Global Carbon Governance Research and Hot Spot Tracking

Global carbon governance aimed at mitigating climate change has made the governance and coordination of socio-economic activities increasingly integrated and complex, which has had a profound impact on scientific research and policy formulation. In order to clarify the research development trend of global carbon governance, this study, based on the core database of WOS (Web of Science), utilizes bibliometric methodology and visualization analysis software to firstly track the research evolution and research hotspots of global carbon governance from 2002-2024, and then finally compares the carbon governance systems of China and foreign countries, and discusses the problems and research hotspots that may be encountered in the future. The results show that: (1) Over the past 20 years, the number of published research results on global carbon governance has increased rapidly, which can be divided into three stages: research framework construction, emerging field development and diversified research directions, and the research is characterized by interdisciplinary research from theoretical foundation to research methodology. (2) The existing international carbon governance research has formed a research framework that includes four main areas, including optimization of governance policy design, transformation and upgrading of production and consumption, R&D and application of carbon-neutral technology, and research on carbon balance of ecosystems. (3) Compared with the international carbon governance system, China's carbon governance system has significant differences in terms of the dominant force in governance, the construction of the carbon trading market, the adaptation of regional policies, and the sharing of emission reduction responsibilities. In the future, the global carbon governance system will move towards a diversified and multi-platform governance mode, and the problems and challenges will become complicated and diverse. Various disciplines should keep abreast of the times, carry out multi-disciplinary synergistic innovations, and carry out a more comprehensive research on the key elements and governance mechanism of carbon governance, with a view to providing theoretical basis, technological support, and decision-making references to realize the goal of carbon neutrality.