Opening Plenary | ESG Scientific Steering Committee

The Opening Plenary of the 2024 ESG Forum will serve as the official launch of this year’s event, setting the tone for the discussions and collaborations that will unfold throughout the week. This session will bring together participants from across the globe to explore the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities in Earth System Governance. As the forum kicks off, the Opening Plenary will offer a space for reflection on the current state of ESG research and set the stage for the rich exchange of ideas to come. Cristina Aoki Inoue, Co-chair of the ESG Scientific Steering Committee (SSC), will deliver the opening address. In her remarks, she will provide a brief overview of the Earth System Governance Project in 2024, highlighting key areas of progress and ongoing challenges within the field in an era of polycrisis. Following the opening remarks, fellow SSC member and ESG Forum Committee member DG Webster will introduce the session’s keynote speaker, Susan Park.

Susan will open the ESG Forum with an example from her own research demonstrating clearly the need to re-imagine earth system governance in an era of polycrisis. Susan will discuss whether grievance mechanisms provide eco-justice, where communities seek to be recognised and participate, can lead full lives safe from undue environmental risk, in ecosystems that can regenerate and repair. This is significant given increasing environmental conflict and deaths at project sites around the world and the compounding effects of climate change and biodiversity loss contributing to more intensive and extensive environmental disasters. Examining over 500 original claims to the Multilateral Development Banks’ mechanisms over 25 years, Susan will argue that it remains a challenge for the mechanisms to deliver eco-justice, but there is the potential to improve global rules for remedy in a time of polycrisis. This will be connected to the implications of states, activism and multilateral institutions in strengthening earth system governance in an era of polycrisis. Following Susan’s keynote address, DG Webster will moderate a Q&A session from the audience, opening up the week-long collaborative discussion that will take place across the globe and across disciplines on the theme of re-imagining earth system governance in an era of polycrisis. The opening plenary will conclude with closing remarks by members of the SSC, welcoming the entire community to join the week of diverse events.