Climate policy: from complexity to consensus?

Most governments aim for net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050, but none know fully how to get there. The papers in this special issue examine the role of climate governance for climate action, addressing three research questions: a) what characterizes enduring climate governance, b) which factors drive climate governance developments, and c) how can these be sustained within the polity? In this introductory article, we present three ideal-typical models of climate governance that provide answers to these questions. The models are, respectively, the market failure, the socio-technological transition, and the public support models. Political science, as a discipline, is ideally suited to contribute to the further development of the public support model, which bears much promise for sustaining the climate and energy transition. The models and the special issue's contributions highlight two concepts as crucial regarding climate governance: complexity and consensus. These concepts can be mutually constitutive: policy packages addressing the complexity of the climate question, including its (heterogenous) societal dimensions, will have a greater chance of being more efficacious and less contested.