Thesis subject

Transparency, accountability and equity in global sustainability and climate governance

Transparency is increasingly seen as key to global environmental and climate governance and politics. Transparency, understood as information disclosure, is assumed to be essential to more accountable and effective governance. Yet does transparency fulfil this promise?

My research examines whether and how transparency is a transformative force in global environmental governance: whether it furthers accountability of powerful actors and enhances trust? Or rather, whether it might it also become a form of surveillance and control, and disempowerment of the already vulnerable.

MSc thesis projects on this topic can focus on:

  1. the ever-growing role for ‘enhanced’ transparency in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and whether transparency stimulates more ambitious climate action as widely assumed
  2. the role for digitally enabled ‘radical transparency’ generated through satellites, and its role in politics and governance
  3. mandatory versus voluntary transparency in global governance, and the diverse consequences for equitable and effective outcomes

This topic is related to the TRANSGOV project; it is also related to the PhD projects of Robert Bergsvik, Max van Deursen and Nila Kamil.

About

Aarti’s research focuses on the international politics of global environmental and climate governance, including the role of science, knowledge, and transparency. She is also interested in the challenges of anticipatory governance of novel technologies, such as solar geoengineering. Her background is in international relations, political science and science and technology studies.