment Models

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015, paved the way for a new hybrid global climate governance architecture with both bottom‐up and top‐down elements. While governments can choose individual climate goals and actions, a global stocktake and a ratcheting‐up mechanism have been put in place with the overall aim to ensure that collective efforts will prevent increasing adverse impacts of climate change. Integrated assessment models show that current combined climate commitments and policies of national governments fall short of keeping global warming to 1.5 °C or 2 °C above preindustrial levels. Although major greenhouse gas emitters, such as China, the European Union, India, the United States under the Biden administration, and several other countries, have made new pledges to take more ambitious climate action, it is highly uncertain where global climate policy is heading. Scenarios in line with long‐term temperature targets typically assume a simplistic and hardly realistic level of harmonization of climate policies across countries. Against this backdrop, this article develops four archetypes for the further evolution of the global climate governance architecture and matches them with existing sets of scenarios developed by integrated assessment models. By these means, the article identifies knowledge gaps in the current scenario literature and discusses possible research avenues to explore the pre‐conditions for successful coordination of national policies towards achieving the long‐term target stipulated in the Paris Agreement