ABSTRACT
Major issues of global environmental change require the collaboration of many countries to be effectively resolved. Key instruments of environmental governance are thus international agreements and other types of global governance. This chapter discusses ways to measure and explain the effectiveness of international agreements; the emergence of non-state actors and of institutions that are created by them; the distributive effects of global governance mechanisms with a view to global equity and justice; and political options to strengthen global environmental governance in order to maintain stable conditions on our planet that allow for a sustainable co-evolution of human and natural systems.
