Climate Governance on Global and National Scales

A critical challenge facing the global community, climate change threatens all forms of life, deepens social and economic injustices, and undermines fundamental human rights. Starting in the 1990s, the search for collective solutions to climate change brought the international community together on a common platform. In this regard, efforts to combat climate change, initially requiring global cooperation, have evolved as the responsibilities arising from this partnership have been transferred to the national level. Within this framework, the subject of the study is the global cooperation established under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Türkiye's efforts to combat climate change as one of the parties to this cooperation. The study aims to assess whether global climate governance is effective and equitable, while examining Türkiye's contributions to the global effort and analyzing the structure of its national climate governance. Accordingly, legal frameworks, rules, principles, mechanisms, instruments, institutions, and policies on both a global and national scale have been analyzed. As a theoretical study, it is noteworthy for approaching climate change mitigation efforts at both the global and national levels from a critical governance perspective. Extending from 1990 to 2022, the study concludes that global climate governance has been inadequate in combating climate change and has failed to operate on an equitable basis. Furthermore, it finds that Türkiye’s national efforts have remained insufficient and that the country has not made a considerable contribution to the global climate struggle.