228
of the platform is to set up a “hub or rear base” at the University of Ibn Zohr in
Agadir to develop transdisciplinary research and training mechanisms on climate
change and its impacts on the functioning of ecosystems and their goods and services in arid and semiarid regions. Currently, the main challenge to achieve sustainable development resides in ensuring that decision-making processes are
supported by science. How to translate scientific knowledge on complex long-term
issues at the national, cross-regional, and transatlantic scale into better informed
public policy remains an open question for multi-sectoral partnerships. The main
thread underlying this chapter relates to the establishment of interface models
between science and policy: what challenges will the Agadir Platform assume to
bridge various forms of interdisciplinary science and policy expertise to inform
decision- makers on long-term wicked problems related to drylands socio-ecological systems?
Keywords Governance · South–South · Tripartite cooperation · Open data · Public
policy · Sustainability
Introduction
The adoption of a new climate agreement by the 196 Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015
has been regarded worldwide as a historic achievement. Assuming the Paris
Agreement is implemented consistently, it will mark a watershed in climate governance, and lead to profound transformations in the global economy and society.
With the publication of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014 (Burkett et al. 2014), it became evident
that a business-as- usual approach was no longer viable and that a complete overhaul
of environmental policy was required. Since then, policy elaboration has grown to
encompass all areas of human development, and accordingly, climate change adaptation has been brought to the fore by the Paris Agreement, stressing the need for
international action and cooperation, particularly with regard to vulnerable developing countries.
To date, global environmental governance has largely been decentralized, and its
mechanisms have assumed a variety of forms beyond multilateral agreements. The
issue is therefore to determine how governance distributed in the hands of a wide
range of actors (state and non-state) can be made effective locally (Chan et al. 2016).
The functioning of complex systems, such as drylands, can be explained through the
concept of “emergence,” that is, how a system intertwined with its environment
reacts to changes in the latter, in a way it would not do so in isolation. Emergence,
when referring to function in an environment is related to the concept of collective
behaviors. Any system and its environment can thus be seen as parts of larger systems encompassing their interactions and feedback mechanisms. In the context of
collective behaviors, “emergence” refers to the way collective properties arise from
A. Rizzo et al.
of the platform is to set up a “hub or rear base” at the University of Ibn Zohr in
Agadir to develop transdisciplinary research and training mechanisms on climate
change and its impacts on the functioning of ecosystems and their goods and services in arid and semiarid regions. Currently, the main challenge to achieve sustainable development resides in ensuring that decision-making processes are
supported by science. How to translate scientific knowledge on complex long-term
issues at the national, cross-regional, and transatlantic scale into better informed
public policy remains an open question for multi-sectoral partnerships. The main
thread underlying this chapter relates to the establishment of interface models
between science and policy: what challenges will the Agadir Platform assume to
bridge various forms of interdisciplinary science and policy expertise to inform
decision- makers on long-term wicked problems related to drylands socio-ecological systems?
Keywords Governance · South–South · Tripartite cooperation · Open data · Public
policy · Sustainability
Introduction
The adoption of a new climate agreement by the 196 Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Paris in December 2015
has been regarded worldwide as a historic achievement. Assuming the Paris
Agreement is implemented consistently, it will mark a watershed in climate governance, and lead to profound transformations in the global economy and society.
With the publication of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2014 (Burkett et al. 2014), it became evident
that a business-as- usual approach was no longer viable and that a complete overhaul
of environmental policy was required. Since then, policy elaboration has grown to
encompass all areas of human development, and accordingly, climate change adaptation has been brought to the fore by the Paris Agreement, stressing the need for
international action and cooperation, particularly with regard to vulnerable developing countries.
To date, global environmental governance has largely been decentralized, and its
mechanisms have assumed a variety of forms beyond multilateral agreements. The
issue is therefore to determine how governance distributed in the hands of a wide
range of actors (state and non-state) can be made effective locally (Chan et al. 2016).
The functioning of complex systems, such as drylands, can be explained through the
concept of “emergence,” that is, how a system intertwined with its environment
reacts to changes in the latter, in a way it would not do so in isolation. Emergence,
when referring to function in an environment is related to the concept of collective
behaviors. Any system and its environment can thus be seen as parts of larger systems encompassing their interactions and feedback mechanisms. In the context of
collective behaviors, “emergence” refers to the way collective properties arise from
A. Rizzo et al.