From Environmentalism to Climate Governance: The Evolution of Green Political Thought

Abstract

In the past 100 years, environmentalism has undergone a paradigm shift that has led this movement, which was predominantly concerned with conservation of natural resources and preservation of ecosystems, to be transformed to a holistic system of green political thought that takes into account the interdependence of ecological sustainability, social justice, economic development, and democratic politics. The twenty first century has contributed to this debate by the increasingly rapid impact of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource depletion, where the term climate governance has come into the limelight, meaning the concerted effort of government, international, civil, business and local communities in responding to the global environmental problems. Such intellectual and policy formation is a pointer to a significant shift in the trajectory of the paradigm of sustainable development and, subsequently, on climate governance, such as adaptation, mitigation, resilience, and climate justice. The paper comes to the conclusion that green political thought has evolved over time to extend beyond an ecological conservation focus to comprise sustainability, ecological democracy, environmental justice, and climate resilience. The modern climate governance uses more and more multi-level and multi-stakeholder strategies incorporating scientific knowledge, participatory decision-making, technological innovation, and international collaboration. However, challenges that are being faced still like lack of implementation, inequality in climate, inadequate finance of climate, political polarization, and incompatibility of economic growth and environmental conservation are still challenges to good governance. The article concludes that the improvement of climate institutions, ecological justice, greater involvement of people, strengthening green innovation and promoting international cooperation are the steps towards building an inclusive, equitable and resilient climate governance framework which will be able to react to the characteristics of the twenty first century environmental issues.