Environmental Governance in the Context of Climate Change: Scientific Contributions from the European Union

Our paper offers a comprehensive insight into the literature regarding the relationship between climate change risk and global environmental governance whilst focusing on the policies already adopted at the European Union level. The literature highlights that global environmental governance represents a coordinated endeavour to attenuate climate change risks by constraining global temperature increases and diminishing emissions trajectories. Moreover, we found that the risks correlated with climate change accentuate the essential role of these policy frameworks in fostering transnational cooperation amongst nations, providing a veritable platform for intergovernmental negotiation, information exchange, and capacity building. Given the inherent uncertainty and complexity sustaining climate change risks, certain authors research the notion of adaptive governance and flexible approach that might adjust to evolving climate hazards and their consequences. Notably, the literature accentuates the expansionary role of companies and other societal organisations in shaping and enhancing global environmental governance dynamics, further intensifying the governance framework's resilience and capacity to address climate change. Our paper undertakes a qualitative and quantitative analysis through systematic and bibliometric tools to understand and summarise the research trends and prospects on climate change risk perception and environmental governance. This analysis presents information about authors, countries, institutions, top-cited publications, research hot trends and prospects. The investigation involved 869 articles indexed in Clarivate–Web of Science database. Most of these papers were published during the 2016–2023 period (more than 50 papers per year) within three dominant journals (“Environmental Science Policy”, “Global Environmental Change and Human and Policy Dimensions”, and “Environmental Policy and Governance”). The research content of this topic is focused on environmental sciences and studies, green sustainable science technology, and political science. Our study identified several research themes that might become future research subjects: determinants of perception, human behaviour, health risks, and adaptive strategies.