In recent years, an unprecedented number of voluntary climate commitments have been made by a wide array of non-state and subnational actors.

Theories of natural resource management and conservation, such as adaptive management and adaptive co-management, are based on strong but mostly untested assumptions about the importance of engaging local stakeholders in conservation and management efforts.

This project examines how supranational and non-state actors are anticipating changes in the biosphere and how they are developing their capacities to be able to rapidly respond to humanitarian crises and surprises in the multilateral contexts in which they operate.

‘Bringing the social dimension into deforestation-free supply chain initiatives: Lessons from Europe’s beef and soy imports from Brazil’ is a three-year research project carried out by researchers at Stockholm University and Osnabrück University (2021-2023). The project is funded by Formas.

The amount of international climate cooperation outside the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has risen sharply, which has created an institutional patchwork of agreements in the governance of global climate and energy.

The role of non-state initiatives in the transformation of Sweden into a fossil-free welfare state.

Over the past decade, the EU and its member states have taken a pioneering role in extending binding environmental and social standards to companies’ global supply chains. Our project seeks to understand under what conditions such laws contribute to improve the human rights and environmental situation on the ground. 

The COVID-19 pandemic is not only a global health crisis. It is expected to lead to lasting changes in all policy areas of global cooperation and transnational governance – including health, mobility, trade, industry, finance, and sustainability.

EPOC is a transdisciplinary research project that explores how future imaginaries are changing in the aftermath of the pandemic. Collaborating with societal partners and stakeholders, the research group explores the new fantasmatic orders that emerge and shape global environmental politics and governance in the post-coronavirus world.

The Role of Integrated Governance for a Just and Legitimate Adaptation to Climate Risks.

A number of previous studies have found compelling evidence for a regulatory expansion in the environmental area that has been ongoing since the beginning of the 1970’s in most industrialized countries.

Human impacts on global ecosystems are now threatening the very foundations of human welfare and it is generally recognized that mitigating the ecological crisis will require a fundamental reorganization of the social, political, and economic world. In other words, we are facing a Great Green Transformation.

Imagining, narrating and acting upon a changing climate.

Assessing conflicts, co-creating solutions.

At a time when the UN climate negotiations appear to be making little progress, non-state initiatives on climate change are thriving.

The SDGs and Agenda 2030 aim to achieve fifteen sustainable development goals through global and multi-stakeholder partnerships (Goal 17) and inclusive governance mechanisms at all levels (Goal 16).

To reach the Paris Agreement goals, energy transitions must be greatly accelerated. This project assesses the carbon neutrality plans of countries and cities, studies their potential political, societal and economic consequences, and examines whether a climate club could accelerate the transitions.

Many policies currently being enacted to slow climate change and environmental degradation will have distributive - and thereby political - implications.

This project analyzes how distributional effects of de-carbonizing policies are moderated by redistributive social policies, and how this in turn affects the support of incumbent governments. The project generates new knowledge on how countries can develop socially sustainable de-carbonizing policies.

This project will investigate how major geopolitical powers formulate transformative strategies for decarbonization and resilience to large-scale climate risk.

Private companies are increasingly adapting to climate change, and these responses can have widespread effects on society, affecting areas like water access, safety, and public services. Our project seeks to map and explain these public-private interactions in climate adaptation and assess their potential to advance democratic and effective adaptation.

Does “naming and shaming” by international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) lead to environmental protection?

Is it feasible to put global warming to a halt? To reach the climate goals, scholars agree that supply-side mitigation policies must be complemented with demand-side strategies, targeting the consumer end of GHG emissions.