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This chapter focuses on a shortcoming in global environmental politics (GEP) research: the largely neglected role of the material environment itself as a force upon environmental politics. The knowledge deficiencies that result from inadequate incorporation of environmental influences in political analysis are illustrated through the case of the role of “carbon” in climate governance, and examples of GEP research that are strengthened by attentiveness to the materiality of climate governance are given. Methodological approaches most apt to support the incorporation of materiality in GEP research include discourse analysis, multi-scalar consideration, and the pairing of inductively and deductively gathered evidence. The case of carbon and climate outlined in the chapter suggests that the efficacy of the carbon-based, econometric, and techno-managerial modes of global climate politics is in need of further investigation by scholars.

Is the arc of history bending towards climate justice? This chapter outlines Boston Abolitionist minister Theodore Parker’s argument about the arc of history bending towards justice, and then reviews the history of climate governance, weighted by two variables: equity and adequacy. Both are required to reach a lasting solution to the problem of climate change. This history raises crucial lessons for efforts to make our field more impactful in the future, so the chapter describes the work of one hybrid group of activist-researchers who have spent over a decade seeking to build workable indicators of climate justice and make them part of the global governance system. The chapter discusses some possible areas for useful research, concluding that researchers could have far more impact if they engaged in joint work with actors in the governance system. Scholarly models of publishable research need rethinking, and university hiring and tenure criteria need rewriting.

The attention to new kinds of actors, including sub-national governments, private sector organizations, and transnational associations, has broadened the idea of what constitutes climate governance in international relations, and thus what kinds of studies it is legitimate to pursue. Students of GEP should resist the tendency to approach climate governance as a general, abstract, and undifferentiated entity, and instead explore the specific instances, places, processes, and materials through which climate governance is encountered. The chapter recommends approaches that (1) rely on productive and relational accounts of power, (2) pay attention to the socio-material dimensions of carbon and climate, and (3) are attuned to the cultural politics of climate change. Encountering climate’s new governance implies getting close to how climate issues are woven into the socio-material and cultural fabric of our lives. Such a research agenda has the potential to cast a new light on what is considered global, environmental, and political.