ClimBio Frontiers is a 3-year (Sept 2024-Aug 2027) project funded by the Independent Research Fund of Denmark. The project is motivated by growing awareness that climate change and biodiversity loss are so entwined that attempts to address them in isolation will be limited at best and possibly counter-productive by generating unintended consequences that exacerbate each problem. Scientists and decision-makers contend that meeting this challenge requires “transformative” changes in governance to break down silos and develop more holistic approaches to governing the interconnected problems of climate change and biodiversity loss while attending to social justice goals. ClimBio Frontiers explores how transnational governance initiatives (TGIs) are delineating, sustaining and contesting the contours of the “climate-biodiversity frontier” as a new governance arena. Importantly, the project examines how the politics of transformative change are playing out in this rapidly evolving landscape: whose rights and interests should be protected? how should burdens and benefits be distributed? how will trade-offs between climate, biodiversity and social goals by handled and who decides? The project’s work packages are organized around two research questions:
- What forms of transnational governance are emerging to simultaneously address climate, biodiversity, and social goals?
- How are the interconnections between climate change, biodiversity loss, and social justice framed and contested through the work of TGIs?
To answer these questions, the ClimBio Frontiers team is building a novel open-access database of more than 250 TGIs that recognize climate change and biodiversity loss as interconnected data. The database will include information on each TGI’s characteristics, leading and participating actors, governance activities, framing of the climate-biodiversity linkage, and concerns for social justice and transformation. The project engages several of the ESG Project’s Research Lenses (Architecture & Agency and Justice & Allocation) and Contextual Conditions (Anthropocene, Inequality and Transformations).
Research Team
- Michele Betsill, Lead PI, University of Copenhagen
- Harriet Bulkeley, co-PI, Durham University/Utrecht University
- Stacy VanDeveer, co-PI, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Benedikte Raft, PhD Fellow, University of Copenhagen
- Buket Altinçelep, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Elodie Matthews, Research Assistant, Cambridge University
- Firmesk Rahim, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Jiedine Phanbug, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Laura Kilbury, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Nnaemeka Phil Eke-Okocha, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts, Boston
- Vere de Jong, Research Assistant, University of Copenhagen
- Weston Marume, Research Assistant, University of Massachusetts, Boston