Climate governance in an international system under conservative hegemony

What is it about?

The goal of this chapter is to discuss in both conceptual and empirical terms the structure of global climate governance, through exploratory research, aiming at identifying the key elements that allow understanding its dynamics. In this structure, a specific kind of agent is prominent in shaping climate social outcome – the climate powers.

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Why is it important?

Climate change has been established as a central civilizational driver of our time. As a result of this development, the most diversified social processes – as well as the fields of science which study them – have had their dynamics altered. In International Relations, this double challenge could be explained as follows: 1) in empirical terms, climate change imposes a deepening of cooperation levels on the international community, considering the global common character of the atmosphere; and 2) to International Relations as a discipline, climate change demands from the scientific community a conceptual review of the categories designed to approach the development of global climate governance. The goal of this article is to discuss in both conceptual and empirical terms the structure of global climate change governance, through exploratory research, aiming at identifying the key elements that allow understanding its dynamics. To do so, we rely on the concept of climate powers. This discussion is grounded in the following framework: we now live in an international system under conservative hegemony that is unable to properly respond to the problems of interdependence, among which – and mainly –, the climate issue.

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