Green economy and governance for low carbon development: a systematic review of global policies and measures

Abstract This systematic review examines Scopus-indexed, English-language, open-access research on policies and governance frameworks for the green economy and low-carbon development. It distinguishes the green economy as the broad transition agenda, low-carbon development as the emissions-reduction pathway, governance frameworks as steering and decision systems and institutional arrangements as implementation structures. Following PRISMA, 182 articles were synthesised through thematic, descriptive and mechanism-oriented analysis. The evidence identifies recurring policy domains, namely energy efficiency, sustainable agriculture, urban sustainability, water and marine protection, climate governance and circular-economy or waste management and recurrent governance functions, particularly authority-resource coupling, coordination, stakeholder participation, monitoring and adaptive learning. The review finds reported achievements in several illustrative cases; however, these examples are interpreted as context-specific mechanisms rather than universal best practices. The main contribution is a conditional evidence-to-action synthesis linking recurrent barriers to governance responses while recognising the limitations of a qualitative, Scopus-bounded, open-access evidence base that was not formally appraised for risk of bias.