Advancing research on global environmental change and governance
The Earth System Governance Project is a global research network that aims to advance knowledge at the interface between global environmental change and governance. The network connects and mobilizes scholars from the social sciences and humanities researching at local and global scales.
Taskforces and Working Groups
Through these groups, we engage substantively with key issues of global environmental change confronting contemporary societies.
The Earth System Governance ‘Taskforce on Knowledge Cumulation’ seeks to bring together scholars that share a common interest in making…
We are keen on exploring and discussing the challenges, possibilities, and opportunities one encounters when seeking to understand and explain…
The Task Force on Earth System Law is composed of a large member network worldwide, which accommodates an interdisciplinary community of scientists focusing on the legal challenges of the Anthropocene and the many complex, multi-scalar governance challenges arising from within an Earth System context.
The Planetary Justice Taskforce of the Earth System Governance Project brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars who are concerned…
Aims and scope The ongoing loss of nature and biodiversity due to human activity, exacerbated by climate change, is one…
The Urban Working Group of the Earth System Governance Project was created at the end of a meeting on Urban…
The increasingly complex developments in the space sector bring a significant impact on earth system governance. With a diverse set…
This group gathers researchers from various disciplines who are interested in questions of democracy, power and legitimacy, and how these…
The Taskforce on Ocean Governance seeks to address the daunting multi-level challenge of oceans governance in the Anthropocene. It brings…
Climate governance must better reflect characteristics of sectoral systems.
Human, animal and environmental health constitutes a critically important issue in relation to earth system governance (ESG), with far-reaching equity…
The “Decarbonization” Working Group is part of the “Task Force on Climate Governance”. It gathers researchers from various disciplines who…
This taskforce brings together researchers and practitioners exploring how humanity envisions and prepares for transformative environmental futures. In an era…
The Earth System Governance ‘Taskforce on the Sustainable Development Goals’ brings together an interdisciplinary global group of scholars and practitioners…
ESGRREW was created in 2016, opening an inclusive and ethical space where different perspectives can join forces to shape a common understanding of our world in law and policy
The Asia and Pacific Working Group (formerly Asia-Pacific Working Group)seeks to initiate collective and collaborative dialogue and discussion among scholars…
Creating and enhancing carbon sinks has become the newest pillar of climate policy in the era of the Paris Agreement, which calls for a ‘balance of sources and sinks’ on route to the ambitious temperature targets of 2C – or even 1.5C – by century’s end...
News and perspectives
2025 was a fruitful year for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Taskforce. The newly published edited volume, Essential…
Are you an early-career ESG Research Fellow? Apply for the 2026 Mentoring Initiative, a one-year program…
For two days in mid-November 2025, the long-running conversation on earth system law gathered distinctive momentum…
Earth System Governance Publications
The project’s flagship publications seek to advance knowledge in our field and provide authoritative stances on existing and emerging aspects of earth system governance research
Meet our community
