Addressing climate change is one of the most urgent challenges of the 21st century. For the international community, the Paris Agreement represents the main instrument through which climate change governance is to be done until 2030. The Agreement builds on states’ and nonstate actors’ submissions of climate action pledges and mechanisms for periodical review and upscaling of those submissions.
My research engages with the ways in which climate change is governed under the Paris climate regime. It examines how climate change is governed through largely voluntary mechanisms, such as states’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the incitement of nonstate climate action under the Global Climate Action Agenda (GCAA). Especially, my research seeks to make visible the political implications of this mode of governing, in terms of shaping the idea of what constitutes politically legitimate climate actors.
Through my research, I want to contribute to making global climate change governance, and related issues of sustainability, more inclusive and responsive to different actors’ needs and interests, and, in the end, more democratic. One way of achieving this is through research focused on challenging taken-for-granted representations, knowledges, and practices, in order to make space for alternative problem-descriptions and solutions.
