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The WMO High Mountain Summit on 29-31 October 2019 concluded with a Call to Action and a roadmap of priority activities. The priority actions aim to support more sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation both in high-mountain areas and downstream. Mountain regions cover about a quarter of the Earth's land surface. They are important sources of freshwater, centres of biological and cultural diversity as well as traditional knowledge, being home to a quarter of the world's population. High-mountain areas include all mountain regions where glaciers, snow or permafrost are prominent features of the landscape (IPCC). River basins with headwaters in the mountains supply freshwater to over half of humanity, thus mountains are often referred to as "the water towers" of the world. However, rising global temperatures are causing changes to mountain meteorology, hydrology, and ecology, including the cryosphere – snow, glaciers, frozen ground. Natural hazards, environmental alterations and the loss of critical mountain ecosystems are increasing the risk of local and downstream disasters. Large mountain regions play a key role in the evolution of large-scale weather systems. The anticipated increase in uncertainty in water availability from mountain rivers is a significant risk factor for local and downstream agriculture, forestry, food production, fisheries, hydropower production, transportation, tourism, recreation, infrastructure, domestic water supply and human health. The WMO Summit highlighted that – in spite of the above facts – Earth system processes over complex mountain terrain are insufficiently observed and understood to confidently model their behaviour. Consequently, the resulting impacts of those changes on people and economies have not been well-articulated in major international policy frameworks such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction or the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. As water security is becoming one of the greatest challenges for humanity, and a source of political tension within and between nations, the absence of such references makes the task of developing and implementing relevant policies much more difficult.

As governments propose policies for increasing use of renewable energy, a key risk to policy implementation concerns potential conflicts amongst stakeholders, and public opposition to such policies. Adequately accounting for stakeholders' values and interests is key to understanding whether stakeholders' perspectives pose a risk to energy policy implementation. We present results from a case study on the implementation of a renewable energy project in Switzerland, where we applied Q methodology. Three perspectives were identified, namely: 1) promotion for local development and production of energy ('Local pro-producers'); 2) promotion for a national level 'greener' environmental agenda ('National greens'); and 3) regional government empowerment for implementing energy policies ('Cantonal leverage'). These three perspectives reflect different sets of values and priorities for local, cantonal and national interests, revealing disagreements with the energy policy at different levels of government. The key basis for disagreement rests on which objectives of the policy to prioritize, i.e. energy efficiency, sustainable development, electricity reduction or production. Despite this disagreement, stakeholders largely agree on the importance of an inclusive and democratic decision process. These findings support calls for the explicit and systematic consideration for deep-seated values and perspectives amongst stakeholders on an evidentiary basis. ; ISSN:0301-4215

An interdisciplinary study was conducted in the Kailash Sacred Landscape region in north-western Nepal, to explore opportunities for, and barriers to, sustainable tourism as an adaptation strategy, not only for reducing community vulnerability to climate change but also as a poverty-alleviation measure. Whilst the primary focus was on interactions between tourism and climate change, the study revealed a highly complex system, with many social, economic, environmental, and institutional drivers involved. In order to bring some clarity and consistency in the exploration of these complex interactions in context, elements of the policy sciences, primarily problem orientation, were utilised. The exploratory nature of the study, including its objectives and intended use, meant that goal clarification and analyses of trends were based on limited available information. Despite these shortcomings, the study was able to elucidate and clarify on important factors to consider in consultation with relevant participants. Diversification of livelihood options as well as preserving local culture were found to be highly valued-both by the local communities that were consulted as well as for those advocating for a tourism experience that is unique to this region. Harmonising these valued outcomes could be achieved by incorporating and legitimising local traditional knowledge. Insights into further collaboration on the issue of valued outcomes would strengthen and support the knowledge base for an appraisal of possible development pathways. Adapted from the source document.

With the Aichi Biodiversity Targets coming to an end in 2020, the world is preparing for a new set of ambitious biodiversity targets and goals to follow. This brief, prepared ahead of the first Open-Ended Working Group meeting on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in August 2019, highlights how mountains are important areas for the world's biodiversity, how mountains are currently reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and why these regions deserve specific attention in the new biodiversity framework. This thematic brief and its contents will be periodically updated as the framework takes further shape. This brief was prepared by GRID-Arendal and UN Environment in collaboration with the Mountain Research initiative (MRI), the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment (GMBA), GRASP, the Alpine Convention and the Carpathian Convention, and received financial support from the Government of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg through the Vanishing Treasures project.

The notion of 'transformations towards sustainability' takes an increasingly central position in global sustainability research and policy discourse in recent years. Governance and politics are central to understanding and analysing transformations towards sustainability. However, despite receiving growing attention in recent years, the governance and politics aspects of transformations remain arguably under-developed in the global sustainability literature. A variety of conceptual approaches have been developed to understand and analyse societal transition or transformation processes, including: socio-technical transitions, social-ecological systems, sustainability pathways, and transformative adaptation. This paper critically surveys these four approaches, and reflects on them through the lens of the Earth System Governance framework (Biermann et al., 2009). This contributes to appreciating existing insights on transformations, and to identifying key research challenges and opportunities. Overall, the paper brings together diverse perspectives, that have so far remained largely fragmented, in order to strengthen the foundation for future research on transformations towards sustainability.

Over the last two decades researchers have come to understand much about the global challenges confronting human society (e.g. climate change; biodiversity loss; water, energy and food insecurity; poverty and widening social inequality). However, the extent to which research and policy efforts are succeeding in steering human societies towards more sustainable and just futures is unclear. Attention is increasingly turning towards better understanding how to navigate processes of social and institutional transformation to bring about more desirable trajectories of change in various sectors of human society. A major knowledge gap concerns understanding how transformations towards sustainability are conceptualised, understood and analysed. Limited existing scholarship on this topic is fragmented, sometimes overly deterministic, and weak in its capacity to critically analyse transformation processes which are inherently political and contested. This paper aims to advance understanding of transformations towards sustainability, recognising it as both a normative and an analytical concept. We firstly review existing concepts of transformation in global environmental change literature, and the role of governance in relation to it. We then propose a framework for understanding and critically analysing transformations towards sustainability based on the existing 'Earth System Governance' framework (Biermann et al., 2009). We then outline a research agenda, and argue that transdisciplinary research approaches and a key role for early career researchers are vital for pursuing this agenda. Finally, we argue that critical reflexivity among global environmental change scholars, both individually and collectively, will be important for developing innovative research on transformations towards sustainability to meaningfully contribute to policy and action over time.

Mountains are globally distributed environments that provide significant societal benefits, a function that is increasingly compromised by climatic change, environmental stress, political and socioeconomic transformations, and unsustainable use of natural resources. Gaps in our understanding of these processes and their interactions limit our capacity to inform decisions, where both generalities of mountain regions (eg climate processes) and specificities (eg context-specific manifestations of climate risks) matter. The Global Network for Observations and Information on Mountain Environments (GEO-GNOME), a Group on Earth Observations initiative, aims to fill these gaps through accessible Earth Observation (EO) as well as in-situ data and information on global change drivers, conditions, and trends. A workshop convened by the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) revised GEO-GNOME's work plan, galvanizing a network that promotes relevant monitoring of global change in mountains and is responsive to the integrated knowledge needs of policy, research, and management.

Mountains are globally distributed environments that provide significant societal benefits, a function that is increasingly compromised by climatic change, environmental stress, political and socioeconomic transformations, and unsustainable use of natural resources. Gaps in our understanding of these processes and their interactions limit our capacity to inform decisions, where both generalities of mountain regions (eg climate processes) and specificities (eg context-specific manifestations of climate risks) matter. The Global Network for Observations and Information on Mountain Environments (GEO-GNOME), a Group on Earth Observations initiative, aims to fill these gaps through accessible Earth Observation (EO) as well as in-situ data and information on global change drivers, conditions, and trends. A workshop convened by the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) revised GEO-GNOME's work plan, galvanizing a network that promotes relevant monitoring of global change in mountains and is responsive to the integrated knowledge needs of policy, research, and management.

Mountains are globally distributed environments that provide significant societal benefits, a function that is increasingly compromised by climatic change, environmental stress, political and socioeconomic transformations, and unsustainable use of natural resources. Gaps in our understanding of these processes and their interactions limit our capacity to inform decisions, where both generalities of mountain regions (eg climate processes) and specificities (eg context-specific manifestations of climate risks) matter. The Global Network for Observations and Information on Mountain Environments (GEO-GNOME), a Group on Earth Observations initiative, aims to fill these gaps through accessible Earth Observation (EO) as well as in-situ data and information on global change drivers, conditions, and trends. A workshop convened by the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI) revised GEO-GNOME's work plan, galvanizing a network that promotes relevant monitoring of global change in mountains and is responsive to the integrated knowledge needs of policy, research, and management.

Su invito della presidente del Consiglio nazionale Irène Kälin e del presidente del Consiglio degli Stati Thomas Hefti, il 2 maggio 2022 il Parlamento ha discusso con i ricercatori le sfide della crisi del clima e della biodiversità. I politici hanno scambiato opinioni con scienziati che lavorano in Svizzera e con gli autori dei rapporti del Gruppo intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici e del Gruppo intergovernativo sulla biodiversità. ; Guisan A, Huggel C, Seneviratne SI, Steinberger J (2022). Inversione di tendenza clima e biodiversità. Il Parlamento incontra la scienza. Swiss Academies Communications 17 (6)

Auf Einladung der Nationalratspräsidentin Irène Kälin und des Ständeratspräsidenten Thomas Hefti diskutierte das Parlament am 2. Mai mit Forschenden die Herausforderungen der Klima- und Biodiversitätskrise. Die Politikerinnen und Politiker tauschten sich mit den in der Schweiz tätigen Wissenschaftlern und Verfasserinnen der Berichte des Weltklimarates und des Weltbiodiversitätsrates aus. ; Guisan A, Huggel C, Seneviratne SI, Steinberger J (2022) Trendwende Klima und Biodiversität. Parlament trifft Wissenschaft Swiss Academies Communications 17 (6).