Research in the governance theme explores the underlying causes and potential policy solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation challenges in the broader context of the transition to sustainability. 

‘Governing’ refers to activities that seek to guide, steer, control or otherwise manage human societies. ‘Governance’ describes the patterns that emerge from these governing activities. As well as administrative organisations such as government ministries, formal policies and programmes, and specific instruments such as emissions trading, it also includes the more informal activities of non-state actors operating alongside, and sometimes wholly independent of, governments.

Climate change is a highly dynamic and politically high profile area of governance. Although the basic science of climate change has steadily become clearer and less contested amongst scientists, the debates about how to govern mitigation and adaptation have become more intense. The Paris summit affirmed that the main barriers to collective action are political and governance-related, not scientific or technological.

The Tyndall Centre has an internationally recognised capacity to conduct work which explaines the policy, political and governance aspects of climate change at multiple levels, from global to local, and across sectors.

Theme Co-ordinators: Heike Schroder, Sarah Mander, Stuart Capstick, Lorraine Whitmarsh

Image Credit: Photograph by txmx 2 is licensed under CC BY NC ND 2.0