Dear Colleagues,

By all accounts, the top-down governance approach to dealing with climate change (i.e. nation-states negotiating an international treaty) has been a failure to date.  This does not mean, however, that other forms of governance—involving public, private, and non-governmental actors—have been abandoned.  Indeed, what might be termed “bottom-up” governance to address climate change appears to be thriving.

While it is relatively easy to list and characterize the multitude of efforts now underway, it is imperative that we begin to assess their impact and effectiveness.  This special issue is devoted to highlighting articles that seek to measure the impact of individual or multiple governance initiatives, involving public, private, and non-governmental actors (and combinations thereof).  No a priori method for assessing effectiveness is implied.  If the claim, for example, is that we are establishing a societal norm through certain activities, questions must be asked, how do we know it and how do we measure it?  Are there ripple effects from individual initiatives that can be traced and measured?  Are the impacts from one sector, for example, transferring to another sector, and what are the mechanisms for such transfers?  Clearly, it is time to step back from the dazzle of burgeoning governance structures and begin to assess what they mean.

Dr. Jack Barkenbus
Guest Editor

Submission

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Climate is an international peer-reviewed Open Access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript.

The Article Processing Charge (APC) for this special issue will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• climate governance
• public-private governance
• partnerships
• civil regulation
• transnational governance
• collaborative governance
• private governance
• private sustainability governance
• “bottom-up governance”
• global carbon governance