The Climate Governance Commission works to fill a crucial gap in confronting the global climate emergency by developing, proposing, and building partnerships that promote feasible, high impact global governance solutions for urgent and effective climate and broader Earth system action, to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C or less. A premise of the Commission is that new perspectives on global governance — deploying new levels of collective wisdom and political courage — are required to tackle current catastrophic planetary risks. In particular, the Commission recognises that climate change cannot be effectively addressed without restoring, protecting and maintaining Planetary Boundaries — physical and ecological limits beyond which the Earth may no longer be able to self-regulate in ways that favor humanity. Informing the September 2024 Summit of the Future in New York, COP29, COP30, and other ongoing/upcoming multilateral discussions, solutions recommended by the Commission aim to move the planet toward a global just transition, leap-frogging beyond carbon-based energy to renewable technologies, jobs, and holistic planetary, economic, and social well-being, with a special focus on those most vulnerable to climate change. Its recent report, Governing Our Planetary Emergency (Nov. 2023), offers a series of near- and medium-term proposals to reform climate governance, all of which are feasible, equitable, and representative of the ambitious action needed to respond to the planetary emergency.
Find the November 2023 Report of the Climate Governance Commission, Governing Our Planetary Emergency, here, and view the online Report launch, 28 November 2023, here.
Please also see the Planetary Governance Program (Sept. 2024 – June 2025) at The New Institute, which will focus on the Commission’s key priority proposals.
Climate Governance Commission – the Mission
Humanity is facing a grave planetary emergency as a result of the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Six of nine Planetary Boundaries – which are critical to planetary health and human flourishing – have already been overshot. Thus far, global society has failed to rise to the challenge. To avoid catastrophic climate change, worldwide greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut in half by 2030, and then halved again in each of the following decades, to reach net-zero by 2050, following the “carbon law”. Achieving these goals is a challenge. Solutions do exist, but they are far from being implemented at the pace, urgency, and scale necessary. The question is: How come? What is preventing the governments of the world, and other key actors, including the private sector, from taking the swift and large-scale action required, and how can a whole-of-system approach be catalyzed?
Working to close vital climate action gaps – The Climate Governance Commission aims to contribute to filling crucial climate and planetary action gaps in the implementation of known solutions, diffusion of vital policies, and, centrally, adequate governance – at all levels, including the international – that is informed by the latest Earth system science. Efforts to establish catalytic “smart coalitions” are essential to ensure that policies and climate targets align with the best available climate science. Among others, the Commission is actively collaborating with partners such as the Stimson Center, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), the Club of Rome, World Resources Institute (WRI) Africa, Plataforma CIPÓ, Global Governance Forum, the Villars Institute, Earthna, the Exponential Roadmap Initiative (ERI), the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory as well as contributing to the formation of the Mobilizing an Earth Governance Alliance (MEGA) initiative. The Commission’s most recent Report, Governing Our Planetary Emergency forms a crucial policy arm to MEGA and will play an essential role in pursuing transformative action to mitigate and adapt to the planetary emergency.
Three gaps impeding the development – The Climate Governance Commission identified, in its 2021 Interim Report, “Governing Our Climate Future,” three major climate action gaps that prevent the adequate implementation of climate solutions:
1 . The Solution-Action Gap
2. The Policy Gap
3. The Governance Gap
Given the gravity of current circumstances, and the narrow window for collective action, a new and non-linear way of thinking is needed in order to close these gaps. The Interim Report, outlined possible solutions on how to bridge these gaps.
The Gaps and how to close them
1. The Solution-Action Gap Technological, economic, political, and social solutions exist, but are not implemented at the pace and scale that mirrors the magnitude of the challenge, nor are these solutions distributed in a fair manner. For example, the Exponential Roadmap Initiative (ERI) has identified 36 technologically viable and market-ready solutions that can provide pathways to remain within the temperature rise limitation guardrail, yet these solutions have not been implemented at the rate needed to meet critical planetary goals.
2. The Policy Gap Policies to support effective implementation of technological and other solutions exist. Examples are policies for adequate green technology support and diffusion, consistent carbon pricing, and the removal of fossil fuel subsidies, but they are not being implemented as rapidly and in as widespread a manner as needed, nor are they being sufficiently scaled up and diffused globally, across diverse jurisdictions, in order to enable the required climate action. Policies that support exponential and just climate action, and that could themselves be scaled up exponentially and diffused globally, are essential.
3. The Governance Gap There is still a deficit in governance mechanisms, in particular at a global level, that can reliably, equitably, and effectively promote the implementation of exponential and just climate policies and the achievement of collective climate targets. For example, there is a lack of sufficient and proactive (e.g., including risk-forecasting and scenario mapping) monitoring, assessment, and reporting “in real time” of key Earth system functions and indicators. Such Earth system indicators should reflect and evolve with the most up-to-date scientific understandings, encompassing, for example, identified Planetary Boundaries. There is also a lack of reliable and effective implementation, monitoring, and accountability for existing climate (and other interdependent) international ecological obligations and norms. A new generation of international institutional and norm / treaty-making approaches, with a clear focus on reliable implementation and enforceability will be required to deliver on shared governance that is equal to the needs and demands of the Anthropocene. Viable and equitable solutions exist that could keep the world on track to meet this goal, if supported by effective policy, finance, and leadership to enable rapid implementation on a global scale. But so far, responses to the planetary emergency have not been characterized by effective policy, transformative action, or strong top-down and bottom-up leadership (i.e., there has been a lack of “servant leadership” which moves beyond an emphasis on national short-term interest, instead shifting to prioritization of the common good and collective responsibility/humility) and currently very few countries are close to being on track to meet emission reduction targets aligned with the 1.5°C guardrail. Looking at different types of global governance solutions according to the Commission’s explorations there may be several ways forward, for example:
– Bottom-up pathways supported by top-down leadership and dedicated smart coalitions.
– The establishment of new institutions and reforms to outdated models of climate governance while strengthening existing models of climate governance through carefully-tailored reform
– Strengthened international law and enhanced environmental / planetary accountability mechanisms and norm / treaty-making approaches, with a clear focus on reliable implementation and enforceability
See the 2023 Report of the Climate Governance Commission, Governing Our Planetary Emergency, for the latest thinking of the Commission.
To read the September 2023 statement of the Climate Governance Commissions released during UN General Assembly High-Level Week & Climate Week see here.
Find out more
Interim Report 2021: Governing Our Climate Future
Other reports of the Climate Governance Commission
Flagship Report 2023: Governing Our Planetary Emergency
September 2023 Statement of the Climate Governance Commissions Released during UN General Assembly High-Level Week & Climate Week
Commissioners and Contributing Experts
The Climate Governance Commission is formed by its Commissioners and Contributing Experts, a group of diverse and high-level experts, who advise on and contribute to proposals regarding global climate governance, planet boundary governance and related global ecological challenges.
The Climate Governance Commission is composed of:
