The South-South Initiative (SSI) will organize two activities at the 2026 Bath Conference on Earth System Governance:
Innovative Session | Co-Creating Inclusive Planetary Futures: Global South Perspectives on Earth System Governance
Date and time: 8 September 2026 | 11:00–12:30 (GMT+1) | Duncan, BRLSI, Bath
The South-South Initiative (SSI) is excited to contribute to the 2026 Earth System Governance Conference in Bath through an innovative session that explores how Global South perspectives can help shape more inclusive, equitable, and effective approaches to governing our shared planetary future.
Drawing on insights from the Earth System Governance Journal’s Global South special issue, this session will bring together leading scholars, practitioners, and participants to reflect on persistent asymmetries in knowledge production and representation, while highlighting alternative imaginaries, solidarities, and governance innovations emerging from the Global South.
This session represents the South-South Initiative’s contribution to the Earth System Governance Project’s next Science and Implementation Plan, connecting Global South epistemologies with institutional reform ideas, including climate councils, rights-of-nature approaches, and new forms of planetary cooperation.
By and with: Dhanasree Jayaram, Cristina Inoue, Verônica Korber Gonçalves, Thais Lemos Ribeiro, Joyeeta Gupta, Varun Mohan, Jochen Prantl, Jens Marquardt, Tanvi V Deshpande, Amandine Orsini, Amanda Costa, Sharmini Nair, Pritee Sharma
Group meeting on the Meeting Day
Date and time: 11 September 2026 | 14:00–16:30 (GMT+1) | Room 3.15, Chancellors’ Building, University of Bath, and online
This meeting seeks to strengthen South-South and North-South research collaboration, knowledge exchange, transdisciplinary scholarship, and policy engagement among scholars, especially but not exclusively, from the Global South, and those interested in the SSI’s activities. The meeting will serve as a dedicated platform to foreground Southern perspectives within global debates on earth system governance, with concrete outcomes including the identification of joint research priorities, the formation of thematic groups within the initiative, priorities for the ESG Science Plan (2028-2038), agreement on a collaborative work plan (especially events), and the development of ideas for potential co-authored publications.
Following the publication of the special issue on the Global South in the Earth System Governance journal, the meeting will also aim to broaden the Initiative’s publication footprint by exploring opportunities to contribute to other ESG publication series, including working papers (potentially focussed on science-policy interface, science-society interactions), policy briefs, perspective pieces and research articles in the ESG journal, Cambridge Elements Series, and themed collections/special issues (on specific themes).
