Panel presenter, Sustainable development post-2030: Whose development for what sustainability? – PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Earth System Governance Conference, Nijmegen

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Report: Sustainable development discourse has emphasized the joint importance of environmental and development agendas at least since its original definition by the Brundtland Commission. Increasingly, the global narrative has come to see the two as intrinsically co-constitutive. This is also reflected in popular notions like just transitions and just transformative change, as well as in the Earth System Boundaries put forward by the Earth Commission. At the same time, and beyond all too positive-optimistic attitudes, these notions are also fraught with tensions. After all, they are multi-interpretable and highlight problematic relations of spatial and temporal injustice and inequity. What transforms, what makes it ‘just’, and whose development are we really talking about? Because of such questions, it is far from self-evident how research in and practice of earth system governance could advance sustainable development going forward. Now is also an especially opportune time to address these questions, as talks on a post-2030/post-SDG sustainable development agenda are beginning to start. For instance, an SDG Summit will be held in September 2023 during the UN General Assembly focused on accelerating action towards meeting the SDGs in 2030. This panel discussion seeks to open up a transdisciplinary dialogue to articulate what is at stake for a post-2030 sustainable development agenda, and to discuss how actors in science, policy and society can contribute.