TY - JOUR

T1 - Governing global telecoupling toward environmental sustainability

AU - Newig, Jens

AU - Challies, Edward

AU - Cotta, Benedetta

AU - Lenschow, Andrea

AU - Schilling-Vacaflor, Almut

N1 - This work was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under grants no. CH 1643/2-1, LE 2396/4-1 and NE 1207/7-1 through the project “GOVERNECT - Governance of Environmental Sustainability in Telecoupled Systems of Global Inter-Regional Connectedness” (see https://sustainability-governance. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 by the author(s).

PY - 2020/12

Y1 - 2020/12

N2 - Telecoupling constitutes a particular class of globalized environmental issues that are neither local-cumulative, nor transboundary, nor concerning global commons, but that arise because of specific linkages between distal regions. Such telecoupled issues, e.g., associated with global commodity chains, waste flows, or migration patterns, have been receiving increasing attention from scholars of global land change science. Although governance research has mostly studied existing institutional responses to these issues, telecoupling opens up a problem-oriented perspective on issues of environmental sustainability that occur regionally, but that arise because of global linkages, and raises novel questions about how such issues are and could be governed in a global architecture. We draw insights from existing literature on globally interconnected phenomena to advance our understanding of governing telecoupling toward environmental sustainability. We first identify and discuss five particular challenges that telecoupling poses to global environmental governance: knowledge deficits, divergent interests, high transaction costs of cooperation, the weak legitimacy base of current governance arrangements, and policy incoherence and fragmentation. Second, we review conceptual literature that meaningfully address the governance of telecoupling, while utilizing differing terminologies, for example, through reference to “flows,” “chains,” or “multiscalar” issues. Building on this, we elaborate on how currently debated governance approaches respond to the identified challenges. We conclude with a brief note on where we believe the discussion on governance of telecoupling stands, and where we see directions for future research.

AB - Telecoupling constitutes a particular class of globalized environmental issues that are neither local-cumulative, nor transboundary, nor concerning global commons, but that arise because of specific linkages between distal regions. Such telecoupled issues, e.g., associated with global commodity chains, waste flows, or migration patterns, have been receiving increasing attention from scholars of global land change science. Although governance research has mostly studied existing institutional responses to these issues, telecoupling opens up a problem-oriented perspective on issues of environmental sustainability that occur regionally, but that arise because of global linkages, and raises novel questions about how such issues are and could be governed in a global architecture. We draw insights from existing literature on globally interconnected phenomena to advance our understanding of governing telecoupling toward environmental sustainability. We first identify and discuss five particular challenges that telecoupling poses to global environmental governance: knowledge deficits, divergent interests, high transaction costs of cooperation, the weak legitimacy base of current governance arrangements, and policy incoherence and fragmentation. Second, we review conceptual literature that meaningfully address the governance of telecoupling, while utilizing differing terminologies, for example, through reference to “flows,” “chains,” or “multiscalar” issues. Building on this, we elaborate on how currently debated governance approaches respond to the identified challenges. We conclude with a brief note on where we believe the discussion on governance of telecoupling stands, and where we see directions for future research.

KW - Environmental Governance

KW - environmental flows

KW - fragmentation

KW - global commodity chains

KW - global environmental governance

KW - inter-regional connectedness

KW - scale

KW - environmental flows

KW - fragmentation

KW - global commodity chains

KW - global environmental governance

KW - inter-regional connectedness

KW - scale

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098587149&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.5751/ES-11844-250421

DO - 10.5751/ES-11844-250421

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 25

SP - 1

EP - 17

JO - Ecology and Society

JF - Ecology and Society

SN - 1708-3087

IS - 4

M1 - 21

ER -