Designing effective and equitable zero-deforestation supply chain policies

In response to the clearing of tropical forests for agricultural expansion, agri-food companies have adopted promises to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains in the form of ‘zero-deforestation commitments’ (ZDCs). While there is growing evidence about the environmental effectiveness of these commitments (i.e., whether they meet their conservation goals), there is little information on how they influence producers’ opportunity to access sustainable markets and related livelihood outcomes, or how design and implementation choices influence tradeoffs or potential synergies between effectiveness and equity in access. This paper explores these research gaps and makes three main contributions by: i) defining and justifying the importance of analyzing access equity and its relation to effectiveness when implementing forest-focused supply chain policies such as ZDCs, ii) identifying seven policy design principles that are likely to maximize synergies between effectiveness and access equity, and iii) assessing effectiveness-access equity tensions and synergies across common ZDC implementation mechanisms amongst the five largest firms in each of the leading agricultural forest-risk commodity sectors: palm oil, soybeans, beef cattle, and cocoa. To enhance forest conservation while avoiding harm to the most vulnerable farmers in the tropics, it is necessary to combine stringent rules with widespread capacity building, greater involvement of affected actors in the co-production of implementation mechanisms, and support for alternative rural development paths.     

Juggling multiple dimensions in a complex socio-ecosystem: The issue of targeting in payments for ecosystem services

Proponents of payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes advocate targeting payments to geographical areas that can: (a) maintain or enhance ecosystem services, (b) permit economically efficient arrangements and (c) address poverty objectives. The location of these efficient, effective and equitable (or triple-win) solutions is viewed as the ‘holy grail’ of PES and is often sought in isolation to broader socio-economic pressures, political relationships, or local cultural conditions. While the plethora of PES design perspectives often follow the concepts of efficiency and effectiveness, they seldom relate to pluralistic value systems and may disparage local self-determination for influencing the form and terms of negotiation. This paper critically analyses the assumptions underpinning the design of PES schemes which seek to optimise or target efficient, effective and poverty objectives. Using a case study for a proposed PES initiative in the Kathmandu Valley of Nepal, we employ spatial analysis to geographically visualise the discrepancy between the location for a typology of targeted objectives and actual preferences which support local perceptions of natural resource use and conservation. The case study highlights the inequity inherent in targeting payments under a neoliberal framing. Instead, spatially differentiating incentives according to socially determined priorities and collective management is suggested.     

Thirteen plus one: a comparison of global climate policy architectures

We critically review the Kyoto Protocol and thirteen alternative policy architectures for addressing the threat of global climate change. We employ six criteria to evaluate the policy proposals: environmental outcome, dynamic efficiency, cost-effectiveness, equity, flexibility in the presence of new information, and incentives for participation and compliance. The Kyoto Protocol does not fare well on a number of criteria, but none of the alternative proposals fare well along all six dimensions. We identify several major themes among the alternative proposals: Kyoto is “too little, too fast”; developing countries (DCs) should play a more substantial role and receive incentives to participate; implementation should focus on market-based approaches, especially those with price mechanisms; and participation and compliance incentives are inadequately addressed by most proposals. Our investigation reveals tensions among several of the evaluative criteria, such as between environmental outcome and efficiency, and between cost-effectiveness and incentives for participation and compliance.     

Scale mismatches and their ecological and economic effects on landscapes: A spatially explicit model

Mismatches between the spatial scales of human decision-making and natural processes contribute to environmental problems such as global warming and biodiversity losses. People damage the environment through local activities like clearing land or burning fossil fuels, but the damages only become manifest at larger regional or global scales where no one pays for them. Payments for ecological services like carbon sequestration can correct for these damages caused by scale mismatches. This paper presents a spatially explicit land-use model to investigate the consequences of scale mismatches for pollination and carbon storage services and examine the effect of payment for only carbon storage services. The model integrates processes in multiple spatial scales ranging from the parcel level used by landowners’ decision about deforestation, to the larger scale used by animals to pollinate plants, and finally to the global scale where carbon storage services are supplied. We show that payment for carbon storage services can become an effective mechanism to protect forests at the same time that it creates inequities among landowners in income level.These findings suggest that market-based approaches that focus on conservation of a single ecosystem service may reproduce unequal power relations among landowners.     

The political ecology playbook for ecosystem restoration: Principles for effective,equitable, and transformative landscapes

The urgency of restoring ecosystems to improve human wellbeing and mitigate climate and biodiversity crises is attracting global attention. The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021–2030) is a global call to action to support the restoration of degraded ecosystems. And yet, many forest restoration efforts, for instance, have failed to meet restoration goals; indeed, they worsened social precarities and ecological conditions. By merely focusing on symptoms of forest loss and degradation, these interventions have neglected the underlying issues of equity and justice driving forest decline. To address these root causes, thus creating socially just and sustainable solutions, we develop the Political Ecology Playbook for Ecosystem Restoration. We outline a set of ten principles for achieving long-lasting, resilient, and equitable ecosystem restoration. These principles are guided by political ecology, a framework that addresses environmental concerns from a broadly political economic perspective, attending to power, politics, and equity within specific geographic and historical contexts. Drawing on the chain of explanation, this multi-scale, cross-landscapes Playbook aims to produce healthy relationships between people and nature that are ecologically, socially, and economically just – and thus sustainable and resilient – while recognizing the political nature of such relationships. We argue that the Political Ecology Playbook should guide ecosystem restoration worldwide.     

公平实现《巴黎协定》目标的碳减排贡献分担研究综述

各国目前的国家自主贡献与实现《巴黎协定》温控目标的要求仍有较大的差距,各国进一步强化其自主贡献力度亟需公平的碳减排贡献分担作为目标参考。本文系统梳理了碳减排分配涉及的公平原则及其4个主要维度,即排放责任、经济能力、人均主义和国家主义,评述了依据不同维度或维度组合制定的分配方案的研究进展和存在的问题,并将该领域错综复杂的分歧矛盾分为3个层次,即公平原则维度的选择、分配机制的设计以及具体参数设置。研究发现,目前旨在指导各国提高自主贡献力度的公平分配研究在全面性、一致性和客观性方面仍有缺陷,特别是基于多元文献分析以及综合分配模型的综合分配研究不能全面客观地反映发展中国家对公平的关切。为此,本文针对性地提出了未来碳减排贡献分担综合研究的需求和方向,即需要系统阐述发展中国家视角的公平分配方案并构建一个全面、平衡、客观的综合碳减排贡献分担模型,以提升中国在这一问题上的话语权,在公平实现《巴黎协定》目标的进程中更好地发挥贡献者和引领者的作用。     

Social equity and the probability of success of biodiversity conservation

Conservation actions generally benefit some groups more than others, and this inequity is thought to affect the probability of achieving conservation objectives. This has led to the common assumption that triple bottom line solutions – those that are effective, efficient, and equitable – are best and most likely to achieve each individual objective. Although this may be true, it has been little tested, and importantly lacks a conceptual foundation for understanding, predicting and evaluating how equity affects conservation outcomes. We describe types of equity relevant to conservation and explore how they may affect the probability of successfully achieving conservation outcomes. Depending on the equity type and context, the relationship between equity and conservation success varies. We find that the best conservation outcome is often achieved without perfect equity; highlighting the risk of ignoring the relationship between equity and success. We offer a conceptual foundation for better addressing this important issue in future research and application.     

Towards integrated governance for water, health and social–ecological systems: The watershed governance prism

This article proposes a shift toward the integrated governance of watersheds as a basis for fostering health, sustainability and social–ecological resilience. The authors suggest that integrated watershed governance is more likely when different perspectives, including health and well-being, are explicitly understood, communicated, and sought as co-benefits of watershed management. A new conceptual device – the watershed governance prism – is introduced in relation to the multiple facets of governance that characterize contemporary water resources management and examined as an integrative framework to link social and environmental concerns with the determinants of health in the watershed context. The authors assess the diagnostic and communicative potential of such a framework, discussing its utility as a concise depiction of multiple, interacting policy priorities and as a guide to integrate different research and policy domains into the governance of water, health and social–ecological systems.     

Great expectations: can international emissions trading deliver an equitable climate regime?

Climate change equity debates tend to focus on achieving a fair and global ‘allocation’ of emission rights among countries. Allocation proposals typically envision, if implicitly, two purposes for international emissions trading. First, trading is expected to serve as a cost-effective means of promoting compliance with emissions targets. Second, trading is posited as a means to generate financial transfers, typically from industrialized to transitioning and developing countries.This article investigates the common assumption that international emissions trading will effectively serve both of these purposes. We conclude that the two purposes might not be mutually supportive, and that efforts to use international emissions trading as a financial transfer mechanism may potentially undermine cost-effectiveness goals. International emissions trading on a global scale would create new risks in terms of both cost-effectiveness and environmental performance, some of which will be challenging to manage. In particular, uncertainties over market prices and trading eligibility, coupled with the costs of participation, may together be the Achilles heel of some allocation proposals that entail large financial transfers from industrialized to developing countries. Any proposal for an ‘equitable’ allocation of emission allowances, we conclude, must be cognizant of the risks and costs implied by a reliance on international emissions trading. We offer some suggestions to this end.