Equity and Justice in Polycentric Climate Governance

With the signing of the Paris Agreement heralding a new, more voluntary approach to international climate cooperation (through nationally determined contributions, NDC), and with the increasing proliferation and diversity of actors in the climate governance space, it is fair to suggest that the global community has entered a new phase of more polycentric climate governance. It is therefore, necessary to analyse on the one hand, what this new era and architecture for climate governance means for climate justice, and on the other hand, how considerations of equity and fairness might impact the new polycentric climate governance arrangement. In this chapter, I seek to develop two main points. First, I argue that climate justice concerns are not merely a feature of the international climate regime and other arenas for climate governance, but in fact that contestations of justice have been a prominent factor in pushing global climate governance towards greater polycentrism. Second, I explore the implications of polycentric climate governance for climate justice as well as the potential role of equity in a more complex and fragmented global climate governance arrangement.