Beyond climate commitments: Foreign policy, power asymmetries, and the politics of global climate governance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68065/joccd.05.01.170Keywords:
Climate Governance, Climate Justice, Foreign Policy, Geopolitical Power, Power Asymmetry, SustainabilityAbstract
Global climate governance takes place in a highly politicized environment shaped by foreign policy interests, geopolitical issues, economic disparities, and unequal power dynamics. This study provides an analysis of the effectiveness and equity of global climate governance, or its absence, outside the realm of formal climate commitments, to determine how foreign policy, power asymmetries, and strategic interests affect this. A qualitative research design was used to systematically analyse 60 international climate-governance documents from 2015–26, including climate agreements, COP decisions, Nationally Determined Contributions, national climate policies, diplomatic statements, negotiation documents, and institutional reports. Documents were selected using purposive sampling and analyzed using thematic and critical content analysis to examine patterns of foreign policy interests, power asymmetries, climate finance, justice, representation, and implementation. The findings revealed that 47 (78.3%) documents focused on foreign-policy interests, 44 (73.3%) documents focused on climate finance, and 42 (70.0%) documents reflected geopolitical power considerations. Economic capacity was the most commonly mentioned dimension of power imbalance, in 43 documents (71.7%), with 41 documents (68.3%) referring to financial influence. Implementation challenges were mentioned in 41 documents (68.3%), including, in 43 documents (71.7%), insufficient climate finance. The study found that global climate governance needed to be more accountable, financiers more equitable, representatives more inclusive, technology transfer more effective, and the interests of developing countries taken into account; all of these needed to help diminish structural inequality and increase implementation.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Nida Khadim, Mohammad Umar Bhat, Shakeel Ahmad (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
