6th International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC 2016 Integrative Risk Management - Towards Resilient Cities. 28 August - 01 September 2016 in Davos, Switzerland

1. Green Development
and Complex Risk Governance
Andreas Rechkemmer

2. A Complex Global Risk Landscape
Old and New Global Divides
The World of Disorder
The Age of Disasters
Social-Ecological Crises and Challenges
Overpopulation and Health Challenges

4. 18,446,744,073,709,551,615

5. A Flattened World

6. Exponential Growth

7. Moore's law

8. Global Environmental Change,
Complex Risks, and Development
Global Environmental Change &
Degradation of Ecosystem Services
Global Risks & Disorder
Growing Social &
Ecological
Vulnerabilities
Large costs for
health, wealth
and global
security
Undermining
the possibilities
to attain global
development

9. Countries scaled according to cumulative emissions in billion tonnes carbon
equivalent in 2002. (Patz, Gibbs, et al, 2007)
Cartogram: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

10. Cartogram: Health impacts of climate change
Deaths from malaria & dengue fever, diarrhoea,
malnutrition, flooding and (OECD countries) heatwaves

11. ESSP is a
Current Health Burden (deaths) due to Climate
Change

13. Hypotheses:
Business as usual
under the rhetoric of sustainable development
is making things worse.
The cutting edge of RESILIENCE thinking
that is required is TRANSFORMABILITY.

14. Sustainable Development -
The Problem with the Brundtland
Consensus

15. "Sustainable development is development that
meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to
meet their own needs.”
“It contains within it two key concepts:
- the concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the
world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and
- the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and
social organization on the environment's ability to meet
present and future needs."

16. The three main pillars of sustainable development
include:
Economic Growth
Environmental Protection
Social Equality

18. Millennium Declaration, 2000
Millennium Development Goals, 2000-2015

20. UN Conference on Sustainable Development
(UNCSD) (Rio +20), June 2012
Outcome Document “The Future We Want”
Toward a new set of “Sustainable Development
Goals” (SDGs) by 2015

23. MUCH NEEDED:
The Idea of Green Development

24. - strong, inclusive and sustainable economic growth in
developing countries and emerging economies
- transition toward a new model of economic growth –
green growth – founded on principles of social inclusivity
and environmental sustainability
- new pathways to pro-poor economic growth
Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), 2016

25. In contrast to conventional development models that rely
on the unsustainable depletion and destruction of natural
resources, green development is a coordinated
advancement of economic growth THROUGH
environmental sustainability, poverty reduction and social
inclusion.

26. shift the current development paradigm of quantity-
oriented, fossil-fuel dependent growth to quality-oriented
growth with an emphasis on the use of new and
renewable energy resources.
 Systems-Level Transformation
Based on: Capabilities, social learning, opportunities
and regulation

27. Click image for an expanded version

28. Thank you!

29. The Earth does not belong to
man; man belongs to Earth.
Humankind has not woven the
web of life. We are but one
thread within it. Whatever we
do to the web, we do to
ourselves.
All things are bound together.
All things connect.
Attributed to Chief Seattle, 1854

31. Today’s concept and understanding of Sustainable Development
has improved a lot and benefited from contemporary inter-
disciplinary research on Social-Ecological Systems and their
Resilience.
And yet, most adaptations and implementations (e.g. in policy) of
the contemporary Sustainable Development paradigm (see the
SDG process in the UN) still appear to either be biased toward
one component (e.g. economic growth or environmentalism) or
as rather technical and/or utilitarian.
While the new SD paradigm features a greatly enhanced focus
on the social sphere, it would reach a greater level of holism and
conceptual balance by including a more explicit focus on Justice -
more precisely, on Social-Ecological Justice.

32. Sustainable Development will be
achieved more easily if we place the idea
and principle of Social-Ecological Justice
at its very foundation, conceptually as
well as in every action.
In the sense of Kant, Social-Ecological
Justice should precisely not be motivated
by utilitarian or contractarian approaches,
but rather be perceived as an a priori,
transcendental moral principle informing
law, ethics, policy and action alike.
In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (1785),
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argues that morality is based
neither on the principle of utility, nor on a law of nature, but on
human reason. According to Kant, reason tells us what we ought
to do, and when we obey our own reason, only then are we truly
free.

33. Social-Ecological Justice for
Humans
Animals
Biodiversity & Ecosystems
Planetary Systems & Boundaries

35. Sustainable Development (as well as Social
Development, Human Well-being, and
Environmental Sustainability) can only be
achieved if the social-ecological system as
such is resilient.
GSD => J(SER)

36. vs. Utilitarianism (Status quo in International Policy)
vs. Theories of Social Contract (John Rawls et al.)
But based on an Idea of Justice that goes ‘beyond compassion
and humanity’ (Nussbaum 2004, 2006)
and builds on rights-based views, and capabilities.
“The basic moral intuition behind the approach concerns the
dignity of a form of life that possesses both deep needs and
abilities; its basic goal is to address the need for a rich plurality of
life activities.” (Nussbaum 2004)
As with human capabilities, the emphasis lies on autonomy, in
the sense that all species and natural systems should be enabled
to ‘flourish’.

37. Toward a collaborative research and teaching
agenda on Social-Ecological Justice for
Sustainable Development
...going beyond Environmental/ Ecological Justice

38. Definitions: Governance
• gov·ern·ance / ˈgəvərnəns/• n. – “the action or manner of governing”
(The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English 2009)
• “any attempt to control or manage any known object” (Alan Hunt,
Gary Wickham: Foucault and law: towards a sociology of law as
governance, 1994)
• “the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority to
manage a nation's affairs. It is the complex mechanisms, processes
and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their
interests, exercise their legal rights and obligations, and mediate their
differences” (UNDP)

39. Definitions: Global Governance
• Global governance … is the political interaction of transnational actors
aimed at solving problems that affect more than one state or region when
there is no power of enforcing compliance. en.wikipedia.org
• A set of codified rules and regulations of transnational scope, and the
collection of authority relationships that manage, monitor or enforce said
rules. Note that this definition encompasses a variety of arrangements,
including “hard law” treaties, “soft law” declarations, private orders, and
international governmental organizations. Daniel W. Drezner (Foreign Policy)
• The complex of formal and informal institutions, mechanisms, relationships
and processes between and among states, markets, citizens and
organizations, both inter- and non-governmental, through which collective
interests on the global plane are articulated, rights and obligations are
established, and differences are mediated. Thomas Weiss

40. Governance: Themes & Criteria
(© by Earth System Governance Project)
 Architecture
 Governance complexes
 Agency
 Non-state as well as state actors
 Adaptiveness
 Governance dynamics
 Accountability
 Who answers to whom?
 Access/allocation
 Who gets what?

41. Crosscutting Themes:
themes that are crucial for the study of each analytical problem
but also for the integrated understanding of OH governance
These four themes are:
the role of power;
the role of knowledge;
the role of norms;
and the role of scale.

42. Real Governance provides a broader umbrella than nation-
centered politics and/or institutions:
• The roles of knowledge, culture, norms, habits etc.
• Vertical & horizontal interplay
• Dynamics of multi-level governance
• Multi-actor focused
• Interaction of actors, their sometimes conflicting objectives,
and the instruments chosen to steer processes within a
particular area.
• Institutions are a central component, as are the patterns of
interaction between actors and the multilevel institutional
setting, creating complex relations between structure and
agency.
Towards a wide and open concept of ‘institution’.

43. After Per Olsson,
Stockholm Resilience Centre
Adaptive Governance
e.g. Ecosystem
management
Adaptive co-
management
Adaptive
governance
Topical
approach
Co-management and
adaptive
management
Multi-level
governance

44. •“Adaptive governance systems often self-organize as
social networks with teams and actor groups that draw
on various knowledge systems and experiences for the
development of a common understanding and policies.
The emergence of “bridging organizations” seem to lower
the costs of collaboration and conflict resolution, and
enabling legislation and governmental policies can
support self-organization while framing creativity for
adaptive co-management efforts.”
•STOCKHOLM RESILIENCE CENTER