Open research questions in Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
581 gap statements mined from Sustainability and Climate Change Governance papers in our 7.9M-paper local library, which holds 6,133 papers on the topic — drawn mostly from each paper's own stated research gap, future-work, challenge and limitation notes, and its abstract. The ones listed below are a selection still marked open; each names the study that raised it, with a DOI link where the paper has one.
Choosing where to publish on Sustainability and Climate Change Governance? See the ranked Earth Science journals.
What the literature leaves open
Third, our findings identify CSR and green investment as mediating mechanisms between national sentiment and carbon emission intensity; however, other potential channels remain unexplored and warrant further investigation in future studies. Further research is warranted to explore this dynamic within cross-country comparative frameworks.
When nationalism meets environmentalism: an inverted U-curve linking national sentiment to carbon emission intensity through an institutional lens · 2026 · DOIThe lack of systematic integration of sustainability and resilience improvement strategies within the industry. The need to evaluate and prioritize risk mitigation strategies with respect to sustainability dimensions.
Sustainability and resilience improvement in uncertain environment: a risk mitigation approach toward achieving sustainable development goals · 2026 · DOIWhether this pathway is realized remains to be tested; the present evidence is consistent with, but does not yet demonstrate, the social–ecological resilience framework, which underscores adaptive capacity and innovation in navigating crises.
Co-Designing Local Water Security: A Participatory Comparative Case Study of Perceived Climate Risks in Northeastern Thailand · 2026 · DOIDespite these contributions, several limitations should be acknowledged. First, this study has relied on cross-sectional survey data, which captures perceptions at a single point in time. Longitudinal research could provide deeper insights into how perceptions and coping practices evolve during prolonged droughts or periods of water rationing.
Future studies should examine how governance frameworks can ensure transparency, accountability, equity, and inclusive participation in AI-driven water management systems. Future studies should investigate governance innovations that facilitate the integration of AI technologies and Nature-Based Solutions across scales and sectors.
The Future of Climate-Smart Water Management: A Systematic Review of the Convergence of Artificial Intelligence, Nature-Based Solutions, and Adaptive Governance in Sub-Saharan Africa · 2026 · DOIA further limitation of this study is that it does not examine in detail the governance constraints faced by low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). International agreements, including the Paris Agreement, depend on voluntary nationally determined contributions (NDCs), which vary widely in scope and ambition.
Renewable Energy in Policy Frameworks: A Comparative Analysis of EU and Global Strategies for Sustainable Development · 2025 · DOIThe legibility the current format achieves is a nontrivial accomplishment; whether structured prompts for design specifications, evidence chains, or operationalized sustainability could preserve more content without overloading the format is an open question beyond the scope of genre analysis.
The Portability Paradox: How Best-Practice Reporting Filters Implementation Knowledge Across 250 UN-Habitat Cases · 2026 · DOIThe open question that derives from here is how sustainability performance is measured once a project moves from planning intentions to construction and use.
When the City Reinvents Itself: The IOTF (Integrated Operational Tools Framework) as a New Paradigm for Regenerative Urban Systems in Constantine, Algeria · 2026 · DOIFuture research should focus on longitudinal monitoring of policy performance, exploring synergies between adaptation and mitigation, developing standardised metrics for governance and finance evaluation, and identifying innovative, equitable financing mechanisms.
Evaluating Climate Adaptation Governance in South Asia: A Comparative Assessment of Policies, Institutions, and Regional Cooperation · 2026 · DOIThe findings show that sustainability is not understood solely through biophysical indicators, but emerges from the interaction between visible ecological change, lived experience, governance arrangements, and institutional trust.
Perceiving Change: Local Perspectives on Ecological Transformation and Sustainability Dynamics in the Alpine Lake Idro Ecosystem · 2026 · DOIAlthough scholarship has increasingly recognized cultural and relational dimensions of resilience, the role of narratives remains insufficiently addressed.
Future research should consider longitudinal studies and expand the scope to different organizational contexts to validate and generalize these findings.
Integrating ESG Framework with Social Sustainability Metrics: A Dual SEM-PLS Formative–Reflective Model Perspective · 2025 · DOIGreater inclusion of marginalized groups: Future research should focus more on the inclusion of marginalized groups and examine how technologies and participatory approaches can contribute to greater inclusion.
Our findings suggest scientific needs for further research on the causal relationships between adaptation measures and their outcomes, experimentation with different statistical methods, and empirical tests of the generalizability of our findings in different contexts over space and time.
Despite being part of complex global networks of environmental governance, their involvement in framing the international agenda has been understudied and challenging to access in environmental governance and policy sciences research.
Paradigms in action: exploring environmental consultants’ perspectives on water resilience · 2025 · DOIThe analysis reveals that while justice is discussed in most studies, colonialism and political status are less commonly grappled with, and Indigenous knowledge is highly understudied.
Colonialism, justice, and Indigenous knowledge: A critical analysis of climate change adaptation scholarship on U.S. territories · 2025 · DOIHowever, understandings of how creative practices contribute to sustainability transformations are lacking in practice and fragmented across theory and research.
9 Dimensions for evaluating how art and creative practice stimulate societal transformations · 2024 · DOIAn important lesson to be drawn from the case study is that although adaptive governance can offer decision makers the capacity to confront change and uncertainty, this capacity is diminished when accountability is lacking or blurred because of conflicting interests.
Yet whether such capacities exist—or can be developed through the Mission, and how—remains uncertain.
A climate-neutral urban Spain: the role of the Mission in advancing the transformative capacity of Spanish cities · 2026 · DOIScale mismatches, which occur when institutional fit is lacking, are common, sometimes leading to irreversible shifts in social-ecological regimes.
Diagnosing and navigating scale mismatches in a social-ecological system: cross-scale feedbacks and cross-level interactions enable regime shift management in the Great Plains · 2026 · DOIHowever, what remains unknown is how civil society, civil servants, and subsidence policy programs actually make sense of subsidence.
However, little is known about how design expertise is positioned in transition visioning processes.
What are transformative missions, really? Three dimensions for one s hared understanding Tom B.J. Coenen1,* Caetano C.R. Penna2,6, Matthijs J.
What are transformative missions, really? Three dimensions for one shared understanding · 2026 · DOIYet adaptation outcomes vary widely, especially when state support is constrained.
The catalytic role of weak ties in enabling transformational adaptation: evidence from vulnerable fishers in coastal Gujarat, India · 2026 · DOIThe results are dependent on the experts' experience, domain knowledge and cognitive biases - The number of experts for decision-making were limited - The study focused on specific regions in India, which may limit its applicability to other regions - The findings are limited to a single methodology lens - The practical implementation of the RMSs was not…
Sustainability and resilience improvement in uncertain environment: a risk mitigation approach toward achieving sustainable development goals · 2026 · DOI
Most-cited papers in Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
- A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems · Science · 2009 · 6,421 citations
- The Struggle to Govern the Commons · Science · 2003 · 2,777 citations
- INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION AND CHANGE: ENVIRONMENTALISM AND THE U.S. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. · Academy of Management Journal · 1999 · 2,158 citations
- Resilience and Sustainable Development: Building Adaptive Capacity in a World of Transformations · AMBIO · 2002 · 1,941 citations
- Beyond the ABC: Climate Change Policy and Theories of Social Change · Environment and Planning A Economy and Space · 2010 · 1,753 citations
- More evolution than revolution: transition management in public policy · foresight · 2001 · 1,393 citations
- Common Property Institutions and Sustainable Governance of Resources · World Development · 2001 · 1,281 citations
- Citizen Participation in Decision Making: Is It Worth the Effort? · Public Administration Review · 2004 · 1,199 citations
- Tackling Grand Challenges Pragmatically: Robust Action Revisited · Organization Studies · 2015 · 1,187 citations
- Background on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework · Policy Studies Journal · 2011 · 1,174 citations
Most recent work
- A new framework for collaborative climate governance: linking consensus building and collective action · Policy & Politics · 2026
- Principles for a post-growth scenario of ambitious mitigation and high human well-being · Nature Climate Change · 2026
- Democratizing climate change mitigation pathways using modernized stabilization wedges · Science · 2026
- From urban renewal to resilience: The impact of China's ecological and urban restoration project · Habitat International · 2026
- State capacities for decarbonization: from investable transitions to green transformations · Environmental Politics · 2026
- Synergistic effects of green finance and big data dual pilots on energy resilience: Evidence from improved synthetic control methods · Energy Policy · 2026
- Urban resilience through nature-based solutions in an era of environmental extremes: A global systematic analysis · Sustainable Cities and Society · 2026
- Exploring governance for sustainable transitions in renewable energy communities: A comparative inquiry of private and public initiatives · Energy Policy · 2026
- Transformative capacity of social-ecological systems · Ecology and Society · 2026
- The Triple Nexus of Driving Sustainable Development: Unveiling the Roles of Ethnicity, Gender, and Sustainability in Marginalized Communities · Sustainable Development · 2026
Find a gap in your own Sustainability and Climate Change Governance sub-topic
This page shows what the Sustainability and Climate Change Governance literature already flags as unresolved. To narrow it to your specific question, search the Research Gap Finder: the search is free with a free account and lists the papers closest to your topic first. Unlocking that topic (50 credits, charged once) fills the comparison table from our 7.9M-paper local library and writes the gaps from its rows.
Open the Research Gap Finder →