Call for papers: environmental sustainability

The journal Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability has announced a call for papers for an open issue that will come out in late 2016. The issue, the editors write in their announcement, will address the 2015-2016 period in international policy and science: a two-year span that has already seen large shifts in initiatives to build a sustainable world. The journal, which is published by Elsevier, specialises in short reviews of recent literature. The editors write that they seek:

…proposals for manuscripts focused on assessments and analyses of different aspects of the challenges and opportunities within the current global-scale sustainability turn. Proposed manuscripts should focus on elements relevant to data and information needs, existing knowledge gaps, mechanisms and methods to fill these gaps, and how to best ensure meaningful science-policy linkages.

Interested researchers should submit their abstracts by March 25. Full articles are due by June 15. You can find more information about this special issue here.

In their announcement, the editors call the 2015-2016 period “a watershed moment for global environmental sustainability efforts.” Last year, representatives from 55 countries ratified an agreement at the COP21 conference in Paris to pursue policies that would halt warming from climate change at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Future Earth played a major role in this conference, Owen Gaffney reports in his recent blog post. In 2016, global communities will meet in Quito, Ecuador, at the Habitat III conference to lay out new plans for supporting sustainable urban development.