An Emerging Meta-System Pathology in U.S. Climate Governance

What is it about?

Polycentric governance enables decentralized yet coherent multilevel decision-making by fostering alignment across governance, policy, and strategic goals. In the United States (U.S.), a prominent global climate actor, this polycentric structure is being tested. An Executive Order issued on 8 April 2025, opens the possibility to stop the enforcement of state-level laws that might condition the exploitation of energy resources based on considerations concerning climate change and the environment. This federal action might disrupt subnational efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate climate impacts, exposing a misalignment between federal and state climate governance—a dynamic that remains underexplored in the existing literature. This critical mini-review article proposes a novel conceptual framework that presents this misalignment between federal and state climate perspectives as an emerging meta-system pathology in U.S. climate governance, introducing the concept of perspective desalignment. Drawing on the analysis of 73 Web of Science papers and a review of 16 journal articles published in 2018–2025, this study highlights the breakdown of shared understanding and strategic coherence among key stakeholders, including federal and state governments, industry, and academia. The findings underscore that any effective climate governance will require federal–state realignment. The paper concludes with implications and recommendations for restoring alignment and enabling more effective, collaborative climate governance.

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Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Photo by NASA on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It proposes a novel conceptual framework that presents the systemic misalignment between federal and state climate perspectives as an emerging meta-system pathology in U.S. climate governance, introducing the concept of perspective desalignment.

Perspectives