Reconciling safe planetary targets and planetary justice: Why should social scientists engage with planetary targets?

As human activity threatens to make the planet unsafe for humanity and other life forms, scholars are identifying planetary targets set at a safe distance from biophysical thresholds beyond which critical Earth systems may collapse. Yet despite the profound implications that both meeting and transgressing such targets may have for human wellbeing, including the potential for negative trade-offs, there is limited social science analysis that systematically considers the justice dimensions of such targets. Here we assess a range of views on planetary justice and present three arguments associated with why social scientists should engage with the scholarship on safe targets. We argue that complementing safe targets with just targets offers a fruitful approach for considering synergies and trade-offs between environmental and social aspirations and can inform inclusive deliberation on these important issues

Earth system justice needed to identify and live within Earth system boundaries

Living within planetary limits requires attention to justice as biophysical boundaries are not inherently just. Through collaboration between natural and social scientists, the Earth Commission defines and operationalizes Earth system justice to ensure that boundaries reduce harm, increase well-being, and reflect substantive and procedural justice. Such stringent boundaries may also affect ‘just access’ to food, water, energy and infrastructure. We show how boundaries may need to be adjusted to reduce harm and increase access, and challenge inequality to ensure a safe and just future for people, other species and the planet. Earth system justice may enable living justly within boundaries

Constraints and opportunities for climate adaptation in regional water and land use planning

Whereas the literature on adaptation is rich in detail on impacts, vulnerability and constraints to climate adaptation, less is known about the conditions that facilitate adaptation in practice. We examined the constraints and opportunities for adaptation in water and land use planning in three regions: the Guadiana River Basin in Spain and Portugal, the Tisza River Basin in Hungary and western Inner Mongolia in China. We analysed the conditions that either facilitate or constrain adaptation in relation to 1) adaptation actors, 2) adaptation strategies and 3) adaptation objectives. Many adaptation assessments concentrate on climate impacts and the potential of adaptation strategies. The conditions that enable people to act on adaptation are studied less. Yet, these have been identified as particularly important for successfully implementing adaptation. We find that adaptation is enhanced by pilot projects that test and debate new ideas through collaboration between recognised actors from civil society, policy and science. Promising for adaptation is the integration of (traditional) agro-environmental land use systems that regulate regional climate impacts with new technologies, organisational responsibilities and financial instruments. A key challenge is to create flexible and equitable financial instruments that facilitate benefit- and burden-sharing, social learning and that support a diverse set of potentially better-adapted new activities rather than compensate for climate impacts on existing activities

Final Results of the Tisza, Guadiana and Inner Mongolia Regional Case-studies

This deliverable reports on the work done in ADAM work package P3d. It examines the constraints and opportunities for mainstreaming adaptation to climate change in land use and water management in three study regions: the Guadiana River Basin in Spain and Portugal, the Tisza River Basin in Hungary and the Alxa region in western Inner Mongolia, Chin

Opening up knowledge systems for better responses to global environmental change

Linking knowledge with action for effective societal responses to persistent problems of unsustainability requires transformed, more open knowledge systems. Drawing on a broad range of academic and practitioner experience, we outline a vision for the coordination and organization of knowledge systems that are better suited to the complex challenges of sustainability than the ones currently in place. This transformation includes inter alia: societal agenda setting, collective problem framing, a plurality of perspectives, integrative research processes, new norms for handling dissent and controversy, better treatment of uncertainty and of diversity of values, extended peer review, broader and more transparent metrics for evaluation, effective dialog processes, and stakeholder participation. We set out institutional and individual roadmaps for achieving this vision, calling for well-designed, properly resourced, longitudinal, international learning programs