In the beginning of the 2000s, the “predominant perspective on global climate governance” was biased toward interstate negotiations (Pattberg & Stripple, 2008, 369). Gradually this focus expanded to cover transnational initiatives involving public and private actors from different levels such as cities. A dense climate governance architecture emerged, bringing together a variety of actors, norms and discourses in an overlapping way alongside the ongoing international cooperation taking place among states. The structure of this global climate governance architecture has also been debated.

Particularly after the failure of global negotiations such as COP15 in Copenhagen in 2009, it has been questioned whether an all-encompassing global agreement is the right path forward to address climate change or is it more effective to opt for polycentric frameworks (Ostrom 2010). The latter gave shape to the Paris Agreement of COP21, which emphasized nationally determined paths of emission reductions aimed to limit global warming to well below than 2 degrees celcius, and to pursue best efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degree Celsius. The Paris Agreement also aims to foster cooperation among state parties and ‘non-Party stakeholders’ including cities and non-governmental organizations, as well as encouraging non-Party stakeholders to share information with UNFCCC.  Global climate regime now relies more on voluntary state pledges than ever, which necessitates studying diverse country cases to explicate drivers and mechanisms of climate policymaking, as well as competition for power and authority over who defines solutions and causes of climate change in national contexts.

Recent contributions highlight the need for integrating intersectionality with climate justice debates (Mikulewicz et al., 2023). While existing research discussed different dimensions of climate justice (Shue 2019; McKinnon 2019; Falkner 2019). An example of such theorizing is found in Henry Shue’s (2019) article, where he argued that subsistence emissions and luxury emissions need to be treated separately. For Shue (2019), “even in an emergency one pawns the jewellery before selling the blankets” (p.259). Therefore, the global climate regime should also focus on the reduction of luxury emissions first and make room for subsistence emissions by reducing their own emissions.

By highlighting the importance of differentiating the poor and their subsistence emissions and those of the rich, Shue (2019) paves the way for incorporating intersectionality in climate justice analyses. Intersectionality can bring a fresh perspective on how different dimensions of oppression and privilege interact to create divergent experiences of climate impacts, vulnerabilities and solutions (Mikulewicz et al., 2023; Tendayi Akiume 2022; Di Chiro 2019). Existing research pointed out the disproportionate burden of green energy transition and circular economy on the developing world (Nem Singh 2024). Intersectionality lens integrated to this line of research has started yielding very meaningful results across different disciplines. For example, a study by Deivanayagam et al. (2023) published by the Lancet demonstrated that racially minoritized groups, migrants, and Indigenous communities are more vulnerable towards health risks due to climate change.

Yet, while highlighting particular intersectional vulnerabilities of indigenous people and other marginalized groups, attention should be paid to overcome the portrayal of indigenous people either as “vulnerable victims in need of protection or as romanticised eco-heroes” (Di Chiro 2019: 308). In fact, while experiencing disproportionate vulnerability due to climate change, indigenous knowledge is also a powerful in addressing climate impacts as existing studies show. As Chowdhoree (2019) demonstrated in the case of Bangladesh, the tendency to address climate impacts through big structures such as permanent embankments along the river to prevent tidal inundation into the flood plains, replacing indigenous method of building temporary earthen embankments, caused waterlogging due to rain and rivers drying up. Such an approach highlights the importance of bridging indigenous knowledge and Western scientific knowledge to better address climate change and to diversify indigenous knowledge more diversity of cases need to be studied.

Another line of future research is climate imaginaries and how they shape policies, climate activism and contestation (Pattberg and Stripple, 2008; Klüh et al. 2024). Sovacool and Brossman (2013) highlighted the importance of “imaginaries” of new technologies when they revealed that energy transitions in the past, i.e. gasoline powered automobiles, hydroelectric dams, nuclear fission, were facilitated and shaped by socially shared “fantasies” of these new technologies by easing entrepreneurs search for financing, leading to favorable legislation, and by attracting customers. In the words of Sovacool and Brossman (2013, p.211), “how people imagine energy technologies and their futures is clearly important to understanding how and why people invest in them, financially, personally, professionally, and otherwise, and it is thus a critical social facet of energy transitions.” However, the dark side was that the favorable fantasies of these technologies also blinded policymakers and the public to some important social and environmental costs.

Likewise, more recently studies focused on mapping imaginings of new low-carbon technologies (Sovacool et al. 2020; Anonymized 2018). It is crucial to note that imaginaries are not only reserved for the domain of ideas. On the contrary, economic imaginaries are embedded in policies, institutions, and the economic life (Levy & Spicer 2013) while mass media plays a key role in making certain imaginaries more salient than the others for mobilizing public support for that imaginary and marginalizing others (Günay et al. 2018). Levy and Spicer (2013)........

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