The Earth System Governance Project has been mandated by the four global environmental change research programmes as organisers of the 2012 conference “Planet under Pressure”, to compile a fast-track policy-relevant assessment of the state of research on the institutional framework for sustainable development. This assessment shall provide input from the scientific community to the international policy process leading to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). For this, we have invited a select international group of about 40 senior governance experts from all over the world as authors to this assessment that will be organised around the analytical problems identified in the Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project. Within each analytical problem, we have identified a number of clearly defined, policy-relevant questions to which a precise statement of what the research of our community in the last years has contributed to answer that question will be provided. All will be written in highly accessible language and will be of high political relevance.
More and frequently updated information is available on a dedicated website: www.ieg.earthsystemgovernance.org. This website on International Environmental Governance and the Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development is the core element of an initiative by the Earth System Governance Project on these topics and aims at contributing to the process leading to the Rio+20 Conference.
