Global Climate Governance as Translator of Global Change

"Anthropocene" has become an environmental buzzword. It denotes a new geological era that is human dominated. As mounting scientific evidence reveals, humankind has fundamentally altered atmospheric, geological, hydrological, biospheric, and other Earth system processes to an extent that the risk of an irreversible system change emerges. 

The Anthropocene implies a necessity for transformative governance. In order to prevent further catastrophic changes through (natural) catastrophes and instead to change to a "good" Anthropocene, a fundamental transformation of global economies and societies is necessary. Transition research is concerned with the development of such transformations.
Human societies must therefore change direction and navigate away from critical tipping points in the various ecosystems of our planet. This hypothesis has kicked off a debate not only on the geoscientific definition of the Anthropocene era, but increasingly also in the social sciences. However, the specific contribution of the social sciences disciplines and in particular that of political science still needs to be fully established.

Lukas Hermwille, Research Fellow in the Energy, Transport and Climate Policy Division at the Wuppertal Institute, has published the article "Global climate governance as boundary object" in the book "The Anthropocene Debate and Political Science". It uses the findings of transition research to make them productive for global climate governance. He examines two strands of literature: transition research and international governance theory. The article conceives the governance complex for climate change as a boundary object that translates a largely external pressure – global climate change – into something tangible and provides orientation at the level of changing sociotechnical systems.

The book "The Antropocene Debate and Political Science" has been published by the Routledge Taylor & Francis Group and is available in the link below.