Project
Transformative and just climate and biodiversity pathways (PhD project - Sofie Ryan)
My PhD research is embedded in the Horizon Europe TRANSPATH project, and will focus on the governance of synergized climate change and biodiversity transformations that respect human rights. The research will focus on a case study in the Netherlands, working together with diverse stakeholders to develop context-based transformative pathways towards achieving climate-neutrality while allowing local communities and nature to flourish.
Background
My research contributes to the Horizon Europe project ‘TRANSPATH’ (transformative pathways for synergizing just biodiversity and climate actions). TRANSPATH is built on the premise that the global biodiversity and climate change crises cannot be solved in isolation or by simply ramping up what is already being done, thus focusing on ‘transformative’ change, as change going beyond incremental shifts in direct drivers, towards targeting deeper underlying drivers of these crises, such as values and structures. The project involves the collaboration of a diverse group of researchers and stakeholders to seek whole-of-society opportunities for enabling and triggering transformative changes at consumer, producer, and organizational levels across diverse contexts in Eastern and Western Europe, Africa, and Latin America. My research will develop the Western European case study through participatory methods in the Dutch context, with a focus on how governance can enable and trigger these transformative changes.
Description
My project focuses on reflexive governance for transformative change towards biodiversity-positive and climate-proofed societies, with sensitivity to social-cultural contexts and -rights. This involves operationalizing and comparing ‘safe and just operating spaces’ for climate change, biodiversity, and human rights through literature and policy reviews, and reflexive deliberation with stakeholders. I will develop, test, and apply methods and tools for reflexive deliberation among diverse stakeholders at various governance levels, and analyse their contribution to individual and social learning. Specifically, in a landscape-based Dutch case study, I will develop and apply co-design methods and tools to map the complex social-ecological system through fuzzy cognitive mapping; vision desirable futures in the context of a safe and just operating space for climate change, biodiversity, and human rights; and develop transformative pathways addressing multiple leverage points and temporal scales, to move into this desired future. Through this, I will also draw broader learnings for the reflexive governance of climate change and biodiversity.
