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When optimization for governing human-environment tipping elements is neither sustainable nor safe.

ABSTRACT: Optimizing economic welfare in environmental governance has been criticized for delivering short-term gains at the expense of long-term environmental degradation. Different from economic optimization, the concepts of sustainability and the more recent safe operating space have been used to derive policies in environmental governance. However, a formal comparison between these three policy paradigms is still missing, leaving policy makers uncertain which paradigm to apply. Here, we develop a better understanding of their interrelationships, using a stylized model of human-environment tipping elements. We find that no paradigm guarantees fulfilling requirements imposed by another paradigm and derive simple heuristics for the conditions under which these trade-offs occur. We show that the absence of such a master paradigm is of special relevance for governing real-world tipping systems such as climate, fisheries, and farming, which may reside in a parameter regime where economic optimization is neither sustainable nor safe.

SUBMITTER: Barfuss W

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6003916 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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When optimization for governing human-environment tipping elements is neither sustainable nor safe.

Barfuss Wolfram W Donges Jonathan F JF Lade Steven J SJ Kurths Jürgen J

Nature communications 20180615 1

Optimizing economic welfare in environmental governance has been criticized for delivering short-term gains at the expense of long-term environmental degradation. Different from economic optimization, the concepts of sustainability and the more recent safe operating space have been used to derive policies in environmental governance. However, a formal comparison between these three policy paradigms is still missing, leaving policy makers uncertain which paradigm to apply. Here, we develop a bett ...[more]

PMID: 29907743

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When optimization for governing human-environment tipping elements is neither sustainable nor safe.

Publications

When optimization for governing human-environment tipping elements is neither sustainable nor safe.

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