Norichika Kanie

Sustainable development goals for people and planet

Planetary stability must be integrated with United Nations targets to fight poverty and secure human well-being, argue David Griggs and colleagues.

Navigating the Anthropocene: Improving Earth System Governance

The United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro in June is an important opportunity to improve the institutional framework for sustainable development. Science assessments indicate that human activities are moving several of Earths sub-systems outside the range of natural variability typical for the previous 500,000 years (1, 2). Human societies must now change course and steer away from critical tipping points in the Earth system that might lead to rapid and irreversible change (3). This requires fundamental reorientation and restructuring of national and international institutions toward more effective Earth system governance and planetary stewardship.

An integrated framework for sustainable development goals

The United Nations (UN) Rio+20 summit committed nations to develop a set of universal sustainable development goals (SDGs) to build on the millennium development goals (MDGs) set to expire in 2015. Research now indicates that humanitys impact on Earths life support system is so great that further global environmental change risks undermining long-term prosperity and poverty eradication goals. Socioeconomic development and global sustainability are often posed as being in conflict because of tradeoffs between a growing world population, as well as higher standards of living, and managing the effects of production and consumption on the global environment. We have established a framework for an evidence-based architecture for new goals and targets. Building on six SDGs, which integrate development and environmental considerations, we developed a comprehensive framework of goals and associated targets, which demonstrate that it is possible, and necessary, to develop integrated targets relating to food, energy, water, and ecosystem services goals; thus providing a neutral evidence-based approach to support SDG target discussions. Global analyses, using an integrated global target equation, are close to providing indicators for these targets. Alongside development-only targets and environment-only targets, these integrated targets would ensure that synergies are maximized and trade-offs are managed in the implementation of SDGs.

Integration: The key to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals

On 25 September, 2015, world leaders met at the United Nations in New York, where they adopted the Sustainable Development Goals. These 17 goals and 169 targets set out an agenda for sustainable development for all nations that embraces economic growth, social inclusion, and environmental protection. Now, the agenda moves from agreeing the goals to implementing and ultimately achieving them. Across the goals, 42 targets focus on means of implementation, and the final goal, Goal 17, is entirely devoted to means of implementation. However, these implementation targets are largely silent about interlinkages and interdependencies among goals. This leaves open the possibility of perverse outcomes and unrealised synergies. We demonstrate that there must be greater attention on interlinkages in three areas: across sectors (e.g., finance, agriculture, energy, and transport), across societal actors (local authorities, government agencies, private sector, and civil society), and between and among low, medium and high income countries. Drawing on a global sustainability science and practice perspective, we provide seven recommendations to improve these interlinkages at both global and national levels, in relation to the UN’s categories of means of implementation: finance, technology, capacity building, trade, policy coherence, partnerships, and, finally, data, monitoring and accountability.

Cross-sectoral strategies in global sustainability governance: towards a nexus approach

The recent shift from the Millennium Development Goals to the much broader Sustainable Development Goals has given further impetus to the debate on the nexus between the multiple sectors of policy-making that the Goals are to cover. The key message in this debate is that different domains—for instance, water, energy and food—are interconnected and can thus not be effectively resolved unless they are addressed as being fully interrelated and interdependent. Yet while this overall narrative is forcefully supported in the new UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals that are the main part of this agenda, many Goals still remain sectoral in their basic outlook. This now requires, we argue, a new focus in both policy and research on the nexus between different Sustainable Development Goals, especially with a view to reforms in the overall institutional setting that is required to sufficiently support such a nexus approach. This article thus examines the nexus approach in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and identifies multiple avenues for its institutionalisation in global governance.

Sustainability science and implementing the sustainable development goals

Sustainability science probes interactions between global, social, and human systems, the complex degradation mechanisms of these systems, and the concomitant risks to human well-being. By identifying and addressing complex challenges that are not typically considered in traditional academic disciplines, this transdisciplinary science provides the way forward to a sustainable global society. After the 10-year anniversary of the establishment of Sustainability Science, this science can no longer be considered a new discipline. Given this decade of development of the sustainability science approach, now is the right time to consider what has been learned from this scholarly exchange on research and methodologies and to apply this knowledge to the current sustainability challenges and to the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (United Nations 2015). SDGs are innovative tools for global governance of sustainability. They differ from the traditional legal approach for addressing global problems, which focuses on the adjustment of national legal systems to meet international agreements and compliance with international law. The SDGs were created through a participatory deliberation process without considering compliance. Rather, the SDGs adopt a new approach, which we refer to as governance through goals (Kanie and Biermann 2017). These goals combine efforts to eradicate poverty and increase the development of poor countries while decreasing the human footprint on the environment. They offer a more inclusive and diverse approach by mobilizing a broad spectrum of actors in both developed and developing countries. Progress toward attainment of the goals will be measured by periodic review of indicators and the application of other qualitative methods that aim to provide incentives for further action. In many countries, serious sustainable development problems dominate policy discussions, but a little progress has been made on complex, global environmental problems such as climate change. Moreover, in many cases, social progress comes at an environmental cost. As the SDGs are not a product of science but rather of politics, understanding the interlinkages between various goals and targets will be a challenging area of research. Thus, the inherent synergies, trade-offs, and complexity of such an effort require that sustainability science informs the development of relevant policies. New metrics will be required to monitor implementation of the SDGs, such as the inclusive wealth index (IWI), which includes natural, human, and manufactured capital in national accounts (UNU-IHDP and UNEP 2012, 2014; Urban Institute and UNEP 2018). The SDGs and progressively inclusive accounting methods are responses to the narrow focus on economic growth that creates inequality and undermines sustainability. As such, research is needed to assess how measuring wealth inclusively can support & Osamu Saito sust@unu.edu

The transformative potential of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

How can global governance shape a transformation toward sustainability? How can a transformation toward sustainability shape new forms and strategies on global governance? These questions grow increasingly important as the human impact on the environment increasingly exceeds the planetary boundaries (Rockstrom et al. 2009; Steffen and Smith 2013; Steffen et al. 2015). In addition, the prevailing approach to sustainability will only achieve sustainable futures for some, which would not be sustainable at all. In the post1992 era, roadblock after roadblock for global governance on sustainability was confronted and increased skepticism became warranted. In this context, the Rio?20 Conference in 2012 was seen as a conference with little substantive purpose (Andresen and Underdal 2012) and interest grew in efforts that ‘‘tipped toward’’ sustainability (Westley et al. 2011) rather than hard law-induced transformations. Global governance was seen to have the wrong processes and wrong ideas, animated by zero-sum interstate negotiations and a prioritization of the liberal international economic order over any alternatives. If we approached the question from a traditional effectiveness or influence perspective (Bernstein and Cashore 2012), such skepticism is understandable. Formal rules of the environment gave way to less legalistic approaches to sustainability in a muddled institutional context. Specifically, the Rio?20 process produced nothing in the realm of hard law, and the small-scale efforts appear scattered haphazardly without a core to organize global action. An alternative approach though would highlight that such outcomes have potential impacts primarily in changing global governance practices, defined as the techniques actors use to make sense of the world (Best 2014). Such an approach would be critical of the

Improving global environmental governance: Best practices for architecture and agency

Preface Introduction: Pluralistic Actor Configurations and International Environmental Governance: Best and Worst Practices for Improving Environmental Governance Peter M. Haas, Steinar Andresen and Norichika Kanie 1. Agenda Setting at Sea and in the Air Stacy D. VanDeveer 2. Lessons Learned in Multilateral Environmental Negotiations Pamela S. Chasek 3. Actor Configurations and Compliance Tasks in International Environmental Governance Olav Schram Stokke 4. The Mismatch of Implementation Networks in International Environmental Regimes: Lessons from Different Agreements Jose Antonio Puppim de Oliveira 5. Resilience and Biodiversity Governance: The processes of actor configurations which support and limit resilience Casey Stevens 6. Governance Components in Private Regulation: Implications for Legitimacy, Authority and Effectiveness Graeme Auld, Benjamin Cashore and Stefan Renckens 7. Actor configurations in the climate regime: The states call the shots Steinar Andresen, Norichika Kanie and Peter M. Haas Conclusion: Lessons from Pluralistic Green Governance Norichika Kanie, Peter M. Haas, Steinar Andresen Annex Masahiko Iguchi

Japan as an Underachiever: Major Power Status in Climate Change Politics

This chapter examines Japan’s status as a major power through the case of the international discourse on climate change, a key issue in the twenty-first century. In particular, it focuses on efforts to establish a post-2012 international institutional architecture to address the climate change problem. This issue presents mounting political stakes, given both a great diversity in individual state preferences, and a growing “competition” for status in promoting a new institutional architecture aimed at creating a new problem-solving structure to address concerns over global climate change.

Higher education for sustainable development: actioning the global goals in policy, curriculum and practice

Higher education for sustainable development (HEfSD) is being significantly shaped by the global sustainability agenda. Many higher education institutions, responsible for equipping the next generation of sustainability leaders with knowledge and essential skills, proactively try to action the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in HEfSD policy, curriculum and practice through scattered and isolated initiatives. Yet, these attempts are not strategically supported by a governing approach to HEfSD or coordinated effectively to tackle social and environmental sustainability. These predicaments not only widen the gap between HEfSD policy, curriculum and practice but also exacerbate the complexities between human and environmental interactions compromising overall sustainability. However, these efforts represent a potential for actioning the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development. Based on a qualitative research strategy, theory building methodology and various methodological techniques (surveys, policy and literature review, group and individual interviews), this research suggests that the advancement of HEfSD in policy, curriculum and practice depends largely on a better understanding of existing gaps, target areas, commonalities and differences across regional HEfSD agendas. This will hopefully provide higher education institutions and their stakeholders across regions with some conceptual and practical tools to consider strategically how HEfSD can successfully be integrated into policy, curriculum and practice in alignment with SDGs and with the overall mandate of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development.