Governance before agreement in novel sustainability technologies

What happens when emerging sustainability technologies are developed and tested before broad agreement emerges on how to govern them?

Associate Professor Pedro Fidelman explored this question at the Earth System Governance Conference in Bath, UK, drawing on our research on novel reef interventions for the Great Barrier Reef.

Technologies such as marine cloud brightening, RNA-based biopesticides and conservation biotechnology are creating new possibilities for responding to sustainability challenges. But they can also create regulatory gaps or misfits when existing governance arrangements were designed for different problems and interventions.

This raises a broader question for Earth System Governance: how does governance develop across different levels when broader governance convergence has not yet emerged?

The Great Barrier Reef case shows that governance can still develop in the absence of broader agreement. Existing institutions can interpret regulatory arrangements, assess risks, authorise experimentation, develop guidance, and learn and adapt as technologies develop.

Pedro describes this as governance before agreement.