Climate Change Governance

Within less than three decades, climate change has developed from a rather obscure scientific topic into a key item on the global political agenda. It has also attracted strong attention in many areas of scientific research, including the social sciences. Social scientists, and notably governance specialists focusing on climate change have addressed a wide range of important questions, including the following: • What are the key political challenges in establishing and implementing governance systems to cope with climatic changes? • Why are some countries in the international system more cooperative than others in this respect? • To what extent can local efforts in climate policy support national and global efforts? • What are the main normative issues associated with climate change policy, notably, how should the costs and benefits associated with solving the problem be distributed across countries and time? • Which policy instruments are likely to be more effective and/or efficient in dealing with climate change? In this contribution we focus mainly on the first four of these questions